Fresh off a World War II victory the recently formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) named Communism as the world’s biggest threat and decided to launch an all-out information war against their newly minted Cold War enemies.
To control the narrative the Agency launched Operation Mockingbird (also known as Project Mockingbird). They wrote press releases published in prominent papers as bona fide news. They also advised journalists on what to write and angles to take. They shared classified materials. They recruited journalists to publish material influenced by the Agency under the rubric of national security and patriotic duty. And, they trained Agents to get real jobs as journalists. Payment and coercion weren’t out of the question to place the right messages into the public arena at the right time.
According to Deborah Davis in her book Katharine The Great (biography of Katharine Graham), a CIA operative said to Philip Graham: “You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.”
But, it wasn’t solely individual journalists. Management at news organizations were privy to the arrangements and provided cover thinking they were fighting global communism, or at the very least cultivating great sources in the Agency to get a leg up on their competitors.
News of these untoward arrangements started to leak out in the 60s. In 1975 the Church Committee Congressional investigation discovered that 50 journalists had under-the-table official relationships with the CIA.
Carl Bernstein, in his 25,000-word piece, The CIA and the Media, published in Rolling Stone in 1977, criticized the investigation’s lack of thoroughness and said there were at least 400 journalists working with the Agency since the inception of Operation Mockingbird:
“But top officials of the CIA, including former directors William Colby and George Bush, persuaded the committee to restrict its inquiry into the matter and to deliberately misrepresent the actual scope of the activities in its final report. The multi-volume report contains nine pages in which the use of journalists is discussed in deliberately vague and sometimes misleading terms. It makes no mention of the actual number of journalists who undertook covert tasks for the CIA. Nor does it adequately describe the role played by newspaper and broadcast executives in cooperating with the Agency.”
George H.W. Bush, CIA Director, reported in 1976 that the Agency was no longer in the news business, but would still accept volunteers who wanted to help their country. In reality, the CIA cut ties with the least productive journalists on their rolls to make it look like they were purging their ranks of propagandists. But, this was just a cover to keep their most valued relationships alive and well.
Any investigation of the government by the government will withhold certain information while giving the illusion of a thorough job (re: 9/11 Commission and the Warren Commission). It never fails. You don’t have to throw out everything these investigations discover and publish, but you must be critical. Obfuscation is the M.O. A compromised press validates the reliability of the material produced by the government.
Journalist Fred Cook, in his book Maverick: Fifty Years of Investigative Reporting, couldn’t quite believe how hard the press amplified the Warren Commission findings that, indeed, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
“I have never seen an official report greeted with such universal praise as that accorded the Warren Commission’s findings when they were made public on September 24, 1964,” recalls investigative reporter Fred Cook.“All the major television networks devoted special programs and analyses to the report; the next day the newspapers ran long columns detailing its findings, accompanied by special news analyses and editorials. The verdict was unanimous. The report answered all questions, left no room for doubt. Lee Harvey Oswald, alone and unaided, had assassinated the president of the United States.”
When it comes to not telling the whole truth, journalists are as complicit as the government. In fact, Bernstein’s own article, while illuminating, leaves out his old partner Bob Woodward’s cozy relationship with the Agency. He also treads lightly on the Washington Post’s complicity in Operation Mockingbird. He makes it seem inconsequential when in reality Philip Graham (Publisher at The Post) played a huge role in recruiting journalists for the Agency at the inception of the project in the late 40s. In turn, the Post became a much more influential paper.
Unfortunately, limited hangouts may be the rule rather than the exception.
The lesson here. Keep an open mind but consume media with vigilance.
Sometimes it’s what they don’t print that comes with major consequences, or in the minds of some in the news business, averts dangerous outcomes:
Here’s what Katharine Graham, the wife of Phil Graham, who took over WaPo after he died, had to say about the press keeping secrets for national security: “We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.”
I don’t totally disagree with this. There have been times in the past where holding a story for a day or two helped a police investigation or kept a strategic piece of information from getting into the hands of an enemy at an inopportune time.
However, these days I have a hard time believing anything the current regime does is on the up and up. They aren’t holding stories for national security reasons. They’re distorting, falsifying, misreporting, hiding, and deceiving.
Another angle to this perverse relationship between the US government and the Fourth Estate is lower level Agency or State Dept employees planting material with high-profile journalists to make government officials believe the narrative.
“The President of the United States, the Secretary of State, Congressmen and even the Director of the CIA himself will read, believe, and be impressed by a report from Cy Sulzberger, Arnaud de Borchgrave, or Stewart Alsop when they don’t even bother to read a CIA report on the same subject,” noted CIA agent Miles Copeland.
