Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book

Acknowledgments

We have been helped by many very generous people who made this book possible. Thank you.

Paul Koedijk introduced us and started our conversation about Doctor Zhivago, exchanges that led to our decision to write this book together. Raphael Sagalyn, our literary agent, shepherded us into the world of publishing. Kris Puopolo, our editor, believed in this story from the first moment.

We thank Sonny Mehta, the editor in chief of Knopf Doubleday, and Dan Frank, the editorial director of Pantheon Books, for taking us into the same house that published Doctor Zhivago in the United States in 1958; Daniel Meyer of Doubleday; and Ellie Steel and Matthew Broughton at Harvill Secker in London.

Ken Kalfus, Patrick Farrelly, Kate O’Callaghan, and Paul Koedijk gave us early and important feedback.

We want to single out Natasha Abbakumova of The Washington Post’s Moscow bureau, whose assistance was extraordinary.

A number of people were critical to our understanding of this story. Carlo Feltrinelli and Inge Schönthal-Feltrinelli at Doctor Zhivago’s first home in Milan; Sergio D’Angelo in Viterbo; the late Yevgeni Pasternak; Natalya Pasternak, Yelena Chukovskaya, and Dmitri Chukovsky in Moscow; Irina Kozovoi (Yemelyanova) and Jacqueline de Proyart in Paris (1998); Roman Bernaut and Alexis Bernaut in Reclos, France; Gerd Ruge in Munich; and Megan Morrow in San Francisco.

We are grateful for the support of Joe Lambert, Mary Wilson, Bruce Barkan, Debbie Lebo, Marie Harf, and Preston Golson at the CIA, and we thank all the officers who served in the CIA’s Historical Collections Division. After being greeted with a polite no when we first asked about the agency’s Zhivago papers, Bruce van Vorst, former CIA officer and journalist, helped through various intermediaries to bring our project to the attention of the right people at the agency. Former CIA officers Burton Gerber and Benjamin Fischer provided insights along the way. We were also helped by Dirk Engelen, in-house historian at the Dutch intelligence services, the AIVD, formerly the BVD. The assistance of the late BVD officer C. C. (Kees) van den Heuvel was invaluable as was that of former MI6 officer Rachel van der Wilden, the widow of BVD officer Joop van der Wilden. Other former CIA officers who assisted us did not wish to be identified.

We have been aided by librarians and researchers across the United States and Europe. Our thanks to: Ron Basich, who conducted research at the Hoover Institution Archives; Janet Crayne and Kate Hutchens at the University of Michigan Library; Valoise Armstrong at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum and Library; David A. Langbart and Miriam Kleiman at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland; Tanya Chebotarev at Columbia University’s Bakhmeteff Archive; Koos Couvée Jr., who conducted research at the National Archives in London; Jan Paul Hinrichs, Joke Bakker, Bryan Beemer at Leiden University Library; Willeke Tijssen at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam; Professor Gustaaf Janssens at the Archive of the Royal Palace in Brussels; Patricia Quaghebeur of the KADOC (Documentation and Research Centre for Religion, Culture and Society) in Leuven, Belgium; Johanna Couvée for research in the academic libraries in Brussels; Delfina Boero, Paola Pellegatta, Vladimir Kolupaev at the Fondazione Russia Christiana, Villa Ambiveri in Seriate, Italy; Lars Rydquist at the Nobel Library; Magnus Ljunggren in Stockholm; Elisabet Lind for her warm hospitality in Stockholm; Linda Örtenblad, Odd Zschiedrich, and Ulrika Kjellin for their support at the Swedish Academy; the staff of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF); Yelena Makareki at the Russian State Library in Moscow; Anne Qureshi at the Frankfurter Buchmesse; and Rainer Laabs at Axel Springer AG Unternehmensarchiv in Berlin.

We would like to say thank you to Svetlana Prudnikova, Volodya Alexandrov, Maria Lipman, and Anna Masterova in Moscow; Shannon Smiley in Berlin; Leigh Turner in London; Theo Maarten van Lint at Oxford University; Pieter Claerhout in Ghent; Maghiel van Crevel and Jinhua Wu at Leiden University, and Mark Gamsa at Tel Aviv University.

