Operation Mockingbird Options

[John Simkin]

John wrote:


"I am of the opinion that the CIA is still able to block the mainstream media from discussing this subject in a rational way."

John just how do you suppose the CIA accomplishes this?

As I have I said I have made these points many times before. See for example, my page on Operation Mockingbird and the forum thread on this subject.

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

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5142

I also wrote the Wikipedia entry for Operation Mockingbird with a full list of references (it originally said that Operation Mockingbird was an urban myth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

However, last night I was reading Ed Haslam's "Dr. Mary's Monkey" and he mentions that because of the Freedom of Information Act he and others have discovered the ways that Alton Ochsner, a CIA asset, helped to smear Mark Lane.

In 1967 Jim Garrison began investigating the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. Ochsner told a friend that he feared Garrison would order his arrest and the seizure of INCA's corporate records. Ochsner attacked the Garrison investigation as being unpatriotic because it eroded public confidence and threatened the stability of the American government. In his article, Social Origins of Anticommunism: The Information Council of the Americas (Louisiana History, Spring 1989) Arthur Carpenter claimed that Ochsner launched a propaganda campaign against Garrison. This included sending information to a friend who was the publisher of the Nashville Banner.

According to Carpenter, Ochsner also attempted to discredit Mark Lane, who was assisting the Garrison investigation. He told Felix Edward Hebert that Lane was "a professional propagandist of the lunatic left". Ochsner also instructed Herbert to tell Edwin E. Willis (Chairman of the House Committee) to dig up "whatever information you can" on Lane.

Felix Edward Hebert later sent Ochsner a report on Mark Lane extracted from confidential government files. This included "the files of the New York City Police, the FBI, and other security agencies." These files claimed that Lane was "a sadist and masochist, charged on numerous occasions with sodomy". Hebert also supplied Ochsner with a photograph that was supposed to be Lane engaged in a sadomasochistic act with a prostitute.

Mark Lane already knew about this smear campaign. This is what he says about this in his book Plausible Denial (1991):

More than a decade after the assassination, when I won a lawsuit against various police and spy organizations in the United States district court in Washington, D.C., pursuant to the order of the court, I received many long-suppressed documents.

Among them was a top-secret CIA report. It stated that the CIA was deeply troubled by my work in questioning the conclusions of the Warren Report and that polls that had been taken revealed that almost half of the American people believed as I did. The report stated, "Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse, results." This "trend of opinion," the CIA said, "is a matter of concern" to "our organization." To counter developing opinion within the United States, the CIA suggested that steps be taken. It should be emphasized, the CIA said, that "the members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society.

The purpose of the CIA secret document was apparent. In this instance, there was no need for incisive analysis. The CIA report stated "The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments." The commission had been chosen in such a fashion so that it might subsequently be asserted that those who questioned its finding, by comparing the known facts to the false conclusions offered by the commission, might be said to be subversive.

Who were these people who wished to throw suspicion upon the leaders of the land? The CIA report listed them as Mark Lane, Joachim Joesten, as well as a French writer, Leo Sauvage. Most of the criticism was directed at me. The CIA directed that this matter be discussed with "liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)," instructing these persons "that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition." The CIA continued: "Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation." The CIA was quite specific about the means that should be employed to prevent criticism of the report:

"Employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passage to assets. Our play should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii) financially interested, (iv) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Edward Jay Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher Knebel article and Spectator piece for background." According to the CIA, my book, Rush to Judgment, was "much more difficult to answer as a whole." The agency document did not list any errors in the book.

Just in case the book reviewers did not get the point, the CIA offered specific language that they might incorporate into their critiques. "Reviewers" of the books "might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the Report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics."

Among those who criticized Rush to Judgment and other books along lines similar to those suggested by the CIA were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and, especially, Walter Cronkite and CBS. Among those who did not march in lockstep with the intelligence agencies' effort to destroy the First Amendment were the Houston Post; Norman Mailer, who reviewed Rush to Judgment in the United States and Len Deighton, who reviewed it in London.

The question persists, in view of the elaborate and illegal program undertaken by the CIA to malign American citizens and to discourage publishers from printing dissents from the Warren Commission Report, as to the motivation for these efforts. Again, we turn to the CIA dispatch: "Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation." Yes, the CIA was directly involved and it did make its contribution to the investigation. What else the CIA did to constitute its "direct" involvement in the assassination was left unsaid by the authors of its report.

Let us focus at this point upon the information that the CIA contributed. Its major contribution was the presentation of the Mexico City story to Earl Warren. The CIA seemed desperately concerned that its Mexico City story might be questioned. Indeed, it was this aberrant behavior by the CIA with this aspect of the case that led me to focus more intently on the case.

The first book review of Rush to Judgment was never printed in any newspaper or journal, at least not in the form in which the review originally appeared. The book was published in mid-August 1966. Before I saw the printer's proofs, the CIA had obtained a copy. On August 2, 1966, the CIA published a document entitled "Review of Book - Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane." I did not learn the existence of that document for almost a decade. The review centered upon statements I had written about Oswald in Mexico City: "On pages 351 and 352, Lane discusses the photograph of the unknown individual which was taken by the CIA in Mexico City. The photograph was furnished by this Agency to the FBI after the assassination of President Kennedy. The FBI then showed it to Mrs. Marguerite Oswald who later claimed the photograph to be that of lack Ruby. A discussion of the incident, the photograph itself, and related affidavits, all appear in the Commission's Report (Vol. XI, p. 469; Vol. XVI, p. 638). Lane asserts that the photograph was evidently taken in front of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City on 27 September 1963, and that it was furnished to the FBI on the morning of 22 November."

