
During Cold War, CIA used ‘Doctor Zhivago’ as a tool to undermine Soviet Union - wglb
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/during-cold-war-cia-used-doctor-zhivago-as-a-tool-to-undermine-soviet-union/2014/04/05/2ef3d9c6-b9ee-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html
======
gwern
The CIA and the USA in general was involved in a lot of cultural material
theorized to help undermine the USSR during the Cold War, _Doctor Zhivago_ is
just the latest known example. See _The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the
World of Arts and Letters_ & _ Good and Plenty: the creative successes of
American arts funding_ (excerpts from the latter:
[http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics#...](http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics#good-
and-plenty) ); other relevant links:
[http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20...](http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CIA%20Reporters%20New%20York%20Times%20Series%2012-25-77/Item%2007.pdf)
/ [http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/What-was-the-
Congre...](http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/What-was-the-Congress-for-
Cultural-Freedom--5597) / [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-
was-cia-w...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-
weapon-1578808.html) /
[http://www.salon.com/2012/05/27/exclusive_the_paris_review_t...](http://www.salon.com/2012/05/27/exclusive_the_paris_review_the_cold_war_and_the_cia/singleton/)

They bankrolled jazz, swing, orchestras, dozens of magazines (including some
you may have heard of), translations such as of T.S. Eliot....

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
It's important to emphasize the CIA was funding publications targeting the
American mind. National Review, Time, and US News and other publications were
taking in tax payer dollars (through shell companies) with orders to promote a
certain world view. The CIA was also funding art movements. Look into Jackson
Pollock and the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

~~~
hollerith
>National Review, Time, and US News and other publications were taking in tax
payer dollars (through shell companies) with orders to promote a certain world
view.

Do you have a citation?

~~~
cafard
Given that National Review was founded and run by William F. Buckley, Jr., I
don't think that it took a lot of persuasion to get it to promote a certain
world view. And Henry Luce had his world view pretty well set before Allen
Dulles ever even dreamed of the CIA.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
It took money to keep National Review from bleeding red ink.

------
blauwbilgorgel
This was likely part of Operation Mockingbird [1]: A large scale effort by the
CIA to use media outlets and literature for propaganda purposes.

In a sick twist of irony Operation Mockingbird funded and arranged for the
Hollywood production of the book "Animal Farm". It is believed they siphoned
funds meant for the Marshall Plan.

Russians also struck back with propaganda efforts of their own. Operation
INFEKTION [2] was a KGB operation to further the idea that AIDS was a man-made
invention first produced in a U.S. laboratory.

Likely this hasn't ended. The U.S. military will provide access to their
facilities and equipment, provided they get a cut on the movie script.
Propaganda efforts to further the conspiracy that 9/11 was an inside job still
prosper in Middle-eastern countries.

Current groups like "Anonymous" or the "Privacy-conscious" may very well be
the target of propaganda attacks. Next time the media vilifies TOR as a
network for criminals, it may pay to double-check the source.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_INFEKTION](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_INFEKTION)

~~~
Perceval
> In a sick twist of irony Operation Mockingbird funded and arranged for the
> Hollywood production of the book "Animal Farm".

How is this ironic? Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a critique of Stalinism.

~~~
dmix
Maybe because Orwell was principally anti-authoritarian. His critique in
Animal Farm was at Stalin (represented as the pig 'Napolean'), not Marx ('Old
Major').

So it's ironic that his anti-authoritarian work was used as propaganda by a
state. Propaganda tends to be the tool of Stalin-esque dictators.

~~~
Perceval
> Propaganda tends to be the tool of Stalin-esque dictators.

Not even close to true. Anti-authoritarian revolutionaries utilize propaganda
to further their causes just as much as authoritarians do to solidify their
positions. For example, Thomas Paine wrote propaganda for liberalism against
British colonialism.

There's nothing remotely ironic about the CIA sponsoring an anti-Stalinist
work.

~~~
blauwbilgorgel
>Not even close to true >There's nothing remotely ironic

You seem to have made up your mind on this, but just in case you want to
understand my view better:

A book with heavy anti-propaganda themes is used for propaganda purposes.
That's irony. It's sick if Orwell knew this and yet agreed to his anti-
Communist political writings being disguised in a story and used to
destabilize the farms on other states. Because that means that all propaganda
is equal, but some propaganda is more equal than others. That's sheer egoism,
hypocrisy and political pandering.

A secret organization that uses propaganda and deception to destabilize other
states, using black budgets siphoned off from "economic recovery plans" (which
in reality was (motivated as) an anti-Communism plan), that's eerily close to
a dangerous totalitarian state. Using popular news media and culture to
further government propaganda is eerily close to the organized lying that
Orwell so despised.

 _" If the director of CIA wanted to extend a present, say, to someone in
Europe—a Labour leader—suppose he just thought, This man can use fifty
thousand dollars, he's working well and doing a good job - he could hand it to
him and never have to account to anybody... There was simply no limit to the
money it could spend and no limit to the people it could hire and no limit to
the activities it could decide were necessary to conduct the war—the secret
war... It was a multinational. Maybe it was one of the first."_ \--Thomas
Braden

Orwell regarded propaganda as a feature of all modern governments but
especially prominent in totalitarian regimes. His book may have become a
Squealer the Pig. Accusing the other party of cheating, then both tabling an
ace of spades.

