Operation Mockingbird

[John Simkin]

Interesting interview with Rod Serling in 1959 about censorship.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ8dTT2BRp4

Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05SlHecA1hk

Rod Serling claims in the interview that television censorship would go into decline. This has not happened. In fact, self-censorship has increased dramatically. When was the last time you heard a leading writer complaining about how the commercial system undermines the ability to discuss important political issues? Where is today's Rod Serling?

[John Bevilaqua]

As Walter Mathau said in JFK: (paraphrasing)

"Gnat sh** versus Peppah. That's what all those people are focusing on. It just don't matter one bit."

[John Geraghty]

This video of the Church Committee was uploaded to youtube today. In it a CIA official confirms that the CIA has journalists on the payroll.

Does anyone know who is being interviewed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzUsvUkvvQM

Edited August 10, 2009 by John Geraghty
Wrong url given at first, now corrected

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby????

Does anyone know the PIMARY source of this quotation, if in fact it is real?

[Guest Tom Scully]

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby????

Does anyone know the PIMARY source of this quotation, if in fact it is real?

Nathaniel,

Many attribute the Colby quote to Dave McGowan, in his book published in 2000:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&...9fe100d9e542c1e

http://www.amazon.com/Derailing-Democracy-...t/dp/1567511848

Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See (Paperback)

by David McGowan

However, this is a link to a 1998 review of David Hoffman's poorly edited book:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3R71B090NAI2...=cm_cr_rdp_perm

http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=b...nG=Search+Books

The Oklahoma City bombing and the politics of terror‎

by David Hoffman - Social Science - 1998 - 509 pages

Page 267

—John Swinton, CEO, New York Times, New York Press Club, April 12, 1953

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any

significance in the major media. " —

William Colby, former CIA Director Eight months after the bombing, Oklahoma

State Representative Charles Key, dissatisfied with the "official" investigation...

I know Hoffman's book is poorly edited because the quote directly before the one attributed to William Colby

is inaccurate as to John Swinton's occupation and employer, and the date displayed for the Swinton quote is off by 70 years:

http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=T...nG=Search+Books

John Swinton was never "CEO" of the NY Times, and he the speech cited above in April, 1883, he died in 1901:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...9649D946097D6CF

I suspect it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to convincingly document the quote attributed to WIlliam Colby. That might change if you could read

footnote 12 on page 49: (Orwellian Ireland By Brian Nugent)

http://books.google.com/books?id=rk8LhlzrJ...lby&f=false

This however, is apparently reliable, and it is happening under Obama's watch....wasn't former CIA director and republican Bush appointee, Bob Gates, only supposed to "stick around" at DOD for six months? It's almost September....

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section...p;article=64348

Journalists' recent work examined before embeds

By Charlie Reed, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Monday, August 24, 2009

As more journalists seek permission to accompany U.S. forces engaged in escalating military operations in Afghanistan, many of them could be screened by a controversial Washington-based public relations firm contracted by the Pentagon to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light.

U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to Stars and Stripes that any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress. That opposition group, reportedly funded by the CIA, furnished much of the false information about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.

Rendon examines individual reporters’ recent work and determines whether the coverage was “positive,” “negative” or “neutral” compared to mission objectives, according to Rendon officials. It conducts similar analysis of general reporting trends about the war for the military and has been contracted for such work since 2005, according to the company.

“We have not denied access to anyone because of what may or may not come out of their biography,” said Air Force Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a public affairs officer with U.S. Forces Afghanistan in Kabul. “It’s so we know with whom we’re working.”

U.S. Army officials in Iraq engaged in a similar vetting practice two months ago, when they barred a Stars and Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division because the reporter “refused to highlight” good news that military commanders wanted to emphasize.

Professional groups representing journalists are decrying the Pentagon’s screening of reporters.

“That’s the government doing things to put out the message they want to hear and that’s not the way journalism is meant to work in this country,” said Amy Mitchell, deputy director for Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

“The whole concept of doing profiles on reporters who are going to embed with the military is alarming,” said Ron Martz, president of the Military Reporters and Editors association.

“It speaks to this whole issue of trying to shape the message and that’s not something the military should be involved with,” he said.

Mathias said the Rendon reports are generated only after a reporter has been assigned to cover a unit and are done on an ad hoc basis, typically for lesser-known journalists and those new to covering the war in Afghanistan.

The reports are useful for familiarizing commanders with topics the journalists could address and for facilitating coverage specific to a journalist’s interests, she said.

Mathias also contended that the Pentagon has begun shifting away from the positive-negative-neutral scale and is now evaluating news coverage more for its accuracy......

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/08/...nistan_082509w/

Military denies media is ‘graded’ for embeds

By William H. McMichael - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday Aug 25, 2009

....“We don’t operate that way,” said Wayne Shanks, chief of public affairs for International Security Assistance Forces-Afghanistan....

....Shanks confirmed in an e-mailed response to questions that a contractor, public relations firm The Rendon Group, performs background profiles on reporters seeking embeds — as was reported Aug. 24 by the editorially independent Defense Department newspaper Stars and Stripes. But he said the information gathered is not used to determine whether an embed will be granted.

“This is simple research that anyone would use to prepare for an important meeting,” Shanks said.

Controversy swirls around The Rendon Group, which, as Stars and Stripes noted, helped create the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group reportedly funded by the CIA that furnished much false information about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. That information fueled the Bush administration’s argument for war but subsequently was widely debunked by investigators, including the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Defense officials acknowledge that they sometimes have to choose one reporter over another given space limitations at a particular time. That call, said Air Force Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis, public affairs adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is typically made in favor of larger news organizations but also reporters who have a reputation for accuracy....

http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3677410

Navy plans to outsource some public relations tasks

By PHILIP EWING

August 15, 2008

....The contract is for “indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity,” so it isn’t clear yet how much it will cost. When the vendor is settled, likely in September, its job will be to provide a “menu” of services intended to make complex jobs easier for Navy public affairs, Davis said, such as video production work and Web design.

The work won’t be limited to the Pentagon; the Navy hopes the “menu” concept will make life simpler for public affairs officers worldwide.

