CIA Propaganda Operations

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."  Maybe that's another reason why folks get the impression that a suspicious agenda lurks behind the headlines. 

-- Katharine Graham, in a 1988 speech given to senior CIA employees at Agency headquarters

CIA -- "The Mighty Wurlitzer."

Deputy Director Frank Wisner proudly referred to the CIA's worldwide propaganda machine as "the mighty Wurlitzer."  The CIA has published literally hundreds of books and it owns dozens of newspapers and magazines the world over.  These not only provide cover for their agents but allow them to plant misinformation that regularly makes it back to the US through the wire services.  The CIA has even placed agents on guard at the wire services, to prevent inconvenient facts from being disseminated.

“With millions of dollars in funding, conservative institutions have taken” the political offensive on key social, economic, and regulatory policy issues.... These institutions have effectively repositioned the boundaries of national policy discussion, redefining key concepts, molding public opinion, and pushing for a variety of specific policy reforms.... These groups flood the media with hundreds of opinion editorials. Their top staff appears as political pundits and policy experts on dozens of television and radio shows across the country. And their lobbyists work the legislative arenas, distributing policy proposals, briefing papers, and position statements.... [The American Enterprise Institute has] ghost writers for scholars to produce op-ed articles that are sent to the one hundred and one cooperating newspapers—three pieces every two weeks.’... The Hoover Institution’s public affairs office ... links to 900 media centers across the U.S. and abroad. The Reason Foundation ... had 359 television and radio appearances in 1995 and more than 1,500 citations in national newspapers and magazines. The Manhattan Institute has held more than 600 forums or briefings for journalists and policy makers on multiple public policy issues and concerns, from tort reform to federal welfare policy.... The Free Congress Foundation, in addition to its National Empowerment Television, is publishing NetNewsNow, a broadcast fax letter sent around the country to more than 400 radio producers and news editors.1

1 Sally Covington, “Right Thinking, Big Grants, and Long Term Strategy: How Conservative Philanthropies and Think Tanks Transform U.S. Policy,” CovertAction Quarterly (Winter 1998)

 CIA Project Mockingbird -- The Subversion Of The Free Press

"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.

MOCKINGBIRD -- It was conceived in the late 1940s, the most frigid period of the cold war, when the CIA began a systematic infiltration of the corporate media, a process that often included direct takeover of major news outlets.  To begin with, the CIA struck a relationship with William Paley, a wartime colonel and the founder of CBS.  Paley hired CIA agents to work undercover at the behest of his close friend, Allen Dulles. All the while, the designated go-between in his dealings with the CIA was Sig Mickelson, president of CBS News from 1954 to 1961. 

Media assets would eventually include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service, etc. and 400 journalists, who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens.  The CIA had infiltrated the nation's businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. 

In 1977, famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein revealed that over 400 US journalists had been employed by the CIA. These ranged from freelancers who were paid for regular debriefings, to actual CIA officers who worked under deep cover. Nearly every major US news organization has had spooks on the payroll, usually with the cooperation of top management.  The three most valuable media assets the CIA could count on were William Paley's CBS, Arthur Sulzberger's New York Times and Henry Luce's Time/Life empire. Among prominent journalists who've worked knowingly with the CIA are National Review founder William F. Buckley, PBS interviewer Bill Moyers, the late columnist Stewart Alsop, former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and Ms. magazine founder Gloria Steinem.