Operation Mockingbird
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".
Background
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.[3] Published in 1976, the Committee's report confirmed some earlier stories that charged that the CIA had cultivated relationships with private institutions, including the press.[4] 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,"[5] 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.[6]
In The Rising Clamor: The American Press, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Cold War, David P. Hadley wrote that the "continued lack of specific details [provided by the Church Committee and Bernstein's exposé] proved a breeding ground for some outlandish claims regarding CIA and the press"; as an example, he offered unsourced claims by reporter Deborah Davis.[4] Davis wrote in her 1979 biography of Katharine Graham, owner of The Washington Post, (Katharine the Great), that the CIA ran an "Operation Mockingbird" during this time.[7] Davis wrote that the Prague-based International Organization of Journalists (IOJ) "received money from Moscow and controlled reporters on every major newspaper in Europe, disseminating stories that promoted the Communist cause",[8] and that Frank Wisner, director of the Office of Policy Coordination (a covert operations unit created in 1948 by the United States National Security Council) had created Operation Mockingbird in response to the IOJ, recruiting Phil Graham from The Washington Post to run the project within the industry. According to Davis, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."[9] Davis wrote that after Cord Meyer joined the CIA in 1951, he became Operation Mockingbird's "principal operative."[10] Neither the Church Committee or any of the investigations that followed it find there was such an operation as described by Davis.[4] Hadley summarized, "Mockingbird, as described by Davis, has remained a stubbornly persistent theory"; and added, "The Davis/Mockingbird theory, that the CIA operated a deliberate and systematic program of widespread manipulation of the U.S. media, does not appear to be grounded in reality, but that should not disguise the active role the CIA played in influencing the domestic press's output."[4]
QAnon
QAnon supporters have used the term "Operation Mockingbird" when referring to American media that spread what the supporters consider "fake news".[11][12]
See also
- CIA influence on public opinion
- Congress for Cultural Freedom
- Operation Earnest Voice
- Propaganda in the United States
- Psychological warfare
- Radio Free Asia
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
- White propaganda
Historical studies of the CIA
- Wilford, Hugh (2008). The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02681-0.
- Saunders, Frances Stonor (1999). Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War. London : Granta Books. ISBN 978-1-86207-029-5.
- Thomas, Evan (1995). The very best men, four men dared: the early years of the CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-81025-6.
- Ranelagh, John (1987). The agency: the rise and decline of the CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-63994-5.
- Weiner, Tim (2007). Legacy of ashes: the history of the CIA. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-51445-3.
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