Operation Mockingbird

[Pat Speer]

I don't mind the term "control". You have to ask would these journalists have attained their high position had they defied the interests of the agency. The CIA was both an actor and a source of information on many of these events. I dont see how it is possible for a journalist to see themselves as 'controling' the CIA in such a situation.

Can you think of a journalist that ever rose to a high stature while defying the CIA? Maybe Seymour Hersh, but he had his uses in weakening Nixon. Anyway the years 1973-75 are certainly an aberation from the U.S. press' traditional role of docile subservience to the agency.

Nathaniel, the Alsops, Lippman, Pearson, et al, obtained their power DECADES before the CIA ever existed. Do you think they willingly handed over their power to influence history to a bureaucrat, a government yes-man? Hell, no. Newsmen like Pearson and businessmen like Armand Hammer booked their own trips to Russia to talk to Khruschev, and played their own role in history. Ask yourself, was William Randolph Hearst anyone's puppet?

To consider these men to be puppets of some government employee, even a President (which is, after all a government temp job) is to misunderstand their role in history, even history itself. While most history books build history around Presidents and "great men" and revisionists like Zinn build it around populist movements, there are the lesser known, not-so-famous men, like John McCloy, who played key roles... and were No One's puppet.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Hearst was not a journalist he was the owner of a media corporation, who sometimes dabbled. McCLoy plaid a huge role, but not because he was a columnist.

You mention Lipman. Didn't he become significant because he showed corporate illites how to create public opinion through mass communications whithout leaving corporate fingerprints?

Hearst, Luce and sometimes a Lipman are players and their actions can alter history; this is to the extent that they represent critically important corporations, not type for a newspaper.

[John Simkin]

John, the CIA has always been allowed to plant stories overseas. In the Pike Report, (or is it the Church Report?), they get into the issue of planting stories overseas that end up in U.S. papers, particularly stories from Reuters, as I remember. And the CIA says "oh well, what can we do...we have no control over where the stories go once we plant them!" And that was the end of that. My understanding of "Mockingbird" is that it related to stories intended for domestic distribution. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

This issue is dealt with in the Church Report (pages 191-203). Church points out that it was of course not illegal for the CIA to plant stories in foreign media. However, Church quotes from several CIA documents to show that it was CIA policy to use clandestine handling of journalists and authors to get information published initially in the foreign media in order to get it disseminated in the United States. Church quotes from one document written by the Chief of the Covert Action Staff on how this process worked (page 193). For example, he writes: “Get books published or distributed abroad without revealing any U.S. influence, by covertly subsidizing foreign publicans or booksellers.” Later in the document he writes: “Get books published for operational reasons, regardless of commercial viability”. Church goes onto report that “over a thousand books were produced, subsidized or sponsored by the CIA before the end of 1967”. All these books eventually found their way into the American marketplace. Either in their original form (Church gives the example of the Penkovskiy Papers) or repackaged as articles for American newspapers and magazines.

In another document published in 1961 the Chief of the Agency’s propaganda unit wrote: “The advantage of our direct contact with the author is that we can acquaint him in great detail with our intentions; that we can provide him with whatever material we want him to include and that we can check the manuscript at every stage… (the Agency) must make sure the actual manuscript will correspond with our operational and propagandistic intention.”

Church quotes Thomas H. Karamessines as saying: “If you plant an article in some paper overseas, and it is a hard-hitting article, or a revelation, there is no way of guaranteeing that it is not going to be picked up and published by the Associated Press in this country” (page 198).

