Carl Bernstein: The CIA and the Media / Rolling Stone 1977

[shance]

The CIA and the media by Carl Bernstein, Rolling Stone

Oct. 20, 1977

In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America’s leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column. He went at the request of the CIA.

Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty-five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.

(snip)

The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception . . . .

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier-Journal and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, The Miami Herald, and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-Tribune. By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with The New York Times, CBS, and Time Inc.

(snip)

Many journalists were used by the CIA to assist in this process and they had the reputation of being among the best in the business. The peculiar nature of the job of the foreign correspondent is ideal for such work; he is accorded unusual access, by his host country, permitted to travel in areas often off-limits to other Americans, spends much of his time cultivating sources in governments, academic institutions, the military establishment and the scientific communities. He has the opportunity to form long-term personal relationships with sources and -- perhaps more than any other category of American operative -- is in a position to make correct judgments about the susceptibility and availability of foreign nationals for recruitment as spies.

http://www.unknownnews.net/hh030102.html

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

1. EDIT - Go Google! (For the life of me I can't find it)

but there's a CIA memo from (IIRC) the IG which says that due to their contacts in the media, the CIA have been able to turn "intelligence failures into intelligence success'".

It is at the National Security Archive in PDF form (honest!):
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv

re the Bernstein article -- I downloaded a very well scanned version about four years ago. I have no idea where from and googling doesn't help, but just to say that it is out there.

-------

edit - okay here's the memo:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/ciacase/EXB.pdf

the actual quote I was trying to remember:
"PAO now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation. This has helped us turn some "intelligence failure" stories into "intelligence success" stories, and it has contributed to the accuracy of countless others. In many instances, we have persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods."

[shance]

6. Thanks for posting Monkey See, and thanks for the link.

BTW, I'm not very schooled on all the government abreevs....what are the IIRC and IG?

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

9. abbreviations

IIRC is a net shorthand for "if I remember correctly".

IG = Inspector General (you may also see OIG - Office of the Inspector General), the president appointed internal overseer, auditor and investigator of the CIA.

[enough]

2. Thank you, shance.

To the point.

[shance]

3. Your welcome.

n/t

[BuyingThyme]

4. I was looking/asking for this article at the library less than a week ago.

They couldn't get it, so I was going to make a trip.

How did you know?

(Thank you.)

[shance]

5. It's a good article.

n/t

[EC]

7. I forgot about this article, but now I remember thinking back then

that maybe he was trying to tell us something about Woodward. I was thinking maybe the CIA wanted to get rid of Nixon and "leaking" information to a "reporter" was a way to do it...guess what? I'm thinking that again...

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Read "The Secret Team"

by Prouty. It's a bit myopic. He only sees the part of the picture that he was closest to, And he get's a bit tinfoilly when he tries to use this one aspect of how things work to describe the whole. But within those limitations, it is quite instructive. http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/

[rman]

10. "All the strange developments in foreign policy agreements may be traced"

"Today the path to total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the US President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government, a bureacratic elite which believes our Constitution is outmoded and is sure that it is the winning side. All the strange developments in foreign policy agreements may be traced to this group who are going to make us over to suit their pleasure. This political action group has its own local political support organizations, its own pressure groups, its own vested interests, its foothold within our government, and its own propaganda apparatus."
-- Senator William Jenne, 1954

[shance]

11. I wonder if he was having a premonition of the Carlyle Group***

;)

[shance]

12. "You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl,

for a couple hundred dollars a month." - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html

[rman]

17. nice one

[shance]

13. Operation Mockingbird and the Church Committee Investigation

Further details of Operation Mockingbird was revealed as a result of the Frank Church investigations (Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) in 1975.

According to the Congress report published in 1976:

"The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets." Church argued that the cost of misinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. Why don't we just disband all of these 'intel' services ?

they do much more harm then good and have no place in a free press. I could find millions of better ways to spend the money and at the same time keep the country safer.

[shance]

15. Not a bad idea, as the saying goes, "we are only as sick as our secrets".

The degradation of our society has come from the lack of transparency in our governmental system which has fostered and promoted the hugely corrupt, broken, soul-less, classist system we now are witnessing the wreckage of,

and the ability for those who have abused their power, and horded an imbalanced share of wealth, connections and prestige, to withold information that is vital for citizens to know, understand be empowered with, in order to maintain a healthy Democracy.

