Stamps, Propaganda, And Intelligence During The Cold War

A think tank in DC recently published a blog post about how the CIA and State Department used stamps to gather foreign intelligence during the Cold War.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-p...intelligence

I see some gummint people had too much time on their hands, and got paid to come up with these conclusions. It would interesting to get Soviet and East German files on, say, the US 1948 chicken stamp, mostly to see if they were equally idiotic.

DDR: Yeah, I suppose everyone in East Germany saw the von Schill stamp and used one to mail a threatening letter to France so that everyone there would see it. Now if they issued a ten stamp set with 2 souvenir sheets, maybe a case could be made. Commemoratives for the Battle of Teutoborg Forest which destroyed invading Roman Empire legions would have been a better choice, patriotism- and propaganda-wise.

Anti-Nazi communists: They forgot to look at West Germany who curiously issued no Anti-Nazi German resistance stamps until, uh, what year was that? Had a little trouble finding non-communists in the bunch or didn't want to offend homegrown neonazis, or both?

Hungary: Final conclusion there is right, I'd say, but a real disappointment to Wally Schirra fans. No mention that the most commonly used and commonly seen value had Gagarin on it, who deserved the honor if you ask me.

Rwanda: UIT artwork is by Joh. Enschede (should be accented e at end) of the Netherlands and really had little to do with Rwanda. Lincoln? Same artwork source. In both cases, did the US stamp market have any bearing on issuing these? Ya think?