海角大神

The Cold War was fought largely on the battlefield of ideas. As Duncan White鈥檚 massive and enjoyable book 鈥淐old Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War鈥� makes clear, conflict with the Soviets centered on cultural, rather than actual, warfare.聽

The U.S. cultural offensive against communism in the 1950s was spearheaded by the Psychological Strategy Board, made up of representatives of the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense, and the CIA, which reported, 鈥淏ooks 鈥� permanent literature 鈥� are by far the most powerful means of influencing the attitudes of intellectuals.鈥�

White delves into the involvement of the CIA and other shadowy government entities that had a hand in influencing what, and who, was published. The CIA, for example, secretly funded literary publications. Many writers, unwittingly, became part of the propaganda campaign, while others came under suspicion as communist sympathizers. It appeared that writers couldn鈥檛 win: If their work argued strenuously against communism, they could be branded in the public鈥檚 estimation as tools of the government鈥檚 anti-communist efforts, as novelist Mary McCarthy discovered when her 1967 booklet 鈥淰ietnam鈥� and her 1968 booklet 鈥淗anoi鈥� failed to find a large audience.

The stakes were higher for writers in the Soviet Union. The crackdowns by which Premier Joseph Stalin consolidated power decimated the intelligentsia and continued to inflict damage even after his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced Stalin鈥檚 brutality.聽

White points out that 鈥淥ne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,鈥� Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn鈥檚 1962 debut, 鈥渟erved as a reckoning with the unspoken past of purges and camps, and it made his reputation as a major writer. It also made him a target.鈥澛�

Poet Anna Akhmatova bravely gave public readings in Moscow and Leningrad despite being officially censored. She knew she risked arrest, White relates. 鈥淪he had been submerged in obscurity for so long that when she broke the surface, she could do nothing but gasp for breath, some part of her knowing that the hand of the state, the hand of Stalin, would soon push her back under.鈥澛�

Boris Pasternak, best known in the West for 鈥淒r. Zhivago,鈥� was skeptical of the so-called thaw, the loosening of cultural restrictions in the early 1950s and 鈥�60s by Khrushchev: 鈥淗e believed Khrushchev looked like a pig and behaved like one, too.鈥�

White presents a vivid, personality-driven chronicle of books going to war 鈥� and of writers finding themselves either caught up in the gears of international spycraft or acting as spies themselves.聽

In these pages, readers will encounter the writing of familiar figures, including George Orwell, V谩clav Havel, Ernest Hemingway, Richard Wright, and Joan Didion, but in a completely different context.聽

One figure looms over the rest: British Second Secretary David Cornwell, who wrote spy novels under the pen name John le Carr茅. After his 鈥淭he Spy Who Came in From the Cold鈥� became a runaway hit, literature and life blended until it was difficult to tell them apart.聽

鈥淢uch of the jargon was invented from scratch by le Carr茅, only to be later adopted by British spies who devoured his books, the fiction becoming the reality, which later validated the novels鈥� veracity,鈥� White writes.

鈥淐old Warriors鈥� serves up these stories with an unfailing dramatic flair, which makes for irresistible reading. In the battle over ideas, the pen is truly mightier than the sword.