You are factually correct in ways you may not be aware. There is a CIA sanctioned media-influence operation intended for greater propaganda dissemination, but conspiracy theories surrounding it are totally inaccurate in very critical areas, like it's history, motives & codename.
It began during WW2 as a minor OSS propaganda op targeting nazi controlled areas with fact-based counter-propaganda radio broadcasts. Due to a situation involving an obscure European journalists professional membership organization, the newly minted CIA began expanding it in 1947
The OSS designated it's codename & was randomly chosen, intentionally irrelevant to & not suggestive of any operational objectives. OPSEC in case frequently codename-heavy non-descriptive flash traffic messages got decrypted. CIA kept the OSS codename & it's still classified.
In 1979 WaPo journo Deborah Davis was writing a "tell-all" biography of WaPo owner Katherine Graham; "Katherine the Great." Davis inserted one tiny lie in a huge 2-decade spanning factual anecdote relevant to Graham's influences, integrity & credibility. That lie was Mockingbird.
The OSS had strict OPSEC with codename choice so a codename could be enemy decrypted without risking divulging hints of the nature, objectives & tactics of the operation the codename is obscuring. Mockingbird is too close of a very easy enemy hint for OSS ever to have chosen it.
All other meaningful facts in the lengthy Graham life-history anecdote are easily verifiable using public & official government sources including names, dates, relationships & positions of key Media, Army, CIA & State Dept actors & real CIA operational motivations & development.
The operation itself was exposed in the 1976 Church Committee Report in descriptive narrative only, the codename was not declassified or revealed by the Church Committee Report. But key information on both foreign & domestic objectives were exposed in the lengthy narrative.
On Foreign Media influence: "The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA & at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. ~cont'd
~ These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services & news agencies, radio & television stations, commercial book publishers, & other foreign media outlets."
On Domestic Media influence: "Approximately 50 of the agency assets are individual American journalists or employees of U.S. media orgs. Of these, less than half are "accredited" by U.S. media orgs ...The rest are unaccredited freelancers & media representatives abroad ..~cont'd
~More than a dozen US news orgs & commercial publishing houses formerly provided cover for CIA agents abroad. A few of these organizations were unaware they provided this cover." Someone should've slapped the stupid out of the authors & editors before making these 2 huge fuckups
They worded the 2 descriptions in a way they intended to provide basic context without divulging critical classified details which could be damaging in enemy hands. What they achieved was a vaguely sinister, conspiratorial & underhanded narrative easily spun to malicious intent.
Even with Davis's codename white lie in "Katherine the Great" her narrative is far less sensational sounding & phrased like malevolent corrupt conspiracy. Davis actually follows her fake codename with a decent, balanced history of the operation, it's motivation & basic objectives
I can forgive her ignorance of OSS OPSEC leading her to pick an obviously dumb fake codename that sounds cool & mysterious & perfectly describes complex objectives in an easy 1-word descriptive metaphor. Mockingbird even sounds like a spooky codename for a secret-squirrel CIA op
The truth of the matter is that was neither sinister conspiracy or corrupt powerhungry malevolence that inspired what we call Operation Mockingbird. It was the plain honesty in the Truman Doctrine & a key statement in his 1950 address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Truman's inspirational statement inspires me today:
"There never has been a time in our history when there was so great a need for our citizens to be informed and to understand what is happening in the world. ~
"There never has been a time in our history when there was so great a need for our citizens to be informed and to understand what is happening in the world. ~
~ The cause of freedom is being challenged throughout the world by forces of imperialistic communism. This struggle, above all else, is for minds of men. Propaganda is a powerful weapon Communists have in this struggle. Deceit, distortion & lies are used as deliberate policy. ~
~Propaganda can be overcome by truth. Plain, simple unvarnished truth presented by newspapers, radio, newsreels & other sources people trust. If people aren't told the truth, or lack confidence in accuracy & fairness of the press, they've no defense against falsehood. ~
~ If People are given true facts, these falsehoods become laughable instead of dangerous." -Harry S. Truman, April, 1950.
Allen Dulles took this message to heart & took a minor WW2 propaganda campaign & turned it into a massive anti-propaganda & counter-disinformation network.
Allen Dulles took this message to heart & took a minor WW2 propaganda campaign & turned it into a massive anti-propaganda & counter-disinformation network.
