The final point in the operation of the CIA: how Western intelligence services promoted "Doctor Zhivago"
On 17 June 2014 in the United States, Peter Finn and Petra Kuwe’s book "The Life of Zhivago: The Kremlin, the CIA and the Battle around the Forbidden Book" is planned to be published. (1) 5 April 2014 in the Washington Post under the heading "National Security" and Quwe in the article entitled “Doctor Zhivago. How the CIA turned the novel into weapon The Cold War briefly retold the content of their research.
Authors: Finn is an experienced journalist, at one time headed the Moscow bureau of the Washington Post American edition, and teacher and translator Kuve works at St. Petersburg University.
Following this publication, the leading and best-known US intelligence agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), published a selection of 99 documents on Aedinosaur. This code name in the CIA received a secret operation to publish abroad in Russian the novel of the Soviet writer Boris Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago" and its public promotion. Aedinosaur was outstanding in its devastating effects, including, personally for the author of the novel, the operation of the CIA. However, it was only one in a series of other operations sponsored by the American special services on the cultural front of the Cold War.
Now, after half a century, the documents of the Aedinosaur operation have been declassified and freely available on the CIA website in the "Historical collection. "(2) True, the names of the operative officers of the American intelligence service and their contacts who participated in the operation were deleted from the copies of documents. Information about the cost of this secret CIA project was also removed from the documents.
The first document in the series is dated December 1957 of the year, the last is October 1959 of the year. Most of the declassified documents occur in 1958 year. It is obvious that in the “Zhivago case” the Americans have now published not all the documents. The book by Peter Finn and Petra Kuva deals with the authors getting to know the 130 CIA documents on this case. Finn admitted that he appealed to the CIA in 2009 year, asking him to give him the opportunity to familiarize himself with the documents of the American intelligence service on the issue of his research. At first he was confronted with a reserved attitude, but then the documents were provided to him.
The secret operation to publish Pasternak's novel was one of the many secret CIA projects to support the publishing programs of the ideological orientation they needed. It was not only about publication, but also the distribution of forbidden books, periodicals, brochures and other materials among the intelligentsia in the Soviet Union and its subordinate Eastern European countries. The circulation of "Doctor Zhivago" was only a grain in a huge array in 10 million copies of books and magazines published by the CIA for distribution in the USSR and the countries of the Soviet bloc. The actions of the CIA in this direction were carried out on the basis of a well-thought-out plan. And now, half a century later, the operation Aedinosaur became the object of pride for the CIA. The commentary on the publication of declassified documents states that "the documents from this collection demonstrate how effectively the action of" soft power "influences events and the course of foreign policy." So, the CIA’s publication in 1958 and 1959 of Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago qualifies as an element of US soft power policy.
As it turned out in April 2014, cultural sabotage against the USSR of publishing Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago abroad in Russian abroad is an example of close cooperation between the special services, the so-called. "Five eyes" of the Anglo-Saxon world. In this particular case - the British intelligence MI6 and the American CIA. It was the British from MI6 that drew the attention of the American CIA to Pasternak’s novel, which was banned for publication in the Soviet Union. It was the British pointed out the possibility of cultural sabotage in this area. In addition, after the start of the American secret operation, British intelligence offered the CIA its services to distribute the money-published CIA novel "in the area behind the Iron Curtain" with the help of tourists. Apparently, the secret CIA operation with the British submission became possible after the British observed the attempts of the CPSU and the Communist Party of Italy in 1956 to influence the Italian publisher Gandzhakomo Feltrinelli, who signed the contract with Pasternak, to prevent the release of the Italian edition of Doctor Zhivago.