You are free BTW to change the word "irony" to any word you like that makes
that sentence more agreeable to you (fate/remarkable/without cause etc.).

 _In February 1976, George H. W. Bush, the recently appointed Director of the
CIA, announced a new policy: "Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter
into any paid or contract relationship with any full-time or part-time news
correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical,
radio or television network or station." He added that the CIA would continue
to "welcome" the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists._

~~~
Perceval
> It's sick if Orwell knew this and yet agreed to his anti-Communist political
> writings being disguised in a story and used to destabilize the farms on
> other states.

Orwell was not anti-communist, he was anti-Stalinist. Orwell himself was a
democratic socialist.

Before he died in 1950, Orwell enjoyed a dramatization of _Animal Farm_
broadcast on the BBC. I'm not sure he would have been upset, or found it
hypocritical, to have a film version made in 1954.

> His book may have become a Squealer

Perhaps writing anti-Stalinist propaganda condemning Stalin's use of
propaganda is hypocritical. But one would have to ignore the content of the
message and focus only on the means of delivery to call Orwell a hypocrite.
And why would he not want to see wider dissemination of his message?

------
teh_klev
Ian McEwan's "Sweet Tooth" [0] was partly inspired by the CIA's secret funding
of Encounter magazine [1].

He also makes reference to to Frances Stonor Saunders' [2] book "Who Paid the
Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War" [3] which is about CIA funded cultural
manipulation (on my bookshelf, but only dipped into it a bit).

Fascinating stuff.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Tooth_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Tooth_\(novel\))

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_(magazine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_\(magazine\))

[2]:
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1862073279](http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1862073279)

[3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/)

------
quotient
I think this is a fascinating story. Doctor Zhivago is a hauntingly beautiful
work --- one of my favorite books and films, certainly, and I am surprised by
its importance as a political tool --- really, as a tool of propaganda! I
found this story deeply interesting, and it notably answers questions and
rumours that had been standing for fifty years. It's an important piece of
journalism.

I now only wonder if the CIA had any similar involvement with the 1965 film...

~~~
dang
> Doctor Zhivago is a hauntingly beautiful work

Pasternak, of course, was above all a poet. If I recall correctly, his poet
friends (especially Anna Akhmatova) reacted with dismay to his writing that
novel at the end of his career—not for political reasons, but for artistic
ones. That seems hard to fathom now.

------
acqq
Inspired by other posts here, the interesting discovery for me was "Who Paid
the Piper?"

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-
reviews/1862073279/](http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/1862073279/)

From the comments:

"the financing by the US government of a secret cultural propaganda programme
under the cover of `philantropic' foundations" (...) A major propaganda
`instrument' was God. As the author states: `Political virtue was to be
submitted to a long standing Christian tradition of obedience to the law of
God. By invoking the ultimate moral authorities, the US acquired an
unanswerable sanction for her manifest destiny.'

------
guard-of-terra
Well... Why didn't KGB use {some book} as a tool to undermine USA? Didn't USA
have any weak points to attack culturally?

I've heard similar stories and they don't sound good for USSR if you think of
it. Your enemy deploys a new kind of weapon on your turf and you can't answer.

~~~
rdtsc
Books were not interesting for them because US didn't censor books.

But they did other stuff. For example, read "Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB
Officer" that is written by one the senior counter-intel people from KGB (he
handled Ames and Hansen).

He talks about some "projects" and "operations" KGB did in this regard.

Here is a few of them (some already mentioned):

* Planted rumors in newspapers (AIDS was created by US scientists to kill off the black people) [ I remember hearing this one as an urban legend ]

* US sometimes naturalized ex-German active Nazi supporters. Sometimes the Soviets had better archives and trails left than what Americans had. In one case they shamed and pointed at one of the Dept of State workers who was concentration camp guard (and lied about it).

These ones I heard from other places (usually growing up they pop-ed up as
"urban legends").

* Planted rumors that US was importing Latin American children and extracting their organs.

* When US was dropping bombs in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war, I remember hearing that US deliberately designed their cluster bomblets to look like toys, made them not explode on contact with the ground, with a hope that a child would find them, start playing with it and then it would explode. Message was "US deliberately targeted children with advanced weaponry"

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
"* When US was dropping bombs in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war, I
remember hearing that US deliberately designed their cluster bomblets to look
like toys, made them not explode on contact with the ground, with a hope that
a child would find them, start playing with it and then it would explode."

You're thinking of the BLU-43; the Soviets used a similar design in
Afghanistan.

------
epx
Kudos to the CIA

------
nitrogen
I wanted to upvote this, but WaPo's mobile experience is terrible. There's a
top bar that appears when scrolling up, but disappears when scrolling down
(when did scrolling start to mean "do something completely unrelated to
scrolling"?), and a position:fixed ad on the bottom of the screen that
protrudes from the page like knives threatening to stab my eyes. When I
reached another inline ad that clashed with the position:fixed ad, I gave up
on reading the article.

I understand that ads are how many sites make money, and I've long resisted
putting adblock on my phone. But too much is too much. I'm getting sick of
full-page clickjacking interstitial laggy popups ("cloud" ads on Ars Technica
mobile) and position:fixed eyesores that are too distracting to read the
article.