It was this network, developed by a covert operation, that gave us Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty & other pro-US radio networks used to beam enraging facts of totalitarian dictators that inspired or broadly expanded mass liberation mvmts against oppressive regimes since 1950.
The conspiracy theories based on the scant public info available tell you the original objective was to corrupt US media into spreading disinformation about true, corrupt, monstrously evil aims of the CIA & it's hostile covert criminality threatening global political stability.
In reality, it was a network that provided the CIA with the ability to quickly disseminate time-critical intell-based facts to key elements in foreign & domestic media to counter-disinfo more quickly & effectively than original Soviet disinfo hopefully preventing its taking root.
The CIA operation was a reaction to its uncovering a similar but evil KGB operation in 1948 involving a tiny, obscure international press workers' professional networking organization called the International Organization of Journalists, founded in 1946.
It moved its headquarters Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1948 & became one of dozen Communist front organizations launched or co-opted by the KGB in the late 40s & early 50s. By 1950 it had grown to over 25,000 members in 36 countries under hostile KGB manipulation & influence.
The US response was originally established in 1949 by Frank Wisner, director of the Office of Policy Coordination, an independent covert ops unit created by the US Nat'l Security Council. He recruited Phil Graham of WaPo in 1950 to direct operations within the media industry
In 1951, the Office of Policy Coordination was absorbed into the CIA & Wisner maintained operational control but now under Allen Dulles' direction. In 1951, Dulles recruited Cord Meyer into the CIA fold & he became the projects principle agency operative after Wisner.
Meyer became fast, close friends with James Angleton & the two began coordinating together until 1954 when Angleton got counter-intel chief & Meyer got chief of the International Organizations Division which now managed Mockingbird's archives. Angleton & Meyer made huge progress
Angleton's multidimensional thinking & superhuman ability to accurately coax the most obscure details & strategic implications from the most massive & complex KGB operational fact-patterns. Angleton understood KGB subversion & influence better than anyone else in US intelligence.
By 1955, their cooperation resulted in major influence of 25 newspapers & wire agencies. Its usual tactic was placing reports, developed from CIA-intel, w/cooperating or unwitting reporters & repeated or cited by them to in turn, be cited throughout the global media wire services
The public facing CIA front-group which managed all networks, extended projects & activities of the agency classified operation was the National Committee for a Free Europe Dulles founded in 1949 officially as a civilian anti-Communist political organization.
The most famous declassified propaganda campaign of the NCFE-Mockingbird network was 1950-1960 "Crusade for Freedom" whose "public goal" of raising funds for Radio Free Europe concealed it's real CIA funding & generated domestic popular support for US Cold War policies.
The NCFE "Crusade for Freedom" still holds first place as the largest, most successful & most high profile domestic propaganda operation in CIA history. "Mockingbird" was never just about manipulating reporters to tow an official narrative in the papers & on the radio.
The Cold War escalated with bolder, more damaging campaigns covertly waged by the KGB. The massive & detailed KGB Long March & Perestroika Deception subversion campaigns were finalized in 56, approved in58 & launched in 64. The Soviets expanded their operational scope, we didn't.
We continued to fight the ideological war from the original idea that it could be won with good facts reported by respected newsmen in the most accepted formats without active direct-involvement in domestic political organizations. The Soviets altered their tactics drastically.
In 1956, Krushchev initiated a controversial "de-Stalinization" campaign throughout the USSR. A new KGB disinfo tactic used in the campaign was conspiracy theories blaming the CIA for crimes & human rights atrocities committed by the KGB in the 1st wave of anti-CIA demoralization
The anti-CIA conspiracies the KGB began spreading with heavy physical social infiltration assets following the Bay of Pigs scandal & even heavier after the JFK assassination & painted the CIA & US policy w/so much conspiracy & corruption fabrication the CIA still hasn't recovered
The CIA had gained the upper-hand in passive-observer absorbed indirect influence through media narrative control & message discipline, the KGB regained that upper hand by refocusing efforts from passive-observer reception of provided information to more direct role in US society
The 1st stage of Demoralization in The Long March & Perestroika Deception had hordes of KGB agents-of-influence physically infiltrating the US from Havana & spreading to every critical sector of US social, religious & political activity on the right & left in every social class.
While we were focusing only on passive macro-level countering propaganda & disinfo through soft influence via print & airwaves, the KGB took a more hostile surgical approach of expanding their dissemination to direct influence of local groups on an interactive micro-level.
