On May 12, 2015  a presentation of the book by Alfred A. Reisch „Hot Books in the Cold War The CIA-Funded Secret Western Book Distribution Program Behind the Iron Curtain”, translated into Polish, took place at the Janusz Kurtyka IPN Educational Center, Warsaw, Marszałkowska 21/25.

Dr. Małgorzata Choma-Jusińska, Dr. Łukasz Kamiński, Andrzej Mietkowski, Marek Rudzki and Dr. Janos Tischler (chairman) took part in the discussion on the publication.

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Alfred A. Reisch (1931-2013) was a political scientist, specializing in international relations, diplomatic and Cold War history, foreign, military, national security, and minority affairs. He was a Senior Political Analyst with Radio Free Europe in New York and Head of RFE´s Hungarian Research and Evaluation Section in Munich, Germany. 

This study reveals the hidden story of the secret book distribution program to Eastern Europe financed by the CIA during the Cold War. At its height between 1957 and 1970, the book program was one of the least known but most effective methods of penetrating the Iron Curtain, reaching thousands of intellectuals and professionals in the Soviet Bloc. Reisch conducted thorough research on the key personalities involved in the book program, especially the two key figures: S. S. Walker, who initiated the idea of a „mailing project,” and G. C. Minden, who developed it into one of the most effective political and psychological tools of the Cold War. 

The book includes excellent chapters on the vagaries of censorship and interception of books by communist authorities based on personal letters and accounts from recipients of Western material. It will stand as a testimony in honour of the handful of imaginative, determined, and hard-working individuals who helped to free half of Europe from mental bondage and planted many of the seeds that germinated when communism collapsed and the Soviet bloc disintegrated.