The US agency sent the Guardian Weekly alongside 10m books including titles by Orwell and Solzhenitsyn by truck, yacht, balloon and in travellers’ luggage

• Read an extract from The CIA Book Club: The Best Kept Secret of the Cold War by Charlie English

The CIA smuggled the Guardian Weekly to eastern bloc countries during the cold war, a new book reveals. Copies of this newspaper were sent as part of a broader secret programme that got literature by authors including George Orwell and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn behind the Iron Curtain.

In the early 70s, Guardian Weekly was sent to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, said Charlie English, former head of international news at the Guardian and author of The CIA Book Club.