The concern about my relatively nonincriminating disclosure was surprising to me at the time, however, a decade after the assassination it became apparent that the case that the CIA had so painstakingly constructed, placing Oswald in Mexico City at the two embassies, had fallen apart as if it were a house of cards. Not one material bit of evidence remained. It was a new day. The war in Vietnam and crimes committed by authorities, including President Nixon, were beginning to convince the American people that simplistic explanations of past national tragedies might be challenged. Statements by leaders of government or federal police officials were no longer sacrosanct.

Of course, you know all about the way JFK assassination investigators are often smeared as communists. You have done the same about the work of Thomas G. Buchanan and Joachim Joesten.

[John Simkin]

John wrote:


"I am of the opinion that the CIA is still able to block the mainstream media from discussing this subject in a rational way."

John just how do you suppose the CIA accomplishes this?

As I have I said I have made these points many times before. See for example, my page on Operation Mockingbird and the forum thread on this subject.

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

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5142

I also wrote the Wikipedia entry for Operation Mockingbird with a full list of references (it originally said that Operation Mockingbird was an urban myth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

However, last night I was reading Ed Haslam's "Dr. Mary's Monkey" and he mentions that because of the Freedom of Information Act he and others have discovered the ways that Alton Ochsner, a CIA asset, helped to smear Mark Lane.

In 1967 Jim Garrison began investigating the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. Ochsner told a friend that he feared Garrison would order his arrest and the seizure of INCA's corporate records. Ochsner attacked the Garrison investigation as being unpatriotic because it eroded public confidence and threatened the stability of the American government. In his article, Social Origins of Anticommunism: The Information Council of the Americas (Louisiana History, Spring 1989) Arthur Carpenter claimed that Ochsner launched a propaganda campaign against Garrison. This included sending information to a friend who was the publisher of the Nashville Banner.

According to Carpenter, Ochsner also attempted to discredit Mark Lane, who was assisting the Garrison investigation. He told Felix Edward Hebert that Lane was "a professional propagandist of the lunatic left". Ochsner also instructed Herbert to tell Edwin E. Willis (Chairman of the House Committee) to dig up "whatever information you can" on Lane.

Felix Edward Hebert later sent Ochsner a report on Mark Lane extracted from confidential government files. This included "the files of the New York City Police, the FBI, and other security agencies." These files claimed that Lane was "a sadist and masochist, charged on numerous occasions with sodomy". Hebert also supplied Ochsner with a photograph that was supposed to be Lane engaged in a sadomasochistic act with a prostitute.

Mark Lane already knew about this smear campaign. This is what he says about this in his book Plausible Denial (1991):

More than a decade after the assassination, when I won a lawsuit against various police and spy organizations in the United States district court in Washington, D.C., pursuant to the order of the court, I received many long-suppressed documents.

Among them was a top-secret CIA report. It stated that the CIA was deeply troubled by my work in questioning the conclusions of the Warren Report and that polls that had been taken revealed that almost half of the American people believed as I did. The report stated, "Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse, results." This "trend of opinion," the CIA said, "is a matter of concern" to "our organization." To counter developing opinion within the United States, the CIA suggested that steps be taken. It should be emphasized, the CIA said, that "the members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society.

The purpose of the CIA secret document was apparent. In this instance, there was no need for incisive analysis. The CIA report stated "The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments." The commission had been chosen in such a fashion so that it might subsequently be asserted that those who questioned its finding, by comparing the known facts to the false conclusions offered by the commission, might be said to be subversive.

Who were these people who wished to throw suspicion upon the leaders of the land? The CIA report listed them as Mark Lane, Joachim Joesten, as well as a French writer, Leo Sauvage. Most of the criticism was directed at me. The CIA directed that this matter be discussed with "liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)," instructing these persons "that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition." The CIA continued: "Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation." The CIA was quite specific about the means that should be employed to prevent criticism of the report:

"Employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passage to assets. Our play should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii) financially interested, (iv) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Edward Jay Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher Knebel article and Spectator piece for background." According to the CIA, my book, Rush to Judgment, was "much more difficult to answer as a whole." The agency document did not list any errors in the book.

Just in case the book reviewers did not get the point, the CIA offered specific language that they might incorporate into their critiques. "Reviewers" of the books "might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the Report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics."

Among those who criticized Rush to Judgment and other books along lines similar to those suggested by the CIA were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and, especially, Walter Cronkite and CBS. Among those who did not march in lockstep with the intelligence agencies' effort to destroy the First Amendment were the Houston Post; Norman Mailer, who reviewed Rush to Judgment in the United States and Len Deighton, who reviewed it in London.

The question persists, in view of the elaborate and illegal program undertaken by the CIA to malign American citizens and to discourage publishers from printing dissents from the Warren Commission Report, as to the motivation for these efforts. Again, we turn to the CIA dispatch: "Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation." Yes, the CIA was directly involved and it did make its contribution to the investigation. What else the CIA did to constitute its "direct" involvement in the assassination was left unsaid by the authors of its report.

Let us focus at this point upon the information that the CIA contributed. Its major contribution was the presentation of the Mexico City story to Earl Warren. The CIA seemed desperately concerned that its Mexico City story might be questioned. Indeed, it was this aberrant behavior by the CIA with this aspect of the case that led me to focus more intently on the case.