Greater Internet outreach is one of the most crucial parts of the deal, Davis said. Beyond its current jobs, CHINFO is looking for help especially with reaching people on the Internet through blogs, video-sharing sites such as YouTube and social networking tools such as MySpace. .....

.... According to the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, representatives from several major public relations firms attended a Navy presentation this summer on the contract. They included the Washington-based Rendon Group, which already has been involved with several Pentagon PR campaigns.

Other PR firms that attended the Navy’s briefing included the global agency Burson-Marsteller, which has had accounts with the tobacco industry and the U.S. Postal Service; the D.C.-based Lincoln Group, which was involved in the DoD program to pay for positive articles in Iraqi newspapers; Chicago-based GolinHarris, which has many well-known corporate clients, including McDonald’s and Nintendo; and the New York-based Hill & Knowlton, which handled many tobacco industry campaigns, major nonprofit organizations and many other large clients. ......

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story...o_sold_the_war/

The Man Who Sold the War

Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war

JAMES BAMFORD Posted Nov 17, 2005

....It was damning stuff -- just the kind of evidence the Bush administration was looking for. If the charges were true, they would offer the White House a compelling reason to invade Iraq and depose Saddam. That's why the Pentagon had flown a CIA polygraph expert to Pattaya: to question al-Haideri and confirm, once and for all, that Saddam was secretly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

There was only one problem: It was all a lie. After a review of the sharp peaks and deep valleys on the polygraph chart, the intelligence officer concluded that al-Haideri had made up the entire story, apparently in the hopes of securing a visa.

The fabrication might have ended there, the tale of another political refugee trying to scheme his way to a better life. But just because the story wasn't true didn't mean it couldn't be put to good use. Al-Haideri, in fact, was the product of a clandestine operation -- part espionage, part PR campaign -- that had been set up and funded by the CIA and the Pentagon for the express purpose of selling the world a war. And the man who had long been in charge of the marketing was a secretive and mysterious creature of the Washington establishment named John Rendon.

Rendon is a man who fills a need that few people even know exists. Two months before al-Haideri took the lie-detector test, the Pentagon had secretly awarded him a $16 million contract to target Iraq and other adversaries with propaganda. One of the most powerful people in Washington, Rendon is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management," manipulating information -- and, by extension, the news media -- to achieve the desired result. His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power." Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam. It was as if President John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson.

"They're very closemouthed about what they do," says Kevin McCauley, an editor of the industry trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily. "It's all cloak-and-dagger stuff."

Although Rendon denies any direct involvement with al-Haideri, the defector was the latest salvo in a secret media war set in motion by Rendon. In an operation directed by Ahmad Chalabi -- the man Rendon helped install as leader of the INC -- the defector had been brought to Thailand, where he huddled in a hotel room for days with the group's spokesman, Zaab Sethna. The INC routinely coached defectors on their stories, prepping them for polygraph exams, and Sethna was certainly up to the task -- he got his training in the art of propaganda on the payroll of the Rendon Group. According to Francis Brooke, the INC's man in Washington and himself a former Rendon employee, the goal of the al-Haideri operation was simple: pressure the United States to attack Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.

As the CIA official flew back to Washington with failed lie-detector charts in his briefcase, Chalabi and Sethna didn't hesitate. They picked up the phone, called two journalists who had a long history of helping the INC promote its cause and offered them an exclusive on Saddam's terrifying cache of WMDs.

For the worldwide broadcast rights, Sethna contacted Paul Moran, an Australian freelancer who frequently worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "I think I've got something that you would be interested in," he told Moran, who was living in Bahrain. Sethna knew he could count on the trim, thirty-eight-year-old journalist: A former INC employee in the Middle East, Moran had also been on Rendon's payroll for years in "information operations," working with Sethna at the company's London office on Catherine Place, near Buckingham Palace.

"We were trying to help the Kurds and the Iraqis opposed to Saddam set up a television station," Sethna recalled in a rare interview broadcast on Australian television. "The Rendon Group came to us and said, 'We have a contract to kind of do anti-Saddam propaganda on behalf of the Iraqi opposition.' What we didn't know -- what the Rendon Group didn't tell us -- was in fact it was the CIA that had hired them to do this work."

The INC's choice for the worldwide print exclusive was equally easy: Chalabi contacted Judith Miller of The New York Times. Miller, who was close to I. Lewis Libby and other neoconservatives in the Bush administration, had been a trusted outlet for the INC's anti-Saddam propaganda for years. Not long after the CIA polygraph expert slipped the straps and electrodes off al-Haideri and declared him a xxxx, Miller flew to Bangkok to interview him under the watchful supervision of his INC handlers. Miller later made perfunctory calls to the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, but despite her vaunted intelligence sources, she claimed not to know about the results of al-Haideri's lie-detector test. Instead, she reported that unnamed "government experts" called his information "reliable and significant" -- thus adding a veneer of truth to the lies.

Her front-page story, which hit the stands on December 20th, 2001, was exactly the kind of exposure Rendon had been hired to provide. AN IRAQI DEFECTOR TELLS OF WORK ON AT LEAST 20 HIDDEN WEAPONS SITES, declared the headline. "An Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer," Miller wrote, "said he personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in underground wells, private villas and under the Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad as recently as a year ago." If verified, she noted, "his allegations would provide ammunition to officials within the Bush administration who have been arguing that Mr. Hussein should be driven from power partly because of his unwillingness to stop making weapons of mass destruction, despite his pledges to do so."

For months, hawks inside and outside the administration had been pressing for a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. Now, thanks to Miller's story, they could point to "proof" of Saddam's "nuclear threat." The story, reinforced by Moran's on-camera interview with al-Haideri on the giant Australian Broadcasting Corp., was soon being trumpeted by the White House and repeated by newspapers and television networks around the world. It was the first in a long line of hyped and fraudulent stories that would eventually propel the U.S. into a war with Iraq -- the first war based almost entirely on a covert propaganda campaign targeting the media.

