The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature by Charlie English
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The subtitle of Charlie English's The CIA Book Club, stated as "The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature," aptly summarizes this captivating book. It is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary social history. More broadly, the book emphasizes the crucial role of people's access to uncensored information in driving social change. It is also an important contribution to the contemporary history of Poland, from the late 1960s to the late 1980s.

The protagonist of the story is Mirosław Chojecki, dubbed "Solidarity's Minister of Smuggling," who played a crucial role in supplying Polish people with banned books, newspapers, and newsletters. The book provides a detailed account of the "underground society" in Poland during martial law and after it. As the author says, the underground newsletter, Mazovia Weekly, "meant more than the words it contained. It was a living social movement." To quote the author about Chojecki's role:
"... his masterwork was his logistics operation, the labyrinth of hidden routes he had opened up through and around the Iron Curtain. By pumping resources into Poland via this network, he had sustained a great flowering of uncensored texts, which at first kept Solidarity alive and later provided space for uncensored political debate."

The leaders of the Polish anti-communist movement emphasize the crucial role of uncensored information. Adam Michnik says that Mazovia Weekly has been "a source of strength, a source of hope, a source of faith that there would be a free Poland." Seweryn Blumsztajn said, "The publishing movement had played a huge role in developing and also maintaining the Solidarity myth, so that by 1989 we had an elite ready. It was that elite that enabled Poland to execute the fundamental economic transformation, self-government, and above all enable it to join NATO and the European Union."

The author stresses the important role that the CIA, and personally George Minden, the leader of the International Literacy Center, played in helping and funding the underground publications movement in Poland. The well-researched book is richly annotated (over 40 pages of bibliography and notes). I learned a lot about events that were happening in the country I used to live in.

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