“The CIA Book Club: The Best Kept Secret of the Cold War”
The CIA Book Club: The Best Kept Secret of the Cold War by Charlie English is an extraordinary book. It is the account of the CIA Book Club that ran for decades. It’s sole purpose was to get literature and provide support to people in Eastern Bloc.
Charlie English began writing this book in January 2020 and spent nearly five years on it. The research entailed interviewing many of the people involved in running this programme, particularly in Poland, where it was most successful. He interviewed many people and accessed whatever declassified documents that he could, although many are still inaccessible. He even managed to speak to some former CIA personnel but was only offered as much information as they could legally provide.
The CIA Book Club argues that the cultural and ideological warfare that the CIA promoted via the books programme enabled the fall of the Iron Curtain and crumbling of the former communist countries. There are incredible titbits in this book that could have only been gained by having numerous conversations and with people remembering what they did, saw, and experienced. This is not a book that is based on dry documentation and research and trawling big data. In fact, one of the interviewees remarked that Charlie English’s interviewing style reminded them of the communist-era interrogation! Anyway, it was worth it if it meant unearthing a slice of history that was largely hidden. Another fact that was amusing was because the state and its secret police were misogynistic, they could not believe that women could be recruited in political activism or participate in underground publishing and dissemination of newspapers and books. So, even when facing leading women activists of the movement, the police would ignore them and mostly arrest the men. As a result, the programme thrived since the women were free to pursue whatever they wished to.
I spoke to Charlie Englishi earlier today for TOI Bookmark. Here is the conversation on Spotify:
18 August 2025
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