p But what about the genesis of samizdat? People in the know have no doubt about the path leading to it. Archpriest A. Kiselev, chaplain of the Vlasov army, published his book General Vlasov’s Image (in Russian) in the United States in the mid-seventies. In the introduction he wrote: Today, when history is falsified and people’s images are distorted until they become unrecognizable, can we keep silent about the historical truth?’ Silent he was not. About Vlasov propaganda he said: ’It is a recognized fact that in many cases printed matter—leaflets, appeals, and newspapers—not only circulated in the European Soviet Union, but also reached Siberia and its eastern fringes. Prisoners brought the text of the Smolensk Appeal with them— originally dropped from German planes over the frontline or enemy-held areas—already reprinted somewhere in the Soviet Union. That was the beginning of samizdat.’

p This very apt explanation at least says plainly what samizdat is all about. In World War II, it was Nazi propaganda. Incidentally, the Smolensk Appeal was compiled by Nazi intelligence in the name of Vlasov the traitor who had nothing to do with the text since he was not even in Smolensk at the time. It pays to remember the archpriest’s admission—samizdat in the hands of Soviet country’s enemies is a weapon like any other.

p Of course, the confessions of a renegade priest are hardly acceptable for the enlightened part of the American 149 public. Respectable US scholars never cite such opinions about the origins of samizdat for the simple reason that it would be improper to admit out loud the spiritual kinship of the anti-Soviet samizdat and Dr. Goebbels’ propaganda.

p American researchers probe deeper: the historian John Lewis Gaddis we have mentioned earlier discovered in 1978 that the founder of samizdat had been George Kennan, uncle to the George F. Kennan we know. In the late 19th century he traveled widely in Russia, concentrating on the tsarist system of penal colonies and exile. After returning to the United States, ’Kennan awed audiences all over the country with his vivid accounts of Russian prisons, often delivered in convict garb to the accompaniment of clanking chains. His prolific writings evoked outrage throughout much of the world, including Russia itself, where they circulated surreptitiously in an early form of samizdat’. ^^2^^

p Russian revolutionaries regarded Kennan’s farcical exploitation of the suffering of the salt of Russian society as a mockery of the people who struggled against the monster of tsarism. The prominent Russian revolutionary Stepniak-Kravchinsky spoke very harshly about George Kennan making money out of the plight of political prisoners.

p Enough of history. CIA professionals expressly point to the origins of samizdat. Ray Cline: ’Without CIA help, emigre groups from the USSR and Eastern . Europe could not have published in translation the many documents they received from their old countries. This includes some of the celebrated Soviet samizdat protest literature.’

p H. Rositzke: ’Perhaps the most tangible product of these “psywar” operations was the opening up of American contacts with the political dissidents within the Soviet Union. The earliest links with dissident groups in Moscow were forged at the Moscow Youth Festival in 1957, which was featured by a largely spontaneous dialogue between Soviet and Western youth. At the USIA exhibition in Moscow two years later the first underground literature and “illegal” student magazines came into Western hands. This marked the beginning of the publication of Soviet underground documents in the West—and in many cases their being smuggled back into the Soviet Union for wider distribution. The collection and publication of manuscripts 150 produced in the Soviet Union had by now become a largescale enterprise.’^^3^^

p In the years Rositzke refers to, 1957-1959, a man darted about Moscow who yearned to see his name on book covers and for whom the CIA, Siniavsky and his ilk cleared the coast and organized a publicity campaign. His name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Psychological warfare strategists especially appreciated the fact that Solzhenitsyn could supply an experienced editor with what the latter could, after a certain amount of work, turn into books,   [150•*  and that he craved the fame of a great writer. In other words, both Solzhenitsyn’s convictions and his literary occupation suited the CIA: by 1967 the Agency had already sponsored about 1,000 books, all of them different but all of them anti-communist.

p In 1961 the CIA’s Chief of the Covert Action Staff said: ’Books differ from all other propaganda media, primarily because one single book can significantly change the reader’s attitude and action to an extent unmatched by the impact of any other single medium ... this is, of course, not true of all books at all times and with all readers—but it is true significantly often enough to make books the most important weapon of strategic (long-range) propaganda.’

p According to that competent specialist, unnamed in the official U.S. document, the CIA using books for subversive purposes seeks to:

p ’a) Get books published or distributed abroad without revealing any U.S. influence, by covertly subsidizing foreign publications or booksellers.

p ’b) Get books published which should not be “contaminated”, by any overt tie-in with the U.S. government, especially if the position of the author is “delicate”.

p ’c) Get books published for operational reasons, regardless of commercial viability.

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p ‘d) Initiate and subsidize indigenous national or international organizations for book publishing or distributing purposes.

p ‘e) Stimulate the writing of politically significant books by unknown foreign authors—either by directly subsidizing the author, if covert contact is feasible, or indirectly, through literary agents or publishers.’ ^^5^^

Solzhenitsyn fitted into every element of this formula for producing a ’prominent author’ as part of CIA subversion against the Soviet Union. As is often the case, at first the future ‘author’ received his spiritual fare from the NTS, a CIA subsidiary. This imparted a certain flavor to Solzhenitsyn’s works and sometimes led to comical consequences. At any rate, the CIA’s ’Operation Solzhenitsyn’ was doomed to failure from the very start: it was based on a complete denial of the Soviet system which is cherished by all Soviet people.