By law, the Bush administration is expressly prohibited from disseminating government propaganda at home. But in an age of global communications, there is nothing to stop it from planting a phony pro-war story overseas -- knowing with certainty that it will reach American citizens almost instantly. A recent congressional report suggests that the Pentagon may be relying on "covert psychological operations affecting audiences within friendly nations." In a "secret amendment" to Pentagon policy, the report warns, "psyops funds might be used to publish stories favorable to American policies, or hire outside contractors without obvious ties to the Pentagon to organize rallies in support of administration policies." The report also concludes that military planners are shifting away from the Cold War view that power comes from superior weapons systems. Instead, the Pentagon now believes that "combat power can be enhanced by communications networks and technologies that control access to, and directly manipulate, information. As a result, information itself is now both a tool and a target of warfare."

It is a belief John Rendon encapsulated in a speech to cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1996. "I am not a national-security strategist or a military tactician," he declared. "I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager." To explain his philosophy, Rendon paraphrased a journalist he knew from his days as a staffer on the presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter: "This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote, 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"...

http://www.prweekus.com/Comms-pros-c...article/57436/

Comms pros consult on US military report

Ted McKenna

July 30, 2007

ARLINGTON, VA: The RAND Corporation consulted with a number of top PR and marketing experts when creating a recently released report urging the US military to think of itself as a brand that must ensure its communications are met with appropriate actions.

The $400,000 report, Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation, which was commissioned by the US Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) and is available at www.rand.org, discussed how the military could effectively use corporate branding and communications strategies and techniques for operations in Iraq and elsewhere.

Executives from Burson-Marsteller, Weber Shandwick, J.D. Power, the Rendon Group, and the Lincoln Group, among others; marketing professors at NYU and Northwestern; and various military experts aided the report.

The key message of the report, said lead author Todd Helmus, who is a clinical psychologist by training, but has spent the past three years studying lessons learned by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that like any corporate brand, the US military must make sure its actions match its words. Otherwise, it won't receive the trust or support of the ever-critical civilian population on which military operations ultimately depend.

"Our point in the report is that actions speak louder than words," Helmus said. "You can't build positive relationships with people in war zones by just saying good things. You have to do good things."

The report coincides with Congressional discussions over the 2008 defense appropriations bill, including debate over continued funding for the controversial Guantanamo military prison.

In practice, that means being as up-front as possible about, for instance, accidental civilian casualties or other mistakes that can potentially be used for propaganda purposes by the adversary. With the prevalence and immediacy of the Internet, that means a focus on online communications, which the report, as well as a number of PR experts, says has not been utilized as effectively as possible by the US military.

WS chairman Jack Leslie, who was consulted for the report, said the US government is increasingly willing to study best practices from the corporate world.

"Especially now, given the radical changes going on in the marketing world, there are all sorts of innovations happening in corporate marketing that the government would like to access," he added. "This is a convenient way to do it, and it doesn't require a big contract with individual agencies."

DBD Worldwide chairman Keith Reinhard, also consulted for the report, agreed that government agencies are embracing corporate communications principles, but he said funding for their adoption remains generally too low.

While insurgent forces in Iraq and elsewhere have done a good job projecting or "shaping" their global image via the use of multimedia online, including videos of "jihadis," cell phone messages, and even video games, US policies such as the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act - which prohibits the government from directing propaganda at US audiences - prevent the US military from engaging as extensively and effectively as it could with an online audience, said the report.

Paige Craig, ex-president and now a board member of the Lincoln Group, which is conducting polls in Iraq to study the attitudes and perceptions of Iraqis on rule of law, support for violent groups, and other issues, said US military adversaries have great propaganda.

"It doesn't look as flashy as something you'd find on Madison Avenue, but it's very effective," he said. "It's almost embarrassing to sit here and realize we've got the talent and ability to counter what the adversary makes; it's simply a matter of policy."

Helmus said that the new report, like others commissioned by the USJFCOM, will enter a process of evaluation to determine its merits and how recommendations can be tested and put into action.

A spokesperson for USJFCOM, which is tasked by the US Defense Department with "transforming" the US military through new technologies and practices, said officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/6306#comment-2324

Military Propaganda in the US

Submitted by The Walsh Wire on Thu, 08/02/2007 - 16:19.

Two most important elements of a fascist state are an all-controlling wealthy/corporate class working in concert with a permanent political class and a sophisticated public brainwashing mechanism. We now have the former,if we are not careful,we soon have the latter.

The fact that the military would be so confident as to even consider such a path should be evidence enough to show how far along we have come in throwing away our liberty.......

[Guest Tom Scully]

The CIA, via its "media assets", is going to go "all out"....even threatening to pick up its ball and go home in reaction to the timid whitewash that is the investigation into the CIA destruction of its "torture tapes" and now, Eric Holder's "hand off" to the Connecticut AUSA, a registered republican voter who has been "investigating" the destruction of the video tapes since January, 2008 with no public disclosure of that investigation's progress, if there is any:

(US Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement last week of a "preliminary" investigation into the possibility that laws may have been broken, and the limits to the inquiry he announced, make this the most tepid actions a DOJ head could announce, in the face of what has actually happened, if Holder wanted to keep up the pretense that he is the titular head of law enforcement of the executive branch. The CIA is sending us these messages in reaction to an investigation that is described by Holder as limited to the hands on suspects. Instead of protesting that this is a sham so similar to the Abu Ghraib charade where no one at command or policy making level was implicated in the abuses, despite the evidence that the rank and file could not have acted without complicity and direction of command, the message allegedly sent from the CIA today amounts to a threat of a political nature, at the Obama administration, despite the strong possibility that this is a minimal, DOJ inquiry not intended to earnestly investigate if laws were brokern, but to protect the CIA, Bush Cheney, and now the complicity of those in the Obama administration (John Brennan) who support and have continued what amounts to the same, illegal policies.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...d=moreheadlines

Ex-Intelligence Officials Cite Low Spirits at CIA

IG Report's Release, Looming Investigation Into Detainee Interrogations Blamed

By Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, August 30, 2009

..... "Morale at the agency is down to minus 50," he said.