The first book review of Rush to Judgment was never printed in any newspaper or journal, at least not in the form in which the review originally appeared. The book was published in mid-August 1966. Before I saw the printer's proofs, the CIA had obtained a copy. On August 2, 1966, the CIA published a document entitled "Review of Book - Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane." I did not learn the existence of that document for almost a decade. The review centered upon statements I had written about Oswald in Mexico City: "On pages 351 and 352, Lane discusses the photograph of the unknown individual which was taken by the CIA in Mexico City. The photograph was furnished by this Agency to the FBI after the assassination of President Kennedy. The FBI then showed it to Mrs. Marguerite Oswald who later claimed the photograph to be that of lack Ruby. A discussion of the incident, the photograph itself, and related affidavits, all appear in the Commission's Report (Vol. XI, p. 469; Vol. XVI, p. 638). Lane asserts that the photograph was evidently taken in front of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City on 27 September 1963, and that it was furnished to the FBI on the morning of 22 November."

The concern about my relatively nonincriminating disclosure was surprising to me at the time, however, a decade after the assassination it became apparent that the case that the CIA had so painstakingly constructed, placing Oswald in Mexico City at the two embassies, had fallen apart as if it were a house of cards. Not one material bit of evidence remained. It was a new day. The war in Vietnam and crimes committed by authorities, including President Nixon, were beginning to convince the American people that simplistic explanations of past national tragedies might be challenged. Statements by leaders of government or federal police officials were no longer sacrosanct.

Of course, you know all about the way JFK assassination investigators are often smeared as communists. You have done the same about the work of Thomas G. Buchanan and Joachim Joesten.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote (addressed to me):

Of course, you know all about the way JFK assassination investigators are often smeared as communists. You have done the same about the work of Thomas G. Buchanan and Joachim Joesten.

But John, you must not have known that Joesten's publisher, Marzani and Munsell, received secret subsidies from the Communist Party exceeding $670,000. Had you known that, I am sure in the context of full disclosure you would have so noted for your members. I know you would not want to be guiilty of the same type of disinformation you attribute to the assets of "Operation Mockingbird".

[William Kelly]

John wrote (addressed to me):

Of course, you know all about the way JFK assassination investigators are often smeared as communists. You have done the same about the work of Thomas G. Buchanan and Joachim Joesten.

But John, you must not have known that Joesten's publisher, Marzani and Munsell, received secret subsidies from the Communist Party exceeding $670,000. Had you known that, I am sure in the context of full disclosure you would have so noted for your members. I know you would not want to be guiilty of the same type of disinformation you attribute to the assets of "Operation Mockingbird".

If the Communist Party or the CIA offered me $670,000 to publish my work I'd take it, and give them credit and a receipt.

BK

[Tim Gratz]

Well, me too, Bill! The point is, of course, there should have been disclosure of the subsidy, just as there should have been disclosure of CIA-funded journals.

By the way, some publisher should pay you $670,000 to publish your essays. Or maybe the CIA will pay you $670,000 not to!

This post has been edited by Tim Gratz: Aug 9 2007, 11:21 AM

[John Simkin]

Ed Sherry sent me this:

I recently listened to Zack Sklar, who edited the JFK movie and Garrison’s book, “On the Trail of the Assassins”, and he tells how the media, even Johnny Carson (NBC, owned by General Electric) was briefed about Garrison before the show, and was told that they had a list of certain questions to ask him while on the show. Carson’s usually funny mood was not funny with Jim Garrison.

Also the publishing company, Sheridan Square Press never printed another edition of the hard cover, since they were forced out of business by 2 lawsuits from the U.S. and abroad, related to the next HOT book they published, Profits of War, showing the supply of weapons to Saddam Hussein by the US and the UK, by Mrs. Thatcher’s son, and Israeli efforts to shut down this channel. Robert Gates (CIA Director) and the author delivered 52 Million in cash to Iran in 1981.

The author, Ari Ben-Menashe could not return to Israel after writing this book. He spent his time between the U.S., Australia and the U.K.

The Paperback version of Garrison’s book was owned by TIME Warner Books, and was never printed again. TIME LIFE was the firm that withheld the Zapruder Film from the public for 20 years.

[Michael Hogan]

Ed Sherry sent me this:

I recently listened to Zack Sklar, who edited the JFK movie and Garrison’s book, “On the Trail of the Assassins”, and he tells how the media, even Johnny Carson (NBC, owned by General Electric) was briefed about Garrison before the show, and was told that they had a list of certain questions to ask him while on the show. Carson’s usually funny mood was not funny with Jim Garrison.....

Sklar's complete 2001 interview can be found in the "Our Favorite Archived Interviews" section of Black Op Radio:

http://www.blackopradio.com/

[Sterling Seagrav...]

Michael Deaver died over the weekend. All the obituarities miss out an important part of his career. As most members know, most of my pages appear near the top of Google searches. Not so, with Deaver. My page is nowhere to be found. Deaver was being protected by those who control Google and Wikipedia. What is it that the ruling elite do not want you to know about Deaver. It is the following:

Michael Deaver co-founded the public relations company, Deaver and Hannaford in 1975. The company "booked Reagan's public appearances, research and sell his radio program, and ghost-write his syndicated column." Peter Dale Scott claims that "all this was arranged with an eye to Reagan's presidential aspirations, which Deaver and Hannaford helped organize from the outset".

In 1977 Deaver and Hannaford registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents receiving $5,000 a month from the government of Taiwan. It also received $11,000 a month from a group called Amigos del Pais (Friends of the Country) in Guatemala. The head of Amigos del Pais was Roberto Alejos Arzu. He was the principal organizer of Guatemala's "Reagan for President" organization. Arzu was a CIA asset who in 1960 allowed his plantation to be used to train Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Peter Dale Scott has argued that Deaver began raising money for Ronald Reagan and his presidential campaign from some of his Guatemalan clients. This included Amigos del Pais. One BBC report estimated that this money amounted to around ten million dollars. Francisco Villgarán Kramer claimed that several members of this organization were "directly linked with organized terror".

