This proposed contribution reflects on how one, relatively small U.S.-led program of cultural diplomacy shaped the attitude of Polish intellectuals towards liberalization and openness to the free world during the Cold War. The importance of the topic lies in the fact that this long-lasting literary service could be considered as a vital tool for creating more space for political and cultural freedom in Soviet-bloc countries. The program represented the spirit of solidarity and friendship between Eastern Europe and the U.S. that, even now, should not be forgotten. That thirty years after the book program ended, Eastern Europe still lacks a transnational perspective on defending universal liberal values and the process of gaining freedom in the region before 1989 demonstrates the importance of bringing the Eastern and Western narratives closer together, by reexamining the legacy of the book program today.

This article discusses the history of the so-called “book program”—a joint effort by the U.S. government, the East European diaspora, and readers of prohibited books behind the Iron Curtain. Between 1956 and 1989 the program purchased some 10 million copies of publications and delivered them to people in Soviet–dominated Eastern Europe in order to undermine communist rule. Using the historical materials of the Polonia Book Fund, a U.S.–sponsored publishing project for Poland, this article contributes new insights on the transatlantic perspective of the cultural Cold War. This article focuses on the program’s early stages, and describes various elements of the transnational smuggling network. The program’s state-private partnership was a workable solution that helped to foster a diversity of opinions in post-Stalinist Poland.