At the same time, former inspector general John L. Helgerson, whose review of the program was largely declassified Monday, said that the release, though painful, would ensure that the agency confronts difficult issues head on, instead of ignoring or trying to bury them.

Helgerson also said it would be "very difficult" to mount a successful prosecution of any of the individuals who participated in the program. The Bush-era Justice Department "approved the program orally and in writing; the agency's chain of command was involved. There would be no jury appeal, and I do not believe there was any criminal intent among those involved," Helgerson said. .....

....Krongard, one of the few active or retired CIA officers with direct knowledge of the program willing to voice publicly what many officers are saying privately, said agency personnel now may back away from controversial programs that could place them in personal legal jeopardy should their work be exposed. "The old saying goes, 'Big operation, big risk; small operation, small risk; no operation, no risk.' "

"If you're not in the intelligence business to be forward-leaning, you might as well not be in it," Krongard said. .....

.....Helgerson's review showed that CIA officials involved in the program anticipated the possibility of disclosure and investigation. "A number of agency officers of various grade levels . . . involved with detention and interrogation activities are concerned that they may at some future date be vulnerable to legal action . . . and that the U.S. government will not stand behind them," the 2004 report reads.

Helgerson now says he received a steady flow of information, questions and encouragement during his inquiry. "Frankly, I could not walk through the cafeteria without people walking up to me, not to complain but to say, 'More power to you.' "

Former senior officials say that they were concerned with what was an unprecedented program and that as reports came in from secret sites alleging improper activities, they took action, including sending reports to Helgerson.

One former official cited the case of an officer who threatened a nude and hooded al-Qaeda member, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, by holding a gun to his head and later a hand drill.

"A security officer reported the gun to head that day," he said. The next day, that officer was flown back home and action was taken, he added. ....

The Washington Post is having a busy weekend in its role as CIA mouthpiece:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...post/index.html

Saturday Aug. 29, 2009 11:30 EDT

The Washington Post's Cheney-ite defense of torture

(updated below - Update II)

If anyone ever tells you that they don't understand what is meant by "stenography journalism" -- or ever insists that America is plagued by a Liberal Media -- you can show them this article from today's Washington Post and, by itself, it should clear up everything. ....

Here's the essence of the article, presented -- in terms of tone, length and placement -- as a Vital New Scoop:

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials" . . . .

These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its "preeminent source" on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques. . . .

[F]or defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general's report and other documents released this week indicate.

Who are the Post's sources for this full-scale vindication of Dick Cheney's defense of torture? "Two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified"; "one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding"; "one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out said"; "One former agency official." It's unclear how much overlap there is in that orgy of pro-Cheney anonymity, but there is not a single on-the-record source to corroborate the Torture-Saved-Us-From-Mass-Death narrative, nor is there even a shred of information about the motives or views of these "officials."...

Edited August 30, 2009 by Tom Scully

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

The CIA, via its "media assets", is going to go "all out"....even threatening to pick up its ball and go home in reaction to the timid whitewash that is the investigation into the CIA destruction of its "torture tapes" and now, Eric Holder's "hand off" to the Connecticut AUSA, a registered republican voter who has been "investigating" the destruction of the video tapes since January, 2008 with no public disclosure of that investigation's progress, if there is any:

(US Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement last week of a "preliminary" investigation into the possibility that laws may have been broken, and the limits to the inquiry he announced, make this the most tepid actions a DOJ head could announce, in the face of what has actually happened, if Holder wanted to keep up the pretense that he is the titular head of law enforcement of the executive branch. The CIA is sending us these messages in reaction to an investigation that is described by Holder as limited to the hands on suspects. Instead of protesting that this is a sham so similar to the Abu Ghraib charade where no one at command or policy making level was implicated in the abuses, despite the evidence that the rank and file could not have acted without complicity and direction of command, the message allegedly sent from the CIA today amounts to a threat of a political nature, at the Obama administration, despite the strong possibility that this is a minimal, DOJ inquiry not intended to earnestly investigate if laws were brokern, but to protect the CIA, Bush Cheney, and now the complicity of those in the Obama administration (John Brennan) who support and have continued what amounts to the same, illegal policies.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...d=moreheadlines

Ex-Intelligence Officials Cite Low Spirits at CIA

IG Report's Release, Looming Investigation Into Detainee Interrogations Blamed

By Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, August 30, 2009

..... "Morale at the agency is down to minus 50," he said.

At the same time, former inspector general John L. Helgerson, whose review of the program was largely declassified Monday, said that the release, though painful, would ensure that the agency confronts difficult issues head on, instead of ignoring or trying to bury them.

Helgerson also said it would be "very difficult" to mount a successful prosecution of any of the individuals who participated in the program. The Bush-era Justice Department "approved the program orally and in writing; the agency's chain of command was involved. There would be no jury appeal, and I do not believe there was any criminal intent among those involved," Helgerson said. .....

....Krongard, one of the few active or retired CIA officers with direct knowledge of the program willing to voice publicly what many officers are saying privately, said agency personnel now may back away from controversial programs that could place them in personal legal jeopardy should their work be exposed. "The old saying goes, 'Big operation, big risk; small operation, small risk; no operation, no risk.' "

"If you're not in the intelligence business to be forward-leaning, you might as well not be in it," Krongard said. .....

.....Helgerson's review showed that CIA officials involved in the program anticipated the possibility of disclosure and investigation. "A number of agency officers of various grade levels . . . involved with detention and interrogation activities are concerned that they may at some future date be vulnerable to legal action . . . and that the U.S. government will not stand behind them," the 2004 report reads.

Helgerson now says he received a steady flow of information, questions and encouragement during his inquiry. "Frankly, I could not walk through the cafeteria without people walking up to me, not to complain but to say, 'More power to you.' "

Former senior officials say that they were concerned with what was an unprecedented program and that as reports came in from secret sites alleging improper activities, they took action, including sending reports to Helgerson.

One former official cited the case of an officer who threatened a nude and hooded al-Qaeda member, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, by holding a gun to his head and later a hand drill.