Deaver and Hannaford also began to get work from military dictatorships that wanted to improve its image in Washington. According to Jonathan Marshall, Deaver was also connected to Mario Sandoval Alarcon and John K. Singlaub of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). In the book, The Iran-Contra Connection (1987) he wrote: "The activities of Singlaub and Sandoval chiefly involved three WACL countries, Guatemala, Argentina, and Taiwan, that would later emerge as prominent backers of the contras.... these three countries shared one lobbying firm, that of Deaver and Hannaford."

In December, 1979, John K. Singlaub had a meeting with Guatemalan President Fernando Romeo Lucas García. According to someone who was at this meeting Singlaub told Garcia: "Mr. Reagan recognizes that a good deal of dirty work has to be done". On his return, Singlaub called for "sympathetic understanding of the death squads".

Another one of Deaver's clients was Argentina's military junta. A regime that had murdered up to 15,000 of its political opponents. Deaver arranged for José Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, the economy minister, to visit the United States. In one of Reagan's radio broadcasts, he claimed "that in the process of bringing stability to a terrorized nation of 25 million, a small number, were caught in the cross-fire, amongst them a few innocents".

Peter Dale Scott argues that funds from military dictatorships "helped pay for the Deaver and Hannaford offices, which became Reagan's initial campaign headquarters in Beverly Hills and his Washington office." This resulted in Ronald Reagan developing the catch-phrase: "No more Taiwans, no more Vietnams, no more betrayals." He also argued that if he was elected as president he "would re-establish official relations between the United States Government and Taiwan".

What Deaver's clients, Guatemala, Taiwan and Argentina wanted most of all were American armaments. Under President Jimmy Carter, arms sales to Taiwan had been reduced for diplomatic reasons, and had been completely cut off to Guatemala and Argentina because of human rights violations.

An article published in Time Magazine (8th September, 1980) claimed that Deaver was playing an important role in Reagan's campaign, whereas people like Campaign Director William J. Casey were outsiders have "valuable experience but exercise less influence over the candidate."

During the campaign Ronald Reagan was informed that Jimmy Carter was attempting to negotiate a deal with Iran to get the American hostages released. This was disastrous news for the Reagan campaign. If Carter got the hostages out before the election, the public perception of the man might change and he might be elected for a second-term. As Deaver later told the New York Times: "One of the things we had concluded early on was that a Reagan victory would be nearly impossible if the hostages were released before the election... There is no doubt in my mind that the euphoria of a hostage release would have rolled over the land like a tidal wave. Carter would have been a hero, and many of the complaints against him forgotten. He would have won."

According to Barbara Honegger, a researcher and policy analyst with the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign, William J. Casey and other representatives of the Reagan presidential campaign made a deal at two sets of meetings in July and August at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid with Iranians to delay the release of Americans held hostage in Iran until after the November 1980 presidential elections. Reagan’s aides promised that they would get a better deal if they waited until Carter was defeated.

On 22nd September, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. The Iranian government was now in desperate need of spare parts and equipment for its armed forces. Jimmy Carter proposed that the US would be willing to hand over supplies in return for the hostages.

Once again, the Central Intelligence Agency leaked this information to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. This attempted deal was also passed to the media. On 11th October, the Washington Post reported rumors of a “secret deal that would see the hostages released in exchange for the American made military spare parts Iran needs to continue its fight against Iraq”.

A couple of days before the election Barry Goldwater was reported as saying that he had information that “two air force C-5 transports were being loaded with spare parts for Iran”. This was not true. However, this publicity had made it impossible for Carter to do a deal. Ronald Reagan on the other hand, had promised the Iranian government that he would arrange for them to get all the arms they needed in exchange for the hostages. According to Mansur Rafizadeh, the former U.S. station chief of SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, CIA agents had persuaded Khomeini not to release the American hostages until Reagan was sworn in. In fact, they were released twenty minutes after his inaugural address.

Reagan appointed William J. Casey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this position he was able to arrange the delivery of arms to Iran. These were delivered via Israel. By the end of 1982 all Regan’s promises to Iran had been made. With the deal completed, Iran was free to resort to acts of terrorism against the United States. In 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists blew up 241 marines in the CIA Middle-East headquarters.

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

I know Jack Singlaub personally, and knew Bill Casey slightly, as well. Jack is an incredibly arrogant and egotistical man who, as a consequence, does amazingly stupid things. As one of his associates told me, "Generals are different because they can shout louder." You obey them or else, whether it's stupid or not.

Casey was one of the key men in the acquisition of media after WW2. It was one of his proteges (a young German immigrant to the US) who was sent back to Germany after the war to take over Bertelsmann and build it up. Rupert Murdoch was very tight with Shackley, which is how he got launched on his global acquisitions and has now taken over the WSJ. Murdoch was running a failed national newspaper in Australia while Shackley was station chief in Oz. Then suddenly he becomes a US citizen literally overnight and goes on an endless buying spree. Shackley's pockets were infinitely deep.
At the time, Murdoch was facing the likely closure of his newspaper THE AUSTRALIAN. His ticket out was Shackley. This also explains why Murdoch was allowed to break all the rules in acquisition of media in America.

I've known Peter R. Kann since Saigon days, and we were always friendly, although he and his wife's politics and involvement in the manipulations of the Condescendi made my skin crawl. His wife, Karen House, took over and ultimately destroyed the Far Eastern Economic Review because she simply did not comprehend it. So she neutralized it by making it a clone of all the other trivial magazines in the world. They all give me the creeps. We are all under that ancient Chinese curse: " May you live in interesting times."

