Operation Prophet

by Robert B Asprey

This came out when the West, particularly America, was receiving Solzhenitsyn in the 1970s and there were various novels appearing that gave various versions of him. Operation Prophet came out in 1977 and it is a silly novel which I don’t recommend at all, with all due respect to Mr Asprey. It is a sub-James Bondian adventure – glorious nonsense, but very typical of the liberal bewilderment that people experienced when Solzhenitsyn arrived. Most people didn’t know much about him and he was easily blurred into this kind of Prague Spring socialist, tailored subconsciously to liberal expectations of this nice guy who had suffered terribly. But suddenly there was the real Solzhenitsyn out there making strident anti-socialist speeches.