美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Secrets We Kept' Imagines What CIA Secretaries Knew

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

The Russian Revolution, a doomed¹ love affair, Omar Sharif and snow - lots of snow. When Lara Prescott was born, "Doctor Zhivago" was her mother's favorite movie. She even named her daughter Lara after the main character. So it's not surprising that Lara Prescott had a lifelong interest in the movie and the Boris Pasternak book it's based on. But she never thought she'd write a novel about "Doctor Zhivago" until she learned what the CIA did with the Pasternak book. NPR's Lynn Neary reports.

LYNN NEARY, BYLINE²: It was about five years ago when Lara Prescott's dad sent her an article in The Washington Post...

LARA PRESCOTT: ...About how the CIA had used "Doctor Zhivago" as a tool of propaganda during the Cold War. And I had to find out everything about the mission.

NEARY: The result is Prescott's debut³ novel, "The Secrets We Kept." It's the story of a young woman who became involved with the CIA's plan to get copies of "Doctor Zhivago" into the Soviet⁴ Union, where it had been banned because of its portrayal⁵ of life under communism. Throughout the book, Prescott weaves her spy saga⁶ with a story of Boris Pasternak and his real-life lover Olga, the model for Lara. But much of the novel is set in Washington, D.C.

PRESCOTT: We're standing⁷ in front of 2430 E Street or Navy Hill, which was the former headquarters of the CIA before they moved to Langley in 1961.

NEARY: Prescott's story begins here in the secretarial pool at the old CIA headquarters, a building still well hidden and protected by guards and gates. Prescott says, when she began researching the story, she became interested in the women who worked there in the 1950s.

PRESCOTT: I was always pulled towards these women because I was researching all of these memos⁸ and reports. And they were all heavily redacted about this Zhivago mission. And names and places were redacted. And I kept thinking about the women who typed these reports and these women who would know the secrets of the secret-keepers.

NEARY: Some of the women had worked as spies during World War II.

PRESCOTT: Some of them had led French Resistance fighters to the front lines. Some of them had planted bombs to sabotage⁹ trains and bridges. When the war was over and the CIA was forming, they were put in positions behind desks, often in record-keeping, clerical positions despite all that they had done during the war.

NEARY: One of the main characters in the book, Irina, was not a former spy. She needed a job and found one as a typist at the CIA. But the spy masters saw something in Irina that made them think she could take on a different role.

PRESCOTT: And one of those roles was someone who was a messenger, who carried messages and would pick up packages and deliver them to different places in D.C., never really knowing what was inside the packages. But she blended in. And no one would suspect that this young woman had an important message.

NEARY: The CIA begins training Irina to work on the Zhivago mission. One of her trainers is Sally, a beautiful, sophisticated woman who still works as a spy in the post-war world. She takes Irina to Dumbarton Oaks in D.C.'s Georgetown neighborhood.

PRESCOTT: Dumbarton Oaks, in particular, was known as a place where meetings would occur between KGB handlers and their recruits. So I thought that Sally - she would take Irina, who she was training, to the park to talk.

NEARY: We enter the park, which surrounds the Dumbarton Oaks mansion¹⁰ and gardens.

We just need to find a park bench...

PRESCOTT: Yeah.

NEARY: ...In a quiet spot.

PRESCOTT: Over there.

NEARY: It's in this park that Irina's story takes a turn. As she was writing, Prescott sensed a spark between her characters and knew they would fall in love. It became her way into writing a love story that parallels the one in "Doctor Zhivago."

PRESCOTT: You can't think of "Doctor Zhivago" and not think of the love story and how these two were brought together under extraordinary circumstances but could never be. And I knew when I was writing that I wanted to write another love story. And it fell upon Irina and Sally almost by accident. And it was that first scene when they're in Dumbarton Oaks. I was like, I think there might be something more here with these characters.

NEARY: Eventually, Irina is sent to pick up a microfilm of "Doctor Zhivago" in Russian, which will be made into a book that the CIA smuggles¹¹ into the Soviet Union. Prescott set this scene in one of her favorite places in Washington.

PRESCOTT: This is The Bishop's Garden of the National Cathedral.

NEARY: Prescott had read that this was a place where CIA handoffs often occurred.

PRESCOTT: It's the kind of place where you're in the middle the city, but you also feel like you've entered into a whole different world. And thinking of Irina waiting for the handoff of "Dr. Zhivago" in film form - it just appeared in my mind that it was here.

NEARY: These days, it's almost hard to imagine that the CIA would expend¹² so much energy smuggling¹³ a work of fiction that became more famous for its love story than its politics.

PRESCOTT: I think that was my first reaction, too - is, how could a book be the center of this CIA plot? But at the same time, of course, books could be used in this way because they can change the hearts and minds of people.

NEARY: We may live in the age of Twitter and fake news, says Lara Prescott. But books remain a powerful tool, threatening enough that governments still resort to censorship to stop the flow of words and ideas. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.

1 doomed   

命定的

参考例句：

• The court doomed the accused to a long term of imprisonment. 法庭判处被告长期监禁。
• A country ruled by an iron hand is doomed to suffer. 被铁腕人物统治的国家定会遭受不幸的。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 portrayal   

n.饰演；描画

参考例句：

• His novel is a vivid portrayal of life in a mining community.他的小说生动地描绘了矿区的生活。
• The portrayal of the characters in the novel is lifelike.该书中的人物写得有血有肉。

6 saga   

n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事，英雄传奇

参考例句：

• The saga of Flight 19 is probably the most repeated story about the Bermuda Triangle.飞行19中队的传说或许是有关百慕大三角最重复的故事。
• The novel depicts the saga of a family.小说描绘了一个家族的传奇故事。

7 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

8 memos   

n.备忘录( memo的名词复数 )；（美）内部通知

参考例句：

• Big shots get their dander up and memos start flying. 大人物们怒火中烧，备忘录四下乱飞。 来自辞典例句
• There was a pile of mail, memos and telephone messages on his desk. 他的办公桌上堆满着信件、备忘录和电话通知。 来自辞典例句

9 sabotage   

n.怠工，破坏活动，破坏；v.从事破坏活动，妨害，破坏

参考例句：

• They tried to sabotage my birthday party.他们企图破坏我的生日晚会。
• The fire at the factory was caused by sabotage.那家工厂的火灾是有人蓄意破坏引起的。

10 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

11 smuggles   

v.偷运( smuggle的第三人称单数 )；私运；走私；不按规章地偷带（人或物）

参考例句：

12 expend   

vt.花费，消费，消耗

参考例句：

• Don't expend all your time on such a useless job.不要把时间消耗在这种无用的工作上。
• They expend all their strength in trying to climb out.他们费尽全力想爬出来。

13 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。