[Peter Lemkin]

Michael Deaver died over the weekend. All the obituarities miss out an important part of his career. As most members know, most of my pages appear near the top of Google searches. Not so, with Deaver. My page is nowhere to be found. Deaver was being protected by those who control Google and Wikipedia. What is it that the ruling elite do not want you to know about Deaver. It is the following:

Michael Deaver co-founded the public relations company, Deaver and Hannaford in 1975. The company "booked Reagan's public appearances, research and sell his radio program, and ghost-write his syndicated column." Peter Dale Scott claims that "all this was arranged with an eye to Reagan's presidential aspirations, which Deaver and Hannaford helped organize from the outset".

In 1977 Deaver and Hannaford registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents receiving $5,000 a month from the government of Taiwan. It also received $11,000 a month from a group called Amigos del Pais (Friends of the Country) in Guatemala. The head of Amigos del Pais was Roberto Alejos Arzu. He was the principal organizer of Guatemala's "Reagan for President" organization. Arzu was a CIA asset who in 1960 allowed his plantation to be used to train Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Peter Dale Scott has argued that Deaver began raising money for Ronald Reagan and his presidential campaign from some of his Guatemalan clients. This included Amigos del Pais. One BBC report estimated that this money amounted to around ten million dollars. Francisco Villgarán Kramer claimed that several members of this organization were "directly linked with organized terror".

Deaver and Hannaford also began to get work from military dictatorships that wanted to improve its image in Washington. According to Jonathan Marshall, Deaver was also connected to Mario Sandoval Alarcon and John K. Singlaub of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). In the book, The Iran-Contra Connection (1987) he wrote: "The activities of Singlaub and Sandoval chiefly involved three WACL countries, Guatemala, Argentina, and Taiwan, that would later emerge as prominent backers of the contras.... these three countries shared one lobbying firm, that of Deaver and Hannaford."

In December, 1979, John K. Singlaub had a meeting with Guatemalan President Fernando Romeo Lucas García. According to someone who was at this meeting Singlaub told Garcia: "Mr. Reagan recognizes that a good deal of dirty work has to be done". On his return, Singlaub called for "sympathetic understanding of the death squads".

Another one of Deaver's clients was Argentina's military junta. A regime that had murdered up to 15,000 of its political opponents. Deaver arranged for José Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, the economy minister, to visit the United States. In one of Reagan's radio broadcasts, he claimed "that in the process of bringing stability to a terrorized nation of 25 million, a small number, were caught in the cross-fire, amongst them a few innocents".

Peter Dale Scott argues that funds from military dictatorships "helped pay for the Deaver and Hannaford offices, which became Reagan's initial campaign headquarters in Beverly Hills and his Washington office." This resulted in Ronald Reagan developing the catch-phrase: "No more Taiwans, no more Vietnams, no more betrayals." He also argued that if he was elected as president he "would re-establish official relations between the United States Government and Taiwan".

What Deaver's clients, Guatemala, Taiwan and Argentina wanted most of all were American armaments. Under President Jimmy Carter, arms sales to Taiwan had been reduced for diplomatic reasons, and had been completely cut off to Guatemala and Argentina because of human rights violations.

An article published in Time Magazine (8th September, 1980) claimed that Deaver was playing an important role in Reagan's campaign, whereas people like Campaign Director William J. Casey were outsiders have "valuable experience but exercise less influence over the candidate."

During the campaign Ronald Reagan was informed that Jimmy Carter was attempting to negotiate a deal with Iran to get the American hostages released. This was disastrous news for the Reagan campaign. If Carter got the hostages out before the election, the public perception of the man might change and he might be elected for a second-term. As Deaver later told the New York Times: "One of the things we had concluded early on was that a Reagan victory would be nearly impossible if the hostages were released before the election... There is no doubt in my mind that the euphoria of a hostage release would have rolled over the land like a tidal wave. Carter would have been a hero, and many of the complaints against him forgotten. He would have won."

According to Barbara Honegger, a researcher and policy analyst with the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign, William J. Casey and other representatives of the Reagan presidential campaign made a deal at two sets of meetings in July and August at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid with Iranians to delay the release of Americans held hostage in Iran until after the November 1980 presidential elections. Reagan's aides promised that they would get a better deal if they waited until Carter was defeated.

On 22nd September, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. The Iranian government was now in desperate need of spare parts and equipment for its armed forces. Jimmy Carter proposed that the US would be willing to hand over supplies in return for the hostages.

Once again, the Central Intelligence Agency leaked this information to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. This attempted deal was also passed to the media. On 11th October, the Washington Post reported rumors of a "secret deal that would see the hostages released in exchange for the American made military spare parts Iran needs to continue its fight against Iraq".

A couple of days before the election Barry Goldwater was reported as saying that he had information that "two air force C-5 transports were being loaded with spare parts for Iran". This was not true. However, this publicity had made it impossible for Carter to do a deal. Ronald Reagan on the other hand, had promised the Iranian government that he would arrange for them to get all the arms they needed in exchange for the hostages. According to Mansur Rafizadeh, the former U.S. station chief of SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, CIA agents had persuaded Khomeini not to release the American hostages until Reagan was sworn in. In fact, they were released twenty minutes after his inaugural address.

Reagan appointed William J. Casey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this position he was able to arrange the delivery of arms to Iran. These were delivered via Israel. By the end of 1982 all Regan's promises to Iran had been made. With the deal completed, Iran was free to resort to acts of terrorism against the United States. In 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists blew up 241 marines in the CIA Middle-East headquarters.