Those who use the excuse of witholding information under the guise of "national security" are more often than not witholding for their "own" security and the white privileged Patriarchal system.

[rman]

16. There's no telling if they'll stop operating.

It's their business to do things in secret.

One of the public secrets that few people know is that not the CIA is the largest most active intel agency, but the Defense Intelligence Agency is.
We can only guess what agencies are out there that we don't even know exist.

Especially with a compromised press. It would be much harder to keep dark secrets if we'd have a functional press.

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. Cut their funding

and make the basics of their budgets public information. That will slow them down.

[rman]

19. Slow them down indeed.

But there are all kinds of black funds.

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. Then legalize drugs

and that will dry up at least half of their alternative sources.

[DrDebug]

20. Don't forget No Such Agency either

They are bigger than the CIA as well and they only have to abide to laws which specifically names them which is close to zero. They are above the law in all ways.

Since election fraud by the CIA wasn't very succesful it has been moved to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1980 which is a euphemism for election fraud and illegal contributions to rig elections. Since it is a so-called NGO (non-governmental, not-for-profit organization) it is totally private and does not need to disclose any of their operations nor does the Freedom of Information Act apply. NGOs are the favorite way to start new intelligence agencies nowadays since they are private and can hide behind the non-governmental, not-for-profit label obscuring them from governmental organizations and companies

[rman]

21. Private, for-profit intelligence agencies

Isn't that just great. Shouldn't surprise me really.

I knew a bit about NED, but hadn't realized how far they'd go. I figured it went as far as funding. But then again, pretty much anything can be funded. I understand they are a force behind the coup against Chavez.

[DrDebug]

22. They started in Bulgaria and Albania in the the early 90s

It was mainly funding and propaganda. The Bulgaria story is a classic, because was a complete and total failure despite wasting $2 million on their candidate.

The cold war was over. The forces of Western Civilization, Capitalism and Goodness had won. The Soviet Union was on the verge of falling apart. The Communist Party of Bulgaria was in disgrace. Its dictatorial leader of 35 years was being prosecuted for abuses of power. The party had changed its name, but that wouldn't fool anybody. And the country was holding its first multiparty election in 45 years.

The National Endowment for Democracy, Washington's specially created stand-in for the CIA, with funding in this case primarily from the Agency for International Development, was pouring some $2 million into Bulgaria to influence the outcome of the election, a process the NED calls promoting democracy. This was equivalent to a foreign power injecting more than $50 million into an American electoral campaign. One major recipient of this largesse was the newspaper of the opposition Union of Democratic Forces, Demokratzia, which received $233,000 of newsprint, "to allow it to increase its size and circulation for the period leading up to the national elections". The UDF itself received another $615,000 of American taxpayer money for "infrastructure support and party training" ... "material and technical support" ... and "post-electoral assistance for the UDF's party building program".{3}

The United States made little attempt to mask its partisanship. On June 9, the day before election day, the US ambassador to Bulgaria, Sol Polansky, appeared on the platform of a UDF rally.{4} Polansky, whose early government career involved intelligence research, was a man who had had more than a passing acquaintance with the CIA. Moreover, several days earlier, the State Department had taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing the Bulgarian government for what it called the inequitable distribution of resources for news outlets, especially newsprint for opposition newspapers, as if this was not a fact of life for genuine opposition forces in the United States and every other country in the world. The Bulgarian government responded that the opposition had received newsprint and access to the broadcast outlets in accordance with an agreement between the parties, adding that many of the Socialist Party's advantages, especially its financial reserves, resulted from the party's membership of one million, about a ninth of Bulgaria's population. The government had further provided the printing plant to publish the UDF newspaper and had given the opposition coalition the building from which to run its operations.{5}

Then, the communists proceeded to win the election.

http://members.aol.com/bblum6/bulgaria.htm

[shance]

24. I didn't know NED was involved in propaganda promotion.

Those who are Wesley Clarke supporters might want to ask him why he is a member of this organization.

[shance]

25. kick*

n/t

[shance]

26. morning kick

n/t

[shance]

27. "the CIA owns everyone of any major significance in the major media"

<< While the government reportedly ends its disinformation program following the publication of Bernstein's article, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, news that one of the terrorist's passports is miraculously found amongst the rubble at ground zero is reported and repeated, with some "lucky finds" bringing to mind former CIA director William Colby's boast that "the Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any major significance in the major media." >>


http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/05/11/far05001.html