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In June 1949, the US and British governments secretly agreed to mount a joint covert action operation to overthrow the communist government in Albania. The top-secret plan would use exiled dissidents to conduct subversive intelligence, paramilitary and propaganda operations to foment an uprising against Albania’s authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha.
I speak with Stephen Long, the author of A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit: CIA and MI6 Covert Action in Communist Albania at the Dawn of the Cold War. He describes how the Albanian operation is a vital but misunderstood part of Cold War history and the West’s first secret attempt to subvert a communist state behind the Iron Curtain.
While the West ultimately backed away from trying to bring down Hoxha’s regime, Albania was the test case of anti-communist covert action where the West served its apprenticeship before rolling out this capability on a global scale.
It’s a tale of subterfuge, secrecy, and skulduggery that is a fascinating examination of one of the most important and least examined major flashpoints of the Cold War.
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