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

I know Jack Singlaub personally, and knew Bill Casey slightly, as well. Jack is an incredibly arrogant and egotistical man who, as a consequence, does amazingly stupid things. As one of his associates told me, "Generals are different because they can shout louder." You obey them or else, whether it's stupid or not.

Casey was one of the key men in the acquisition of media after WW2. It was one of his proteges (a young German immigrant to the US) who was sent back to Germany after the war to take over Bertelsmann and build it up. Rupert Murdoch was very tight with Shackley, which is how he got launched on his global acquisitions and has now taken over the WSJ. Murdoch was running a failed national newspaper in Australia while Shackley was station chief in Oz. Then suddenly he becomes a US citizen literally overnight and goes on an endless buying spree. Shackley's pockets were infinitely deep.
At the time, Murdoch was facing the likely closure of his newspaper THE AUSTRALIAN. His ticket out was Shackley. This also explains why Murdoch was allowed to break all the rules in acquisition of media in America.

I've known Peter R. Kann since Saigon days, and we were always friendly, although he and his wife's politics and involvement in the manipulations of the Condescendi made my skin crawl. His wife, Karen House, took over and ultimately destroyed the Far Eastern Economic Review because she simply did not comprehend it. So she neutralized it by making it a clone of all the other trivial magazines in the world. They all give me the creeps. We are all under that ancient Chinese curse: " May you live in interesting times."

One of the more frightening and enlightening posts in a long time. If the Intelligence Borg is 'backer' behind Murdoch, or only got him his first few tens of billions...we
are in for some very ugly interesting times on the Media frontlines of the battle for the Truth!
Any more on this to share?......we're all ears and fears.....

This post has been edited by Peter Lemkin: Aug 22 2007, 08:04 PM

[Peter Lemkin]

"In dictatorships we are more fortunate that you in the West in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and nothing of what we watch on television, because we know its propaganda and lies. Unlike you in the West. We've learned to look behind the propaganda and to read between the lines, and unlike you, we know that the real truth is always subversive."

-dissident Czech novelist Zdener Urbanek [during Communist period in Czechoslovakia]

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

"[I] never saw a foreign intervention that the [New York] Times did not support, never saw a fare increase or a rent increase or a utility rate increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And don't let me get started on universal health care and Social Security. So why do people think the Times is liberal?"

-New York Times reporter John Hess

This post has been edited by Peter Lemkin: Aug 27 2007, 11:17 AM

[Peter Lemkin]

Very good analysis of Media acting as Govt. mouthpieces on linking War in Iraq with 911 et al. by Moyers here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html


http://www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=07/05/29/1322235 ://http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/b...29/1322235 


There are also several good watchdog groups that monitor the media. One: [there are others more aware of intelligence manipulation, per se]

[url="http://www.fair.org/index.php"]://http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/b...ndex.php"]
A letter in February to the New York Times (2/3/07) from the commander of the Multinational Corps in Iraq revealed new censorship regulations prohibiting portrayals of U.S. casualties in the media. The tightened rules have been in effect since May 2006, but no media outlet with embedded photographers reported on or objected to the censorship of images.

In his letter, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno protested a January 29 article that portrayed the death of Sgt. Hector Leija during a house-to-house search in Baghdad (“Man Down” by Damien Cave with photo by Robert Nickelsberg). Odierno expressed “profound disappointment in the New York Times’ decision to publish a photograph of a mortally wounded American soldier.” He called the photo (and an online video) “offensive,” and asserted that the “clear depiction is also directly counter to the written agreement made by the reporter and the photographer before publication.”

The paper responded with apologies to Leija’s family, followed up with a conversation between Times editor Bill Keller and Odierno, and apparently removed the photos from their website (though the video is still available). It was unclear why the Times felt a need to apologize; the article and photos were most respectful. But the images were also unusual—even when they were still allowed.

Throughout the Iraq War, media have rarely shown images of U.S. battlefield casualties, almost never with visible pain or blood. Such restraint provides tacit support for the war. Vietnam showed us that images of the suffering of U.S. troops foster protest.

Now publication of pictures of casualties violates new media ground rules for Iraq from the Department of Defense. The regulation states, “Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without service member’s prior written consent”—which seems absurdly unlikely. In addition, the rule mandates, “In respect for family members, names or images clearly identifying individuals ‘killed in action’ will not be released. Names of KIAs may be released 24 hours after Next of Kin have been notified.”

In 2005, when I reported on images of casualties for Extra! (7–8/05), photos could still be published of wounded or dead Americans in Iraq. This is the regulation the DoD press office sent me two years ago: “Battlefield casualties may be covered by embedded media as long as the service member’s identity is protected from disclosure for 72 hours or upon verification of NoK [next of kin] notification, whichever is first.” (This was a different regulation from the one prohibiting photos of coffins of dead Americans coming back to the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base—Extra!, 5/91.)

The media hardly ever did publish such pictures. When they did, the depictions were discreet—as with a Time magazine online photoessay (10/26/05) marking 2,000 U.S. military deaths and 15,000 injuries in Iraq. “Iraq’s Grim Tally” showed memorials and funerals, but just one picture with a U.S. casualty—a soldier in a hospital bed, surrounded by comrades in uniform, receiving a Purple Heart.

After the new regulations came out in May 2006 virtually prohibiting any portrayals, news organizations proceeded as they had. Occasional pictures of wounded Americans, always presented in a sensitive manner, caused no problems.

