Soviet Foreign Propaganda [SIGNED]

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/good. First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Frederick C. Barghoorn to front free endpaper. 8 3/4" X 5 3/4". 329pp. Mild edgewear to unclipped dust jacket, with shallow chipping to head and tail of spine, sunning to spine, small closed tear at center of spine, and dust soiling to panels. Bound in full red cloth over boards, with spine lettered in gilt. Faint stain to upper board and mild edgewear to binding. Foxing to edges of text block and to endpapers. Binding is firm, tight, and sound. Pages are clean and unmarked. A very presentable first printing, very uncommon signed, of this study of the development of communist thought and practice concerning the uses of foreign propaganda by one of the 1960s most eminent academics studying the Soviet Union. Frederick C. Barghoorn (1911-1990) was a Yale University expert on Soviet affairs whose 1963 jailing in Moscow by Soviet officials thrust him into the spotlight of an international incident. Barghoorn had been visiting the Soviet Union in the course of conducting interviews for a book and was seized on charges of espionage. Barghoorn's jailing led to protests by American diplomats. The Soviet Union released him only after pressure from President John F. Kennedy. In what would be President Kennedy's last White House news conference, he denounced the unjust imprisonment of Barghoorn and said it had "greatly damaged" Soviet relations with the United States. Over two weeks after his jailing, the Soviets released Barghoorn, citing "the personal concern expressed by President Kennedy," though they continued to insist he was a spy. Barghoorn was welcomed back to the Yale University campus by a rally of 2,200 people, according to his obituary in the New York Times.