In the United States, we would like to acknowledge the help of Denise Donegan, Max Frankel, Edward Lozansky, Gene Sosin, Gloria Donen Sosin, Manon van der Water, Jim Critchlow, Alan Wald, Anton Troianovski, Jack Masey, Ulf and Ingrid Roeller, Ansgar Graw, and the Isaac Patch family.

In the Netherlands, the late Peter de Ridder was welcoming and helpful. We are grateful to his family and, in particular, his son, Rob de Ridder. We want to thank the late Cornelius van Schooneveld; Dorothy van Schooneveld; Barbara and Edward van der Beek; and the Starink family. Thanks to Roelf van Til for bringing Couvée’s articles about the Zhivago story to a broad Dutch audience on public television in January 1999, and to Bart Jan Spruyt for the introduction to Kees van den Heuvel. Also our thanks to: Brigitte Soethout; Michel Kerres and Edith Loozen; Igor Cornelissen; Rob Hartmans; Elisabeth Spanjer; Kitty van Densen; Han Vermeulen; and Dick Coutinho.

Peter Finn writes: It has been a privilege to work for the Graham family for eighteen years: I would like to thank Don Graham and Katherine Weymouth for the wonderful professional home they created. Editors at The Washington Post allowed me to take a leave of absence to work on this book. Thanks to Marty Baron, Kevin Merida, Cameron Barr, Anne Kornblut, and Jason Ukman. I’ve worked with many great editors and reporters over the years, including my colleagues in the National Security group, but I am especially grateful to Joby Warrick, David Hoffman, Scott Higham, Jean Mack, Walter Pincus, Robert Kaiser, Anup Kaphle, and Julie Tate for their help and encouragement on this book.

I spent my leave at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a wonderful institution that allows the time to think and write. I’m grateful to Peter Reid for getting me in the door, and to the center’s leaders and staff, including Jane Harman, Michael Van Dusen, Robert Litwak, Blair Ruble, Christian Osterman, William Pomeranz, Alison Lyalikov, Janet Spikes, Michelle Kamalich, and Dagne Gizaw. Also thanks to my fellow visiting scholars at the Wilson International Center: Jack Hamilton, Steve Lee Myers, Mark Mazetti, Michael Adler, and Ilan Greenberg. I’m very grateful for A. Ross Johnson’s continuing interest in this project. I was fortunate to be able to work with two wonderful Wilson International Center interns, Chandler Grigg and Emily Olsen, who conducted research at the National Archives and the Library of Congress.

I would like to acknowledge the support of Walter and Stephanie Dorman; John and Sheila Haverkampf; Barry Baskind and Eileen FitzGerald; Joseph FitzGerald Jr.; and the late Joseph and Deirdre FitzGerald.

In Ireland, I want to thank my brothers Greg and Bill, and their families. It’s a great regret that my parents, Bill and Pat, didn’t live to read this book. Also, a tip of the hat to old friends: Jeremy and Mary Crean, and Ronan and Grainne Farrell.

Thanks to Rachel, Liam, David, and Ria Finn, who watched this book take shape with pride and patience. Nora FitzGerald is a partner in everything. (Love you!)

Petra Couvée writes: In Moscow I was fortunate to enjoy the encouragement of Thymen Kouwenaar, cultural counselor at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the intelligent support of Menno Kraan. The Netherlands Institute in Saint Petersburg provided all sorts of general and technical support. I would like to thank Mila Chevalier, Anna Vyborova, Aai Prins, and Gerard van der Wardt at the Netherlands Institute, Saint Petersburg; my Russian colleagues, especially Vladimir Belousov, at the Lomonosov State University in Moscow, and Irina Mikhailova at the State University of Saint Petersburg; and all my Russian students. Thanks to the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie), Ingrid Degraeve, and my colleagues and students at the 2013 summer course in Zeist for granting me a leave to finalize the book.

I am continuously grateful to my family and my friends Manon van der Water, Harco Alkema, Kees de Kock, Arie van der Ent, Maarten Mous, Nony Verschoor; Maghiel van Crevel, for being illuminating; and Henk Maier for literature and lifelong loving loyalty. My parents, Koos Couvée Sr. and Paula van Rossen, for being together and each for their own part an inspiration.