The KGB anti-gov't active measures campaigns kicked into overdrive durring Vietnam I the Soviets gained almost total control of the entire US anti-war movement & were responsible for most of the disinfo which influenced the "baby killer" anti-Army opinion on the radical left.
The CIA & FBI tried to mitigate the effects of KGB infiltration & subversion actions in society with 2 new operations but not to a great enough extent & too gently to make an effective difference. FBI's COINTELPRO was more broad in scope & CIA's CHAOS more bold in action.
Unfortunately, by the time those operations started picking up steam, the KGB actions influencing anti-government sentiment had become too deeply ingrained in a radicalized far-left & widespread anti-CIA conspiracy paranoia was pathological by 1971 & lead to a devastating attack
KGB active measures & reflexive control tactics in society were more effective than CIA propaganda & counter-disinfo tactics in media & in Mar, 1971 a radicalized Black Panther group broke into the Media, PA FBI Field Office & stole 10's of 1000's of pages of classified files.
The break-in exposed existence of COINTELPRO & in turn, CHAOS. The gov't-hating paranoid left was easily further outraged by KGB media disinfo painting the 2 ops in the worst ethical light possible claiming malicious mass infiltration & disruption of every movement on the left.
Now, the entire left, including the Democrats, were convinced that the FBI & CIA were part of a vast right wing conspiracy actively working to destroy the entire left wing of US politics to institute a fascist dictatorship. This paranoia drove their analysis & actions thereafter.
The Church Committee used that hate & paranoia to utterly gut the CIA's counter-intelligence, counter-subversion & HUMINT operational capabilities to such an extent they may as well have been disbanded altogether. The KGB couldn't have hoped for a better outcome.
The only two operations countering KGB ideological subversion of the US citizenry were exposed, mischaracterized & permanently demolished. America's most brilliant counter-intel guy, James Angleton forced to retire in disgrace & still maligned as an evil paranoid conspiracist.
The operation known as Mockingbird was pilloried by Congress & the media with mischaracterization & outright lies & those involved demonized as anti-freedom fascists & all defenses of their honor & integrity immediately rejected as fascist lies. The KGB had prevailed.
The notion that the US media had been weaponized against the American people since the 50's in a massive sinister CIA manipulation plot didn't enter public consciousness until the Church Committee in 1976 & didn't get the name Mockingbird until 1979.
After that, all CIA, FBI & NSA operations countering KGB infiltration of agents-of-influence were legislatively banned from ever occurring again. NSA was even permabanned from it's decrypting KGB messages in the US, called Op. Venona, that exposed many hundreds of agents-in-place
American's still didn't see #FakeNews as anything more than an abstract concept on a broad scale until recently, but the media was more heavily KGB infiltrated & influenced after 1980 than ever before & kept getting worse. Corrupt media corporate mass-consolidation began in 1983.
Many separate print & broadcast media outlets across the country merged & began monopolizing. The KGB agenda was successful in inspiring the repeal of The Fairness Doctrine, removing all legal barriers & consequences to intentional broadcast of fabricated disinformation.
The US Media apparatus was actually first successfully used as a weapon of mass distortion in 1990 during the Gulf War when #FakeNews about Iraq & the war were flying off all presses, including a completely fake CNN "Live Report from a combat zone" that really filmed in a studio.
Since then, our media industrial complex, which merged from 50 companies in 1983 to only 6 in 2017 ensuring easier manipulation with less effort & constantly & relentlessly weaponized to ideologically turn Americans against their own Constitution, nation, culture & best interests
So the idea that CIA's Mockingbird is part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to weaponize the media against the American people as a right-wing propaganda mill would sure sound a lot less crazy if #FakeNews had any demonstrated history of ever being even slightly right-wing biased.
The convenient coincidence of the 2007 CIA Crown Jewels release having a brief reference to an unrelated Project Mockingbird is easily used to discredit anti-CIA conspiracies as misinformed & downplay a massive & avoidable operational failure that caused more harm than any other.
Mockingbird isn't a massive success of a sinister & criminal rogue CIA. It's a massive, devastating failure of an honest op caused by myopic CIA inability to adapt to new operational requirements & unhinged histrionic leftist lies, political hatred & anticonservative paranoia.
That massive failure in controlling Soviet #FakeNews in the 50's/60's ensured today's corrupt media environment of mass uncontrolled disinformation spread by many sources on all platforms & Russia's development/control of over 100 alt-media disinfo-only "news" & conspiracy sites
