WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA officials had rave reviews for Boris Pasternak's classic Russian novel "Doctor Zhivago" - not for its literary merit but as a propaganda weapon in the Cold War, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The U.S. intelligence agency saw the book as a challenge to Communism and a way to make Soviet citizens question why their government was suppressing one of their greatest writers, according to newly declassified CIA documents that detail the agency's involvement in the book's printing, the Post said.