By analyzing CIA documents Church was able to identify over 50 U.S. journalists who were employed directly by the Agency. He was aware that there were a lot more who enjoyed a very close relationship with the CIA who were “being paid regularly for their services, to those who receive only occasional gifts and reimbursements from the CIA” (page 195). Other forms of payment are discussed on pages 196 and 197 of the report

Church points out that this was probably only the tip of the iceberg because the CIA refused to “provide the names of its media agents or the names of media organizations with which they are connected” (page 195). Church was also aware that most of these payments were not documented. This was the main point of the Otis Pike Report. If these payments were not documented and accounted for, there must be a strong possibility of financial corruption taking place. This includes the large commercial contracts that the CIA was responsible for distributing. Pike’s report actually highlighted in 1976 what eventually emerged in the 1980s via the activities of Ted Shackley’s “Secret Team”

Church also identified E. Howard Hunt as an important figure in Operation Mockingbird. He points out how Hunt arranged for books to be reviewed by certain writers in the national press. He gives the example of how Hunt arranged for a “CIA writer under contract” to write a hostile review of a Edgar Snow book in the New York Times (page 198). This is of course what has happened with the reviews of assassination of JFK books. They either ignore them, or, if they have managed to generate a lot of publicity, they get them reviewed by hostile critics. (Mark Lane has some interesting things to say about this in his book, Plausible Denial).

Church comes up with this conclusion to his examination of this issue:

“In examining the CIA’s past and present use of the U.S. media, the Committee finds two reasons for concern. The first is the potential, inherent in covert media operations, for manipulating or incidentally misleading the American public. The second is the damage to the credibility and independence of a free press which may be caused by covert relationships with the U.S. journalists and media organizations.”

Church’s predictions have come true in regard to non-American perceptions of the U.S. media. However, he clearly underestimated the ability of the American media to brainwash its citizens.

[John Simkin]

Frank Church paid a major price for taking on the CIA. In 1976 he was seen as a serious contender for the Democratic candidacy for president. He won primaries in Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon and Montana, but eventually decided to withdraw in favor of Jimmy Carter. However, he had made some serious enemies and in 1980 he was defeated in his attempt to be elected to the Senate for a fifth term.

Four years later, aged 60, he was dead. There are two good books about this great man:

Leroy Ashby and Rod Gramer, Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church, Washington State University Press, 1994;

F. Forrester Church, Father and Son: A Personal Biography of Senator Frank Church of Idaho, Harper Row, 1985.

[Tim Gratz]

What did Church die of?

When was Church elected to the Senate? If i recall it was either in 1950 (with Smathers) or in 1952 (with Kennedy).

On the corbis website there is a great photo of Senators Church, Smathers and Kennedy in the early fifties.

[John Simkin]

What did Church die of?

When was Church elected to the Senate? If i recall it was either in 1950 (with Smathers) or in 1952 (with Kennedy).

Frank Church was elected to the Senate in 1956. He was only 32 years old and was the fifth youngest member ever to sit in the Senate.

He died of a tumor on 7th April, 1984.

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

[Lynne Foster]

John, there are hostile critics on this message board, I hope that does not mean they are linked to the CIA.

[Pat Speer]

John, if I'm to read you right, in your mind Mockingbird is the manipulation of the media, domestic or otherwise, by the CIA. I believe I previously interpreted it as domestic only. The international manipulation, of course, is well documented and openly admitted. A Citizen's Dissent, by Mark Lane, gets into some of this, including the role of the BBC. Lane appeared on the BBC to debate the merits of Rush To Judgment with Warren Commission counsel Specter and Belin, only to find that they had been there for days and had been given a script by which to prepare.

I don't remember the name of it but I came across a book from the early seventies on the media. This book, which didn't even mention the assassination and was by no means a pro-conspiracy book, mentioned in passing that A Citizen's Dissent, Lane's follow-up to his massive best seller Rush to Judgment, received something like 2 book reviews nation-wide, compared to 190 for RTJ. The obvious implication was that Lane's continued pressing for a finding of conspiracy (and possibly his relationship with Garrison) had turned him into a non-person as opposed tof a best-selling author.

[Tim Gratz]

I was on the CIA payroll until John mentioned how poorly I was doing making friends for the CIA.

Had to give 'em back every penney they ever paid me!

[John Simkin]

I was on the CIA payroll until John mentioned how poorly I was doing making friends for the CIA.

Had to give 'em back every penney they ever paid me!