"A security officer reported the gun to head that day," he said. The next day, that officer was flown back home and action was taken, he added. ....

The Washington Post is having a busy weekend in its role as CIA mouthpiece:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...post/index.html

Saturday Aug. 29, 2009 11:30 EDT

The Washington Post's Cheney-ite defense of torture

(updated below - Update II)

If anyone ever tells you that they don't understand what is meant by "stenography journalism" -- or ever insists that America is plagued by a Liberal Media -- you can show them this article from today's Washington Post and, by itself, it should clear up everything. ....

Here's the essence of the article, presented -- in terms of tone, length and placement -- as a Vital New Scoop:

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials" . . . .

These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its "preeminent source" on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques. . . .

[F]or defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general's report and other documents released this week indicate.

Who are the Post's sources for this full-scale vindication of Dick Cheney's defense of torture? "Two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified"; "one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding"; "one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out said"; "One former agency official." It's unclear how much overlap there is in that orgy of pro-Cheney anonymity, but there is not a single on-the-record source to corroborate the Torture-Saved-Us-From-Mass-Death narrative, nor is there even a shred of information about the motives or views of these "officials."...

------------------

Call off those vicious and ever vigilant watchdogs Reid and Pelosi! We wouldnt want to force to the CIA onto an overdose of more antidepressants. Thanks Walter Pincus for more protection of the Agency from that wild Far Left Communist Harry Reid! This is remarkably consistent with the historian Kathy Olmsteads book on the role of the NYT and WaPost in turning public opinion against the Church and Pike Commissions during the "year of Intelligence" 1975-76.

[Guest Tom Scully]

The CIA, via its "media assets", is going to go "all out"....even threatening to pick up its ball and go home in reaction to the timid whitewash that is the investigation into the CIA destruction of its "torture tapes" and now, Eric Holder's "hand off" to the Connecticut AUSA, a registered republican voter who has been "investigating" the destruction of the video tapes since January, 2008 with no public disclosure of that investigation's progress, if there is any:

(US Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement last week of a "preliminary" investigation into the possibility that laws may have been broken, and the limits to the inquiry he announced, make this the most tepid actions a DOJ head could announce, in the face of what has actually happened, if Holder wanted to keep up the pretense that he is the titular head of law enforcement of the executive branch. The CIA is sending us these messages in reaction to an investigation that is described by Holder as limited to the hands on suspects. Instead of protesting that this is a sham so similar to the Abu Ghraib charade where no one at command or policy making level was implicated in the abuses, despite the evidence that the rank and file could not have acted without complicity and direction of command, the message allegedly sent from the CIA today amounts to a threat of a political nature, at the Obama administration, despite the strong possibility that this is a minimal, DOJ inquiry not intended to earnestly investigate if laws were brokern, but to protect the CIA, Bush Cheney, and now the complicity of those in the Obama administration (John Brennan) who support and have continued what amounts to the same, illegal policies.)......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...d=moreheadlines

Ex-Intelligence Officials Cite Low Spirits at CIA

IG Report's Release, Looming Investigation Into Detainee Interrogations Blamed

By Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, August 30, 2009

The Washington Post is having a busy weekend in its role as CIA mouthpiece:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...post/index.html

Saturday Aug. 29, 2009 11:30 EDT

The Washington Post's Cheney-ite defense of torture

(updated below - Update II)

If anyone ever tells you that they don't understand what is meant by "stenography journalism" -- or ever insists that America is plagued by a Liberal Media -- you can show them this article from today's Washington Post and, by itself, it should clear up everything. ....

------------------

Call off those vicious and ever vigilant watchdogs Reid and Pelosi! We wouldnt want to force to the CIA onto an overdose of more antidepressants. Thanks Walter Pincus for more protection of the Agency from that wild Far Left Communist Harry Reid! This is remarkably consistent with the historian Kathy Olmsteads book on the role of the NYT and WaPost in turning public opinion against the Church and Pike Commissions during the "year of Intelligence" 1975-76.

I just posted comments and links related to CIA asset, Joseph Finder's latest (his second performance in the last ten days....) session as organist on the Mighty Wurlitzer, on the "Blackwater Latest" thread:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=171682

....and maybe the CIA, via Mr. Finder, is trying a potentially more productive tactic in it's perceived need to "shape" public opinion in it's favor:

(The author of the following comments is an attorney, albeit one who is one of a progressive duo responsible for this prominent blog.....)

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/08/...nted-nyt-op-ed/

......Perhaps it is appropriate that Joseph Finder considers himself a novelist, in light of the pro-torture fiction he has written in his side job as a national security "reporter". Clearly, reporter is a subjective term in light of Finder's background Jeff Kaye pointed out. Mr. Finder appears to be a card carrying member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), but says:

"I was never on the CIA’s payroll. I was recruited by the CIA, but when I got to Langley, they showed me the cubicle where I’d be sitting and translating Soviet economic journals from Russian into English, and I said, “No thanks.” That wasn’t exactly Jason Bourne stuff…"

Finder isn't an intelligence professional, but he pines to play one on the opinion pages of the New York Times. Booyah. I would have been tempted to ask where exactly Finder got his slanted views on all this, but Jason Leopold gave us a hint: finder has been on the rubber chicken merry go round with Mike Hayden and Mike Chertoff. Must have thought that was a good substitute for talking to actual trial lawyers about how such complex things such as estoppel/preclusion would really apply here (they wouldn't; this is pure unadulterated bunk) or ho fickle juries are and how only a fool would say with certainty (which is exactly what Finder did) how a jury would rule when he has no idea what the admissible evidence set would be. when you can do the rubber chicken with Mike & Mike, who needs accuracy I guess.

In fairness, Finder does get a little closer to reality toward the end of his piece with the discussion of the inequality of Holder not going after the higher ups and that the way the investigation (that would actually be "preliminary review") is currently framed has the appearance of an abu-Ghraib/Lyndie England deal. So there is a minor bit of cogent discussion, assuming you can wade through the initial forrest. But that initial forrest is very dense.

