#164: Conspiracy Fact - Operation Mockingbird

USA / CiA
media propaganda
program - 1940s+

“In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.
“Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. This included James Truitt, Russell Wiggins, Phil Geyelin, John Hayes and Alan Barth. Others like Stewart Alsop, Joseph Alsop and James Reston, were recruited from within the Georgetown Set. According to Deborah Davis, the author of Katharine the Great (1979) : "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles.”*

“Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes.
“According to author Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and influenced the operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed when a 1967 Ramparts magazine article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA. In 1975, Church Committee Congressional investigations revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups.
“In 1973 a document referred to as the "Family Jewels"[1] was published by the CIA containing a reference to "Project Mockingbird", which was the name of an operation in 1963 wiretapping two journalist believed to be disseminating classified information.[2] The document does not however, contain references to "Operation Mockingbird".
“In the early years of the Cold War, efforts were made by the United States Government to use mass media to influence public opinion internationally. After the United States Senate Watergate Committee in 1973 uncovered domestic surveillance abuses directed by the Executive branch of the United States government and The New York Times in 1974 published an article by Seymour Hersh claiming the CIA had violated its charter by spying on anti-war activists, former CIA officials and some lawmakers called for a congressional inquiry that became known as the Church Committee. ... Without identifying individuals by name, the Church Committee stated that it found fifty journalists who had official, but secret, relationships with the CIA.[4] In a 1977 Rolling Stone magazine article, "The CIA and the Media," reporter Carl Bernstein expanded upon the Church Committee's report and said that around 400 press members were considered intelligence assets by the CIA, including New York Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, columnist and political analyst Stewart Alsop and Time magazine.[4] Berstein documented the way in which overseas branches of major US news agencies had for many years served as the "eyes and ears" of Operation Mockingbird, which functioned to disseminate CIA propaganda through domestic US media.”**

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*Quoted from https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmockingbird.htm (Bold emphasis added.)
**Quoted From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird (Bold emphasis added.)