t had all the hallmarks of a classic Cold War spy caper, and it began in January 1958 when British intelligence’s Moscow station delivered two rolls of microfilm into the hands of the CIA’s Langley headquarters.
However the films showed not the blueprints for a new Soviet warplane or ballistic missile, but something potentially even more powerful in the ideological war between East and West: the complete Russian text of Boris Pasternak’s masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago.
In a nine-point memo, marked Secret but recently declassified, British intelligence said it was “in favour of exploiting the book”, warning that Soviet censors were already putting pressure on Pasternak to put out a “revised” version of the novel. » | Peter Foster, Washington | Sunday, April 06, 2014
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Doctor Zhivago: Trailer (1965) »