Edited August 30, 2009 by Tom Scully

[John Simkin]

Was the destruction of Simon Dee's career and example of Operation Mockingbird?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14731

[John Simkin]

The Sunday Times chief foreign correspondent, David Holden was murdered in December 1977 soon after arriving in Cairo to report on Israeli-Egyptian peace-talks. At first, the authorities told the editor, Harold Evans, that Holden had probably been murdered by a taxi-driver. The motive was that Holden had made sexual advances towards the man.

Evans sent three of his top journalists to investigate Holden’s death. They soon discovered that the original theory was clearly wrong. Holden’s body was found on a piece of waste ground. He was on his back, his feet neatly together, his arms folded across the chest. All marks that might suggest his identity or nationality had been removed, including the maker’s label in his jacket.

The manner of his death was equally methodical. He had been shot once from behind with a short-cartridge 9mm automatic. The range was so close that his jacket was scorched. The killer had aimed his gun down-ward so that the bullet would pierce Holden’s heart.

Research by the police discovered that Holden had not been picked up by a registered taxi-driver at the airport. Eventually, a white Fiat had been found abandoned. In the boot they found Holden’s suitcase and his portable typewriter. They also found his notes for the book he was writing on Saudi Arabia. Missing were his passport, his camera, any exposed films and any material he had accumulated on his trip. As the officer in charge of the case remarked: “It looks as if the killers knew what they were looking for.”

The airport was teeming with security men. Therefore, he could not have been forced into the car. It is assumed the only reason he willingly got into the car was because he trusted the people whom he met at the airport.

A second Fiat car was found abandoned. This one included the cartridge case matching the 9mm bullet. Holden’s bloodstains were also found in the car. The headrest on the passenger seat had been removed to make it easier for the gunman to shoot Holden from behind. The missing headrest was found in the first car.

Nearly a month later, a third Fiat was found with documents from the murder car. All three Fiats had been stolen in identical fashion. The first car had been stolen on the day following Holden’s decision to take the assignment. The car that contained his belongings was stolen the day after Holden agreed to report on the peace-talks. (He initially refused the assignment because he was working on a book about Saudi Arabia.)

The other two cars were stolen on the day that Holden booked his flight from Jerusalem to Cairo. The journalists investigating the case came to the conclusion it was a well-planned assassination.

One of the surprising aspects of the case was that the killers appeared to have precise details of Holden’s movements. For example, Holden appears to have been followed as he went via Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank before arriving in Cairo.

It was initially assumed that the Holden had been killed by Fatah hardcore rejectionists, who were attempting to sabotage Sadat’s peace initiative. However, this made no sense as Holden was seen as someone sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Fatah’s chairman, Yasser Arafat, told them that the Sunday Times had been regarded as a “friend of the cause” because it had campaigned against the ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Another theory was that Holden was a victim of mistaken identity. David Hirst of the Guardian had angered Sadat by writing several articles about corruption in the Egyptian government.

About a month after the killing of Holden, an intelligence source told one of the Sunday Times journalists that: “the killers knew exactly when Holden would arrive in Cairo because they got the information from the horse’s mouth”. In other words, the organisation responsible for his death had a spy within the offices of the Sunday Times.

Evans also discovered that incoming messages about the case were being stolen from the telex room. Evans called in Scotland Yard and it was decided to set-up a sting operation. The police’s C-10 surveillance unit hid infrared cameras to monitor office movements. Police officers also worked undercover at the Sunday Times. Evans points out in his recently published autobiography: “We then baited the trap.” Department heads were told there had been a breakthrough by senior reporter Paul Eddy who was working in Cairo on the case. However, the cameras failed to pick up anyone stealing Eddy’s messages being sent to the telex room. Evans points out in his autobiography: “I began to think I’d made a mistake letting the Foreign Office know that we’d detected the thefts. What if our own secret intelligence service (MI6) had played some role in the abduction of Holden?”

Further research showed that when Holden was on the way to Cairo he had a meeting with two American archaeologists, John and Isobel Fistere in Amman. Holden had originally met the Fisteres in Beirut in 1963. They were with Kim Philby just before he fled to the Soviet Union. It was generally believed that the Fisteres were keeping watch on Philby on behalf of the CIA. Later the Fisteres denied eyewitness accounts that they spent time with Holden. According to them, they only met with him briefly in the hotel press centre. The journalists also discovered that Holden had a meeting with an academic at Birzeit University. Later it was revealed that he was a paid agent of the CIA.

The Sunday Times then discovered that the CIA had a file on Holden that contained 33 documents. This dates back to a close relationship he had with Leo Silberman, a former communist who was a supporter of Israel but also an anti-Zionist. According to Silberman’s brother, the two men had been lovers. This came as a surprise as Holden, who was married to Ruth Lynam, a photojournalist, was known to be a very active heterosexual. Silberman died in 1960.

The investigating journalists became convinced that Holden had been working for the CIA. This was linked to his reporting of CIA involvement in Cuba and Chile. For example, his reports in 1973 strongly denied that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of President Allende.

In 1988 the Sunday Times was told by a senior US diplomat in the Middle East that Holden had been killed on the orders of the CIA but it had been carried out by Egyptian agents.

After looking at all the evidence Harold Evans become convinced that the CIA was involved in the death of Holden. He had been informed that the Holden case was the “liquidation of an asset”. This belief was increased when the CIA and FBI blocked efforts to see American intelligence files on Holden under the US Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the CIA argued that Holden had been killed by Egyptian terrorists who wanted his press credentials.

The question remains why? By 1977 Holden was clearly not willing to be part of Operation Mockingbird. However, that is no real reason to kill him. Unless, of course, he was willing to write about how the CIA had been manipulating the foreign press since 1947.

[Terry Mauro]

This idea that the CIA controls the "US Media" is another red herring. Take a look for example at Lord Conrad Black's "Hollinger Corporation"

Internationally, Hollinger became the world’s third-largest newspaper empire, with more than 500 titles. As well as the Telegraph Group, it included the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, numerous American papers, and newspapers with more than half of all Canadian daily newspaper circulation.

