Abstract
This article discusses the history of the so-called “book program”—a
joint effort by the U.S. government, the East European diaspora, and
readers of prohibited books behind the Iron Curtain. Between 1956 and
1989 the program purchased some 10 million copies of publications and
delivered them to people in Soviet–dominated Eastern Europe in order to
undermine communist rule. Using the historical materials of the Polonia
Book Fund, a U.S.–sponsored publishing project for Poland, this article
contributes new insights on the transatlantic perspective of the
cultural Cold War. This article focuses on the program’s early stages,
and describes various elements of the transnational smuggling network.
The program’s state-private partnership was a workable solution that
helped to foster a diversity of opinions in post-Stalinist Poland.