Charlie English is the author of "The CIA Book Club: The Best Kept Secret of the Cold War". In this episode he talks about a little-known chapter in Cold War history where the CIA smuggled banned books into the Eastern Bloc in an effort to challenge communist ideology. Charlie shares how the CIA ran this literary operation for over three decades, why even detective novels had political weight in Soviet-ruled countries and what it meant to grow up under state censorship so tight you needed permission to buy a sheet of paper.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.