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'Mysteries of The Oval Office' Belarus Style


Nikolai Cherginets
Nikolai Cherginets
The head of Belarus's newly formed morality watchdog once wrote a steamy novel about the Clinton White House.

General Nikolai Cherginets, the chairman of the newly formed Council on Public Morals, published "Mysteries of The Oval Office" in Belarus. He also writes detective novels, some of which are on school curriculums.

Cherginets is an insider, a general who served in the transport police, a close ally of President Lukashenka, and also the chair of the official writers' union.

At the new council's inaugural press conference, Cherginets said the body would monitor the Internet and introduce a new school subject, "Basics of Spiritual Culture."

According to a source close to the general, who spoke to RFE/RL's Belarus Service, Cherginet had literary ambitions that went beyond Belarus.

The unnamed source said how Cherginets had boasted about a meeting with a New York publisher, where the general was reportedly told that there were very powerful forces that didn't want him to publish the book in English.

Cherginets also said he had a secret meeting with Hillary at the start of her presidential race. According to the source, the general said that Clinton had asked him not to publish the book as her campaign simply wouldn't be able to take the strain.

As the director of our Belarus Service Alexander Lukashuk said, the meeting obviously didn't take place in Barnes & Noble as he would have seen walls of anti-Hillary tomes.

-- Luke Allnutt

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Written by RFE/RL editors and correspondents, Transmission serves up news, comment, and the odd silly dictator story. While our primary concern is with foreign policy, Transmission is also a place for the ideas -- some serious, some irreverent -- that bubble up from our bureaus. The name recognizes RFE/RL's role as a surrogate broadcaster to places without free media. You can write us at transmission+rferl.org

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