As it became known from the declassified documents of the CIA in the case of Doctor Zhivago, during a secret operation in 1957, the British agent MI6 secretly removed a copy of Pasternak’s novel. This was done, of course, without the consent of the author and in violation of copyright law. Boris Pasternak gave a copy of the text of the novel to his publisher in Italy, Janjakomo Feltrinelli. Feltrinelli received the exclusive right to publish Pasternak's novel abroad. Pasternak also handed over the manuscript of the novel to two guests from Great Britain, Isaiah Berlin and George Katkov, who visited him at a dacha in Peredelkino. It is not clear yet which of these three persons - Feltrinelli, Berlin or Katkov handed over the manuscript to British intelligence. A version has already been launched that the British intelligence services, under an alleged pretext, specifically detained a plane carrying Feltrinelli in Malta. They already knew that Pasternak's manuscript was in his suitcase. During the forced landing, they got to the baggage on the plane and took a photo of the manuscript. However, it is quite possible that this is a false version, and the manuscript of the Doctor Zhivago novel, in fact, was transmitted to the British intelligence officers by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, of whom it is known that he had close contacts with British diplomats. According to another version, these could be the translators themselves who worked for the Feltrinelli publishing house on translating Pasternak’s novel.
The author of the study on the participation of Western services in the publication of "Doctor Zhivago" in the West Finn turned to the British MI6 for assistance. However, British intelligence categorically refused to provide him with any of its documents about its participation in the operation. The British archives continue to keep the secret of the "Doctor Zhivago" case and the British participation in it.
Whatever it was, but from the declassified and now published document of the CIA dated 2 January 1958, it becomes known that by that time the British MI6 had already transferred to the CIA a copy taken from the 433's manuscript of the Doctor Zhivago novel. These were two microfilm commercials - negative photocopies. At the same time, unknown British agents asked their American colleagues to return a copy of the novel “in the prescribed manner” to them.
Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago” was noted by analysts of the CIA as “a fundamental challenge to the Soviet ethics of personal sacrifice in favor of the system”. In this they saw his ideological value. The head of the Soviet CIA department, John Mauri, noted the importance of Pasternak’s book: “Pasternak’s humanistic message: everyone has the right to privacy and deserves respect as a person, regardless of his political loyalty or contribution to the state’s cause. It is a fundamental challenge to the Soviet ethics of individual sacrifice in the name of the communist system. "
Already 12 December 1957 of the year in the memorandum of the CIA were assigned the following tasks for the operation:
- publish a novel in the "free world" perhaps in a larger number of foreign publishers in foreign languages;
- to organize the maximum free discussion in order to award the author a Nobel Prize in literature;
- publish a novel in Russian abroad of the Soviet Union;
- The CIA's propaganda resource, Radio Liberty, was instructed to organize commenting on the event, and after publication, to read the text of Pasternak’s novel on radio.
The operation was authorized by the Coordination Council under President Dwight Eisenhower and was under the personal control of the then CIA director Allen Dulles.
After receiving the manuscript from MI6, the CIA secretly organized the publication in Russian of the novel “Doctor Zhivago” in the Netherlands. The publication was assisted by Dutch intelligence. The first edition of the novel in the form of a hardcover book began to be distributed among Soviet citizens at the World Exhibition in Brussels in September 1958. It used a small pavilion, which belonged to the Vatican. In 1959, the CIA published Pasternak's novel in its own publishing house in Washington in the form of a pocket-sized paperback edition. Both the one and the other editions that came out with the money of American intelligence were issued for the work of groups of Russian emigration in Europe. Attempts by the publisher Feltrinelli, who had exclusive rights to publish Pasternak’s novel, to protest the pirated editions in court were suppressed by the American special service.
The distribution of the novel in Western countries, according to the CIA, was the preparation for the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. However, there is still no documentary evidence of the impact of the CIA on the Nobel Prize Award Committee. Published CIA documents do not report anything about sending Pasternak’s books to Stockholm. This can only be guessed at.
The CIA has persisted in pushing Pasternak’s novel into the public domain in the West. As it became known now, not without his participation in 1965, the film "Doctor Zhivago" was launched in Hollywood with Omar Sharif in the title role. With a budget of $ 15 million, the film was accompanied by significant box office success - it earned about $ 200 million at the international box office. The list of the most successful films in the United States at the box office in the history of Dr. Zhivago, directed by David Lean, ranks 8. The film was highly praised by prestigious film awards, receiving 5 Academy Award and 5 Golden Globe awards, although the picture was harshly criticized due to directorial decisions, excessive protraction and excessive melodramatic. From the point of view of the Russian entourage, this is generally complete kitsch.
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