Black controlled all of this, including the newspaper group’s publicly listed company, Hollinger Inc., via Ravelston, Black’s own private equity vehicle, which owned 78 percent of Hollinger Inc., Hollinger International’s parent company. Through a complicated minority share holding, he also controlled Hollinger International.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/holl-s16.shtml

The case of Lord Beaverbrook has even more profound and enduring implications, given that two of the leading financial-political propagandists for today's neo-conservative revolution in Washington -- press magnates Lord Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch -- are Beaverbrook proteges. The Australian Murdoch, on graduating Oxford, did an apprenticeship at Beaverbrook's London Daily Express, which Murdoch referred affectionately to as "Beaverbrook's brothel."

For Black, the connection ran deeper -- through the wartime British secret intelligence high command. Conrad Black's father, George Montagu Black, worked directly under the Beaverbrook chain of command during World War II, when Beaverbrook was Minister of Aircraft Production, and when Black and Edward Plunkett Taylor ran the Canadian front company War Supplies, Ltd. out of the Willard Hotel in Washington, coordinating all British-American-Canadian military procurement arrangements. The $1.3 billion garnered by Taylor and Black from their wartime "private" arms deals provided the seed money for G.M. Black's postwar launching of the Argus Corp., which, today, is the Hollinger Corp. media cartel of Conrad Black.

Edited September 9, 2009 by Terry Mauro

[John Simkin]

This idea that the CIA controls the "US Media" is another red herring. Take a look for example at Lord Conrad Black's "Hollinger Corporation"

Internationally, Hollinger became the world’s third-largest newspaper empire, with more than 500 titles. As well as the Telegraph Group, it included the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, numerous American papers, and newspapers with more than half of all Canadian daily newspaper circulation.

Black controlled all of this, including the newspaper group’s publicly listed company, Hollinger Inc., via Ravelston, Black’s own private equity vehicle, which owned 78 percent of Hollinger Inc., Hollinger International’s parent company. Through a complicated minority share holding, he also controlled Hollinger International.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/holl-s16.shtml

The case of Lord Beaverbrook has even more profound and enduring implications, given that two of the leading financial-political propagandists for today's neo-conservative revolution in Washington -- press magnates Lord Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch -- are Beaverbrook proteges. The Australian Murdoch, on graduating Oxford, did an apprenticeship at Beaverbrook's London Daily Express, which Murdoch referred affectionately to as "Beaverbrook's brothel."

For Black, the connection ran deeper -- through the wartime British secret intelligence high command. Conrad Black's father, George Montagu Black, worked directly under the Beaverbrook chain of command during World War II, when Beaverbrook was Minister of Aircraft Production, and when Black and Edward Plunkett Taylor ran the Canadian front company War Supplies, Ltd. out of the Willard Hotel in Washington, coordinating all British-American-Canadian military procurement arrangements. The $1.3 billion garnered by Taylor and Black from their wartime "private" arms deals provided the seed money for G.M. Black's postwar launching of the Argus Corp., which, today, is the Hollinger Corp. media cartel of Conrad Black.

I do not understand the logic of this argument. Just because Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch have a great deal of influence does not mean that the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird does not exist. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that the CIA have infiltrated British newspapers. Harold Evans, who was editor of the Sunday Times, argues in his recently published autobiography, that his chief foreign reporter, David Holden, was under the control of the CIA in the 1970s. He uses the example of his reporting in Chile as an example of this. What is more, Evans’ argues that when Holden refused to follow orders the CIA had him murdered in Egypt.

[John Simkin]

The Sunday Times chief foreign correspondent, David Holden was murdered in December 1977 soon after arriving in Cairo to report on Israeli-Egyptian peace-talks. At first, the authorities told the editor, Harold Evans, that Holden had probably been murdered by a taxi-driver. The motive was that Holden had made sexual advances towards the man.

Evans sent three of his top journalists to investigate Holden’s death. They soon discovered that the original theory was clearly wrong. Holden’s body was found on a piece of waste ground. He was on his back, his feet neatly together, his arms folded across the chest. All marks that might suggest his identity or nationality had been removed, including the maker’s label in his jacket.

The manner of his death was equally methodical. He had been shot once from behind with a short-cartridge 9mm automatic. The range was so close that his jacket was scorched. The killer had aimed his gun down-ward so that the bullet would pierce Holden’s heart.

Research by the police discovered that Holden had not been picked up by a registered taxi-driver at the airport. Eventually, a white Fiat had been found abandoned. In the boot they found Holden’s suitcase and his portable typewriter. They also found his notes for the book he was writing on Saudi Arabia. Missing were his passport, his camera, any exposed films and any material he had accumulated on his trip. As the officer in charge of the case remarked: “It looks as if the killers knew what they were looking for.”

The airport was teeming with security men. Therefore, he could not have been forced into the car. It is assumed the only reason he willingly got into the car was because he trusted the people whom he met at the airport.

A second Fiat car was found abandoned. This one included the cartridge case matching the 9mm bullet. Holden’s bloodstains were also found in the car. The headrest on the passenger seat had been removed to make it easier for the gunman to shoot Holden from behind. The missing headrest was found in the first car.

Nearly a month later, a third Fiat was found with documents from the murder car. All three Fiats had been stolen in identical fashion. The first car had been stolen on the day following Holden’s decision to take the assignment. The car that contained his belongings was stolen the day after Holden agreed to report on the peace-talks. (He initially refused the assignment because he was working on a book about Saudi Arabia.)

The other two cars were stolen on the day that Holden booked his flight from Jerusalem to Cairo. The journalists investigating the case came to the conclusion it was a well-planned assassination.

One of the surprising aspects of the case was that the killers appeared to have precise details of Holden’s movements. For example, Holden appears to have been followed as he went via Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank before arriving in Cairo.

It was initially assumed that the Holden had been killed by Fatah hardcore rejectionists, who were attempting to sabotage Sadat’s peace initiative. However, this made no sense as Holden was seen as someone sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Fatah’s chairman, Yasser Arafat, told them that the Sunday Times had been regarded as a “friend of the cause” because it had campaigned against the ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Another theory was that Holden was a victim of mistaken identity. David Hirst of the Guardian had angered Sadat by writing several articles about corruption in the Egyptian government.

