What a doozy.

So you don’t have to read the whole thing:

The unveiler [to the FBI] of such an insidious subterfuge was none other than Philip K. Dick, himself a legendary science-fiction writer. According to his letter, fellow science-fiction great Stanisław Lem, didn’t even exist, except for as a figurehead for the purposes of disseminating propaganda. He was ‘probably a composite committee rather than an individual’. Dick’s evidence for this denouncement was that ‘[Lem] writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not’. And the conspiracy spread further still: ‘The Party operates (a U…S.] publishing house which does a great deal of Party-controlled science fiction’.

Evidently, Dick’s allegations were unfounded. Lem surely existed, and his communist connections were non-existent. He was even active against the PRL’s government, and had been ill-treated by those in power. If Dick’s shadowy cabal of conspirators infiltrating science fiction existed, Lem was certainly not it’s originator. So why, then, was Dick such an ardent believer in his guilt?

In 1973, Lem became an honorary member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, a gesture of ‘international goodwill’ on the association’s part. However, in 1976, 70 percent of the SFWA’s voted in favour of a resolution to revoke Lem’s membership. A very quick dismissal for such a prestigious author, but the reasons for his quick ejection from the organisation are clear – he didn’t seem to regard his honorary membership as any sort of honour. He considered American science fiction ‘ill thought out, poorly written, and interested more in adventure that ideas or new literary forms’ and ‘bad writing tacked together with wooden dialogue’, and these are just a few examples of Lem’s deprecatory attitude towards the US branch of his genre.

Lem, however, considered one science fiction author as exempt from his scathing criticisms – his denouncer, Philip K. Dick. The title of an essay Lem published about Dick is evidence enough of this high regard: A Visionary Among the Charlatans.

The possible reasons they give for Dick’s conspiracy alignment:

• Dick didn’t know Lem appreciated him
• Lem once translated his book but could not or did not pay royalties to him
• Dick drug usage made him do strange things at point in his life