American Academics Unknowingly Served as CIA Couriers to Soviet Bloc

By Harlan Pryce · August 18, 2026

US citizens were used as unwitting conduits for a CIA propaganda operation in Eastern Europe, a secret kept from most of the White House's oversight committee until 1979.

American academics and private citizens spent years delivering materials to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe without knowing they were working for the CIA. They believed they were performing a personal favor for friends and acquaintances; instead, they were the unwitting edges of a covert operation.

In the trade, we call it a proprietary—a business that looks like a business on paper, pays taxes, and maintains a commercial facade, but answers to Langley. This particular operation was designed to move publications across the Iron Curtain. The mechanism was simple and effective: the Agency provided publications at no cost to United States persons who had requested them. These Americans then mailed or personally carried the materials to their contacts in target countries. The only catch was that the academics and citizens providing the transport were never told that the "commercial" organization supplying the books was actually a CIA front.

"A Question of Propriety"

The record of this operation comes to light in a July 3, 1979, memorandum from Farmer, the Chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Board, addressed to President Jimmy Carter. Farmer used the phrase "a question of propriety" to describe the unwitting involvement of these Americans. To a bureaucrat in an oversight role, the lack of informed consent is a liability. To a case officer, it is an asset. By using people who already had established relationships with individuals in the East, the Agency didn't have to build new bridges; they simply walked across the ones already there.

The memorandum notes that when the covert action was reviewed and approved in June 1978, neither the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) nor the members of the Special Coordination Committee (SCC) were aware that United States persons were being used unwittingly. This gap in communication is where the oversight board found its grievance. Farmer argued that the unwitting use of citizens was a "fact directly relevant" to the SCC's review and should have been disclosed from the start.

July 13, 1979

There is a distinct tension in these pages between those who manage the risk and those who manage the rules. Farmer recommended that the matter be referred back to the SCC for "full consideration." He wanted the record straightened and the ethics reconciled. However, the internal reaction from the operational side was muted. The DCI and the Chairman of the SCC, once informed, concluded that it was "not necessary to change the modus operandi" of the distribution system.

They understood what the oversight board struggled with: the operation worked. In the struggle for hearts and minds behind the curtain, the provenance of a book is less important than the fact that it arrived. If an academic carries a forbidden text to a colleague in Prague or Moscow, the value is in the delivery. Whether the academic knows the CIA paid for the printing is a secondary concern of administrative hygiene.

The Proprietary

The document reveals a specific friction regarding Executive Order 12036, which required the SCC to submit recommendations on proposed covert actions to the President. The Board believed the Agency had bypassed the spirit of this order by omitting the detail about unwitting participants.

President Carter’s response to Farmer’s memo was brief. In the upper right-hand corner of the document, he wrote, "Zbig—Refer to SCC . J." This passed the ball to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor. The matter was handled with the efficiency one expects when the operational utility of a program outweighs the discomfort of its methods.

According to an information memorandum sent by Brzezinski to Carter on July 16, the issue was formally presented to the SCC on July 13. The committee did not blink. In a unanimous decision, the SCC agreed that no change in the program was needed. The American academics continued to serve as couriers, and the publications continued to flow into the Eastern Bloc.

Carter initialed Brzezinski's memorandum and added a single word: "ok."