What Is Operation Mockingbird?
A CIA operative: “You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.”
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Fresh off a World War II victory, the recently formed Central Intelligence Agency 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 that were 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 guise of national security and patriotic duty. And, perhaps most importantly, they trained CIA Agents to get 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—publisher of The Washington Post), 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.
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:
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 payroll 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. It never fails.
You don’t have to throw out everything these investigations discover and publish, but you must be critical.
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They’re notorious for sharing a little bit of truth, but leaving out critical information. Obfuscation is the M.O.
A compromised press validates the reliability of the material produced by the government.
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 The Washington Post 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, gaslighting and deceiving the American people.
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.
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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 utterly false, it’s a tad 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 (CIA) aren’t dumb. They hopped onto even more powerful vehicles to disseminate their BS: Social media, movies, TV shows, blogs, books, YouTube channels and podcasts.
The brainwashing is alive and well.
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, YouTube shows and blogs 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.
So if you come across somebody who you believe has your best interest at heart, share their stuff with your friends. We have no chance against the tyrants on our own. We have to band together.
Who are your favorite independent creators? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to collaborate with people and share the work of people who are fighting the good fight.
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Operation never ended, only name changes and optimization