Review

The Most Successful CIA Operation You’ve Never Heard of

How the agency’s program to circulate banned books helped take down the Iron Curtain. August 1, 2025, 2:40 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

Two people are silhouetted in a shaft of light as they sit in chairs in a cafe.

One August day in 1951, a giant fleet of balloons sailed into Czechoslovakia. It must have been a strange sight, 3,000 rubber bags floating overhead before bursting open and raining millions of leaflets on the people below:

TO THE PEOPLE OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

A NEW WIND IS BLOWING

A NEW HOPE IS STIRRING

Friends of Freedom in other lands have found

a new way to reach you.

They know that you also want freedom.

One August day in 1951, a giant fleet of balloons sailed into Czechoslovakia. It must

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