About a month after the killing of Holden, an intelligence source told one of the Sunday Times journalists that: “the killers knew exactly when Holden would arrive in Cairo because they got the information from the horse’s mouth”. In other words, the organisation responsible for his death had a spy within the offices of the Sunday Times.

Evans also discovered that incoming messages about the case were being stolen from the telex room. Evans called in Scotland Yard and it was decided to set-up a sting operation. The police’s C-10 surveillance unit hid infrared cameras to monitor office movements. Police officers also worked undercover at the Sunday Times. Evans points out in his recently published autobiography: “We then baited the trap.” Department heads were told there had been a breakthrough by senior reporter Paul Eddy who was working in Cairo on the case. However, the cameras failed to pick up anyone stealing Eddy’s messages being sent to the telex room. Evans points out in his autobiography: “I began to think I’d made a mistake letting the Foreign Office know that we’d detected the thefts. What if our own secret intelligence service (MI6) had played some role in the abduction of Holden?”

Further research showed that when Holden was on the way to Cairo he had a meeting with two American archaeologists, John and Isobel Fistere in Amman. Holden had originally met the Fisteres in Beirut in 1963. They were with Kim Philby just before he fled to the Soviet Union. It was generally believed that the Fisteres were keeping watch on Philby on behalf of the CIA. Later the Fisteres denied eyewitness accounts that they spent time with Holden. According to them, they only met with him briefly in the hotel press centre. The journalists also discovered that Holden had a meeting with an academic at Birzeit University. Later it was revealed that he was a paid agent of the CIA.

The Sunday Times then discovered that the CIA had a file on Holden that contained 33 documents. This dates back to a close relationship he had with Leo Silberman, a former communist who was a supporter of Israel but also an anti-Zionist. According to Silberman’s brother, the two men had been lovers. This came as a surprise as Holden, who was married to Ruth Lynam, a photojournalist, was known to be a very active heterosexual. Silberman died in 1960.

The investigating journalists became convinced that Holden had been working for the CIA. This was linked to his reporting of CIA involvement in Cuba and Chile. For example, his reports in 1973 strongly denied that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of President Allende.

In 1988 the Sunday Times was told by a senior US diplomat in the Middle East that Holden had been killed on the orders of the CIA but it had been carried out by Egyptian agents.

After looking at all the evidence Harold Evans become convinced that the CIA was involved in the death of Holden. He had been informed that the Holden case was the “liquidation of an asset”. This belief was increased when the CIA and FBI blocked efforts to see American intelligence files on Holden under the US Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the CIA argued that Holden had been killed by Egyptian terrorists who wanted his press credentials.

The question remains why? By 1977 Holden was clearly not willing to be part of Operation Mockingbird. However, that is no real reason to kill him. Unless, of course, he was willing to write about how the CIA had been manipulating the foreign press since 1947.

I received this interesting email on David Holden:

Very intrigued by your elegant entry on Holden, which I'd like to refer to in a footnote to the Wikipedia article that I am battling to get retained in toto on Wikipedia. The original entry on Holden was written by a semi-literate fool. It was corrected by me, My version was then bowdlerized to remove anything remotely anti-Zionist, which left it a little nonsensical. I've just thrown my version back into the fray.I question several of your assertions, beginning with your reconstruction of Holden's itinerary en route for Cairo, but I certainly do not necessarily disagree with even the most outrageous of them. I might add that I was living in Cairo at the time and knew all the currently resident British journalists and diplomats. One of the former told me he knew that who dunnit, but was afraid to say.

[Guest Tom Scully]

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby????

Does anyone know the PIMARY source of this quotation, if in fact it is real?

Nathaniel,

This book by David Hoffman was published in April, 1998, pre-dating the use oif the Coilby quote by Dave McGowan:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6235367/The-Okla...y-David-Hoffman

The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, by David Hoffman

At the bottom of page 306:

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - William Colby, former CIA Director

An html page version of David Hoffman's book chapter with the relevant quote:

http://www.constitution.org/ocbpt/ocbpt_06.htm

To view the Colby quote, scroll down half way to just below this heading: "Frank Keating: Damage Control Inc."

...."The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - William Colby, former CIA Director

Eight months after the bombing, Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key, dissatisfied with the "official" investigation, ....

If this reference is to the same David Hoffman, it may help to confirm Hoffman as the primary source of the Colby, "agency owns everyone", quote.:

http://books.google.com/books?id=8hLMOrL38...lby&f=false

Lost crusader: the secret wars of CIA director William Colby By John Prados

Page 208

.....Colby began his CORDS day with a 7:15 am class in Vietnamese. In the field he pursued facts tirelessly. The people Colby questioned had better know the answers.

The CORDS chief tried to get out of Saigon every other day; as he said to jpurnalist David Hoffman, "Youi can't really learn much just sitting in that building."....

Edited October 6, 2009 by Tom Scully

[Kathleen Collins]

This is a long thread. I wonder if there was talk of Geraldo Rivera.

I used to like the show on CNBC called Rivera Live at 9 pm weeknights. I watched him faithfully for around 5 years. That is why his remark took me by shock.

At the end of one of his shows, Geraldo, appropos of nothing, sat there and shook his head like he couldn't believe the inanity of it. Then he said: "Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy, alone, by himself. There was no conspiracy," he said with contempt. And the show ended. The next week, I'm watching and he said, "I have bad tidings. I will be leaving this show for another job at Fox News. I'm a reporter and I have to be where the action is. (Afghanistan)"

He took a job as Foreign Correspondant for Fox News. There must have been great inducement for him to sell out and claim Oswald killed Kennedy. And here it was: a new job and a huge career move. Financial Security. Even his brother is in the act. To me, it was betrayal of the worst kind. Maybe someday he'll run for political office. I wouldn't be surprised. I think he went over to the other side via Operation Mockingbird.

Kathy C