bill my books to the CIA

The ILC developed a database of tens of thousands of dissidents living in the Eastern Bloc and carefully targeted the books it sent. Paris became a critical hub where travelers could load up; the Librairie Polonaise, a venerable Polish bookshop, let visitors take several volumes for free on their way home. Its manager sent a bill to the CIA, which by the mid-1980s was covering half of the store’s…