In 1956 an unnamed MI6 officer used a tiny camera in an unlikely act of espionage: photographing, one by one, the pages of Boris Pasternak’s masterpiece, Dr Zhivago. His actions were part of one of the most ingenious efforts to undermine Soviet Communism – enabling the world, including Russia, to discover Pasternak’s account of conscience and the individual confronting ideology. The role of MI6 and the CIA in the novel’s publication is revealed in a new book, The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the battle over a forbidden book by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée. The intelligence agencies furthered the novel’s influence by getting it published in the West and helping smuggle copies back behind the Iron Curtain. The Zhivago Affair is a timely remin