Once again you have inserted yourself into a thread where you have nothing of any importance to contribute. All you do is for other members to see your name at the end of the thread which probably put them off from reading it (and therefore missing other member’s more interesting contributions).

Like Lynne Foster you insist of posting in every thread. Very rarely do either of you have anything of any relevance to say. It is either a puerile joke at the expense of another member or an attempt to bring the discussion round to your own theories of the assassination. This has got to stop. You are spoiling the Forum. You are both on your final warnings. If you don’t do it you will be put on permanent moderation.

[Tim Gratz]

John, whether you can understand it or not my sarcasm was intended to demonstrate the idiocy of Lynne's most recent posting.

Perhaps you did not get it. I was attempting to make a point.

You could make a good point that Lynne (intentionally or not) was trivializing your thread (and I know the importance you attribute to OM) by accusing Forum members of being part of OM. I was trying to ridicule (by sarcasm) her post.

I would also point out that there have been numerous Forum members making similar barbs at her posts.

Okay?

And John just let me remind you that on another thread I made a poinbt that many researchers doubt the credibility of Underwood's story re what Scott told him about Escalante being in Dallas. That is something I think you missed.

Edited December 16, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Thomas Graves]

All you do is for other members to see your name at the end of the thread which probably put them off from reading it (and therefore missing other member’s more interesting contributions).

______________________________________

John,

I agree with your assessment of Mr. Gratz and Ms. Foster. Not only does seeing their names so often on the ends of so many threads on the "front page" turn me off from checking to see if there are any recent postings on those threads by other members, but I suspect that it discourages many other people from even joining the forum.

IMHO, Thomas

______________________________________

Edited December 17, 2005 by Thomas Graves

[Guest Stephen Turner]

I honestly think were dealing with apples, and oranges with Tim, and Ms Foster. I tend to disagree with about 90%of Tims posts but have never known him to Spam, offer toxic links, or indulge in childish name calling.. The staple behaviour of our resident xxxxx.

[Mark Knight]

While I concur wholeheartedly with Mr. Turner, I must admit that the end result is the same: the thread turns to a discussion of the person in question rather than the original topic of the thread. The difference is that Ms. Foster seems to have an agenda, while Mr. Gratz is merely unable--or unwilling--to understand that his sense of humor often isn't funny to others...and sarcasm loses a bit in print, with no verbal inflections or facial expressions with which to guide us. What might sound like witty repartee' in a face-to-face meeting often loses its humor in print...and Mr. Gratz often fails to recognize that fact.

So...returning to topic...I recall the same thing Pat mentioned regarding Mark Lane. After all the press RTJ generated, why was his follow-up barely even reviewed? The Op Mockingbird implication IS there, whether anyone in a position to do so will ever admit it or not.

Edited December 16, 2005 by Mark Knight

[Tim Carroll]

I honestly think were dealing with apples, and oranges with Tim, and Ms Foster. I tend to disagree with about 90%of Tims posts but have never known him to Spam, offer toxic links, or indulge in childish name calling.. The staple behaviour of our resident xxxxx.

I want to support Stephen's comments, especially that I don't see spamming as Tim Gratz's intention. He's a more energetic and prolific poster than average, and his politics are contrary to the majority here, but he does also contribute substantive comments and informational input.

The difference is that Ms. Foster seems to have an agenda, while Mr. Gratz is merely unable--or unwilling--to understand that his sense of humor often isn't funny to others...and sarcasm loses a bit in print, with no verbal inflections or facial expressions with which to guide us. What might sound like witty repartee' in a face-to-face meeting often loses its humor in print...and Mr. Gratz often fails to recognize that fact.

Mark's observation is perceptive and kindhearted. The internet is a new medium where flourishes of personality can easily be misunderstood. I don't see any mean-spiritedness in Tim Gratz's postings. If Operation Mockingbird tells us anything, it's that gaining more independence in the realm of information and communication conveyence is a vital mission, and therefore the growing pains here are worthwhile.

T.C.