Meanwhile, there’s nothing unusual about pictures of dead, dying and wounded Iraqis—and Afghans as well, when the press remembers to cover that other war. Blood on the sidewalk, twisted remains, friends and families in the depths of grief—these are everyday images in the New York Times and other media. But those pictures overwhelmingly show only one kind of victim—people and things shattered by their fellow countrymen, not by U.S. troops.

Look at the powerful photoessays on Iraq and Afghanistan on Time’s website. In eight portfolios with more than a hundred images of war involving U.S. troops in 2006, 20 show the injured or dead felled by “insurgents,” “sectarian violence” or the Taliban. Five show U.S. wounded. (Three of the five are in a series by the intrepid Nickelsberg, who was embedded in Afghanistan at that time.)

Two photos showed men killed by American forces. Both are clearly described as threats to U.S. troops. One photoessay, published June 8, that shows the U.S. raid that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, “the Al-Qaeda-linked militant,” begins with the startling image of the face of the dead al-Zarqawi—a photo in a big frame on an easel at a press briefing. Clearly, the military wanted to highlight success.

The only other image clearly identified as a casualty of U.S. troops was in a retrospective look at the first three years of war (3/21/06; photo first published 6/21/04). The caption describes the scene: “Mourners carry the body of a militiaman loyal to Moqtada Sadr, killed in clashes with U.S. forces in Baghdad.”

In the pictures, Time shows images only of dangerous militants.

Suffering of ordinary people caused by Americans remains largely unseen. Still simmering on the back burner, the government refuses to release more photos that it has from Abu Ghraib—despite lengthy court challenges spearheaded by the ACLU (ACLU press release, 2/15/06). Will the photos be published if court challenges finally succeed? Maybe not.

Consider this: The Washington Post recently discovered new photos of Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. troops in Haditha among the thousands of pages of Naval Criminal Investigative Service documents. The paper chose not to publish the pictures. “Post editors decided that most of the images are too graphic to publish,” a Post news report noted (1/7/07). “Marine Corps officials believe that many of the photographs—which show the results of grenade explosions inside civilian homes and close-range rifle shots—are inflammatory by their nature, no matter whether a crime was committed.”

Exactly.

Today, the press—not just the Times, but virtually every U.S. news organization in Iraq—has accepted the military’s sensibility and sensitivities. Without the military’s cooperation, embedding of reporters and photographers would not be possible, and on-the-ground accounts of the war would cease—unless the press kicked up more of a fuss about restraining coverage.

Photos of American suffering or suffering caused by Americans might indeed sicken and offend viewers. But by acquiescing to the military’s censorship and avoiding most of these images of American involvement, the media does not offer a true portrayal of the consequences of war. Showing blood on the floor, the fallen soldier, was too much for the military, even though the story of Sergeant Leija was presented sensitively, as a story of bravery in the face of danger. By accepting military censorship without discussion, though, the media demonstrate cowardice.

This post has been edited by Peter Lemkin: Aug 26 2007, 06:55 PM

[Nathaniel Heiden...]

I was clicking back to a Time magazine article on Police Chief Tom Reddin's transtion from Chief of police to LA TV station newsanchor
(with very little if anything? in the way of journalism background) when I noticed another Time article on Tom Reddin.

It happened to be a Coverstory, with ONLY Reddin on the Cover. From July 1968. It was had nothing to do with the RFK investigation.

The subject was nothing to do with the RFK assassination, but on the topic of policing the cities in general. Certainly, this was a legit, issue for a cover story in
July 1968 but why Reddin ALONE for the cover Reddin was not chief at the time of Watts in 1965.

Well I started reding the article and it portrays Reddin in a liberal light , " a streetcorner sociologist" . Part of this may have been real in comparison to others on the LAPD ( but just how high is THAT bar?) More to the point might this have been a PR attempt to "liberalize" the image of LAPD at a time when many might have become sceptical of their ability to conduct an ENTIRELY objective investigation into a some little incident that happened the month before, but to which the Cover makes not even the slightest allusion to? Was the ghost of C.D. Jackson moonlighting for Henry Luce?

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19680719,00.html

click on cover for story under table of contents

[John Simkin]

Isador Feinstein Stone was probably the best known left-wing journalist at the time of the assassination of JFK. After working for several left-wing journals he established I. F. Stone's Weekly in 1953. Over the next few years Stone led the attack on McCarthyism and racial discrimination in the United States. Stone once stated that: "There was nothing to the left of me but The Daily Worker."

However, Stone was a passionate supporter of the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. In the first issue of I. F. Stone Weekly after the assassination Stone wrote: "It is always dangerous to draw rational inferences from the behavior of a psychopath like Oswald."

On the publication of the The Warren Commission Report Stone led the attack on those people like Bertrand Russell, Thomas G. Buchanan, Joachim Joesten, Mark Lane and Carl Marzani, who had proposed that there had been a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Stone wrote:

All my adult life as a newspaperman I have been fighting, in defense of the Left and of a sane politics, against conspiracy theories of history, character assassination, guilt by association and demonology. Now I see elements of the Left using these same tactics in the controversy over the Kennedy assassination and the Warren Commission Report. I believe the Commission has done a first-rate job, on a level that does our country proud and is worthy of so tragic an event. I regard the case against Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone killer of the President as conclusive. By the nature of the case, absolute certainty will never be attained, and those still convinced of Oswald's innocence have a right to pursue the search for evidence which might exculpate him. But I want to suggest that this search be carried on in a sober manner and with full awareness of what is involved.