In other words, you are being played if you’re not incredulous while reading, watching, or listening to corporate media.
Bernstein described the CIA’s use of journalists in foreign countries saying that they aren’t typically spies. Rather their primary task is to recruit and handle “foreign nationals who are channels of secret information reaching American intelligence.”
Journalists are also used to carry messages between the foreign recruit and the intelligence case officer. Oftentimes they serve as “eyes and ears” but others provide more sophisticated services like planting misinformation, hosting parties bringing agents and spies together; using their hotel rooms as “drops” for sensitive information; and passing along instructions and payments.
In return, the CIA gives connected journalists classified information to enhance their reporting. Many journalists eagerly accept these roles and take oaths of secrecy. In extreme cases, actual officers in the CIA went undercover as journalists on staff at major organizations.
Despite Papa Bush’s vow to the contrary, this most certainly continues to happen today, and not just in foreign lands.
Operation Mockingbird = FAKE NEWS!
President Donald Trump didn’t make good on all his promises but he did the world a favor by hammering CNN and their ilk as fake news.
People may continue to think the news organizations on their side of the political aisle are pure, but you can’t believe a word from those other guys. While false, it’s a tick better than unconsciously consuming all news reporting as truth.
The iron grip of the corporate news media on American minds is weakening. The entire industry is on a steep decline on pace to fade into oblivion as soon as the boomers are no longer around.
But, propagandists aren’t dumb. They hopped onto even more powerful vehicles to disseminate their bullshit. Social media, movies, TV shows, blogs, books, YouTube channels, podcasts, and the recent AI tsunami.
The brainwashing is alive and well.
Discrediting Actual Investigations
The CIA and State Department use their contacts in the media to discredit journalists doing legit investigations like Gary Webb’s investigative series on “the cocaine trade, Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, and African American neighborhoods in California.” They also point their attack dogs at District Attorneys, who are getting too close to the truth, like Jim Garrison and his investigation of the JFK assassination.
Today the media is trying to discredit presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his views on COVID vaccines and the War in Ukraine. And social media companies are trying to shut him down. YouTube removed his interview with Jordan Peterson because it contained misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. Does YouTube have medical authorities on staff? Or more likely, they’re getting marching orders from health agencies in the government.
The Future of Propaganda and Censorship
It’s much easier to control the flow of information in the corporate media today than it was during the Cold War because six corporations own 90% of major media.
The good news is that as all major news media and entertainment companies merge, there is a downward pressure birthing high-quality independent information providers. The Internet has made this possible.
Of course, the Elites see this. They see the tremendous numbers popular podcasts and YouTube shows pull. And they’re doing their best to censor the stuff they don’t like. With major control of social media channels, search engines, and the nifty little fact-checker trick, the Cabal can stunt the growth of independent outlets.
Matt Taibbi dives deep into this with The Twitter Files. After Elon Musk purchased the social media giant, he released a treasure trove of internal communications exposing their complicity in canceling, shadow banning, or otherwise limiting the reach of people whose opinions they disagreed with. They also played a big role in burying the Hunter Biden laptop case, which could have played a massive role in swinging the 2020 US presidential election away from the Biden crime family.
And, the major social media companies tightly controlled the flow of COVID information at the request of the government. Taibbi found communications about this in the Twitter files as well.
Resources
- Carl Bernstein’s excellent piece on the CIA’s ties to the media.
- John Simkin’s overview of Operation Mockingbird.
- Jay Dyer talks about Operation Mockingbird on the fourth hour of Alex Jones show.
- Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA by Alex Constantine details numerous instances of The Washington Post doing the bidding of the CIA.
- The Mighty Wurlitzer – How the CIA Played America by Hugh Wilford – The book’s title references Wisner’s Wurlitzer which was a rolodex of over 800 news and information entities ready to pump out spin.
- 50 facts about the CIA and media by Professor James F. Tracy.
- Ex CIA agent John Stockwell spills the beans on the CIA generating fake news in countries like Angola and Nicaragua.
- The history of journalists on the CIA payroll.
- Michael Piper Collins dives into the Graham legacy at the Washington Post after Katharine’s death on July 17, 2001.
- Tucker Carlson says that Bob Woodward was used by the CIA to help oust Richard Nixon.
- James Corbett’s excellent expose of the fact checkers, and who funds them.
- Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and the Washington Post by Deborah Davis.
- The plight of Gary Webb after exposing ugly truths about the US government.