Everybody Needs Help Sometimes: Facilitators of Soviet Defectors’ Publications

Abstract

Soviet intelligence officer defectors arrived in their new countries lacking skills that translated easily into postdefection jobs. To earn money, they often turned to the one asset they had—their stories. To publish their stories, they had to work with a variety of facilitators who connected them with publishing companies and distributed their works. Those helpers can be characterized into four categories: activists/dissidents, academics, journalists, and intelligence practitioners. Helpers were sometimes connected to and supported by a Western government, particularly the United States or United Kingdom, and the resulting work reflected the Cold War ideological competition. However, government sponsorship was not always the case, and some helpers expressed views that extended beyond the receiving government’s policy or that criticized the handling agency. In any case, most defectors could not have published their works without the helpers’ support.