The Joesten book is rubbish, and Carl Marzani - whom I defended against loose charges in the worst days of the witch hunt - ought to have had more sense of public responsibility than to publish it. Thomas G. Buchanan, another victim of witch hunt days, has gone in for similar rubbish in his book, Who Killed Kennedy? You couldn't convict a chicken thief on the flimsy slap-together of surmise, half-fact and whole untruth in either book.

However, as John Kelin has pointed out in his book, Praise from a Future Generation, at the time Stone wrote this article: "the Warren Report had just been published and the twenty-six volumes of supporting evidence and testimony were still not available".

Is it possible that Stone was receiving funding for the I.F. Stone Weekly from the CIA? His defence of the Warren Report definitely helped shape the views of the left concerning the assassination of JFK.

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

I. F. Stone used to be one of my heroes. John Kelin's account of his role in the cover-up (Praise from a Future Generation) definitely raises questions about his connections to the CIA. We know that I.F. Stone Weekly was in financial difficulties at the time (it eventually closed down in 1971). Did Stone receive money from the CIA? As Tom Braden pointed out, when he was in charge of distributing money to journalists, a significant proportion went to those who were seen as being on the "left" as the public would be much more likely to believe disinformation when it was coming from people who you trusted.

Stone's articles about the assassination are very puzzling. Normally, one would have expected Stone to have identified the flaws in the official account. He made a career out of this type of questioning. In the articles he wrote about the assassination and the Warren Report, he seems very keen to believe the official account. I don't expect him to necessarily believe that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, but I would have thought he would have at least asked some of the unanswered questions. The fact that he did not do so, makes me highly suspicious of the agenda he was following.

Most of the early lone-gunman critics were on the left: Bertrand Russell, Thomas G. Buchanan, Joachim Joesten, Mark Lane, Carl Marzani, etc. There view was that JFK had been killed as part of a right-wing conspiracy. As far as the CIA was concerned, Stone was the ideal man to lead the attack on these critics as he was seen as America's leading left-wing journalist at the time.

There is also a very interesting passage in David McKean's book Peddling Influence (2004). While doing his research into Tommy Corcoran he discovered that during the 1930s he was paying Stone to write hostile articles about opponents of FDR. In the 1960s Corcoran was working as a "fixer" for LBJ. Concoran was also closely connected with the CIA and right-wing businessmen who were very hostile to the policies of JFK. Maybe, Concoran was paying Stone via the CIA to write those attacks on conspiracy theorists in 1963-64.

[Nathaniel Heiden...]

BRETT GARY'S CONCEPT OF THE PROPAGANDA PROPHYLACTIC IN HIS BOOK NERVOUS LIBERALS:PROPAGADA ANXIETIES FROM WWI TO THE COLD WAR

This essay is interesting about the structure of New Deal liberalism. Near the end of the short essay, she hints at the elitist nature of new deal liberalism, as one of its problems. This aspect can be more frightfully explored in the absolutely essential book Nervous Liberals by Bret Garry, which was published a few years ago by the Columbia Us History series.

In this book the author argues:

1) During 1920s some senators began to be openly critical of the govs
use of overt propaganda on the the US population during World War
and also on connections to Anglo-American alliance groups that were
used as a conduit of this propaganda by intelligence connected groups
such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

2) But LIBERALS who wanted to combat isolationism, were instrumetal
in getting the gov to continue funding propganda research beginning
in the 1930s. They used what Garry calls "the propaganda prophalactic" (sp?  ) By this I think he means that the liberals argued
"Hitler and the fascists are using psy op research and communications
research, its seeping into the US via their agents, so we have to create some protection otherwise their fascist propaganda will infect our population"

3) around 1928, though, there was a knowckdown liberal brawl (ok maybe a tet a tet) tween Walter Lippman and John Dewey. Dewey accused the former of wanting only a top-down liberalism,AND SAID THIS WAS REALLY DANGEROUS FOR DEMOCRACY, AND WOULD LEAD TO ELITISM, IF NO TYPE OF COMMUNICATION COULD EVER GO FROM THE BOTTOM UP > Johhny we hardly knew ya!! I need to read more of this debate it sounds very very interesting.

4) the closer we get to WWII the Propaganda condom argument wins out big time, and then the Rockafeller foundation starts funding all these propaganda studies and COMMUNICATIONS REASEARCH projects... and these projects continue into the cold war.

5) Gary writes interstingly of the role played by poet and Library of Congress head Archbald Mcleish in calming "nervous liberals" anxieties about ESSENTIALLY ALLOWING DOMESTIC PROPAGANDA TO BECOME AN INSTITUTIONALIZED PARTY OF THE PERMANENT US STATE.

This book is essential reading for those who have been trained to scoff
"SOmeone woulda talked" every time they hear of I dunnnno the Kenneday Assassinations, MLK etc.

This book CAN BE READ AS answering "even if they do it doesn't matter" Communications researhch is on it!

Must reading so please start today! I fisrt heard it from a PHD student at NYUs school of journalism. This is not written for you or me! Thats why you should read it!
Essay: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/21/7819/
http://www.amazon.com/Nervous-Liberals-Bre...y/dp/023111365X
_________________
Operation Mockingbird Spartacus:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm
Operation Mockingbird Education Forum
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5142

This post has been edited by Nathaniel Heidenheimer: Mar 21 2008, 07:43 PM

[Nathaniel Heiden...]

I am assuming people saw The incredibly long article in NYT yesterday about the MILITARY -INDUSTRIAL-MEDIA COMPLEX. Here is an article on it by Gareth Porter. By the way if anyone has not read Porter's book Perils of Dominance about the Cold War presidents vs. the Military Industrial Complex I strongly recommend it.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/21/8435/