Reply #32: There's so much we have heard and read over the years about what has been happening [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

as certain U.S. administrations have taken over molding public perception of other governments. Sickening.

I've posted an article here before discussing the LARGE group of papers, magazines which are feeding CIA material into public "awareness," and will look around when time permits to see if I can find it.

You undoubtedly recall that Reagan's Office of Public Diplomacy created almost ALL the news we all read concerning Contra, from A to Z, and the head, Cuban "exile" Otto Reich was found out by Congress, which said he had entered the illegal area. Of COURSE he was one of the first guys _{Bush, Jr.} tried to hire for the State Department, head of Latin American Affairs as soon as he stole the Presidency, and, when challenged on it, sneaked him in through a recess appointment.

Here's something which should throw a little light on the subject. I will continue to look around for the article which names more of the CIA-feeding news outlets:

The Times reported that over the last twenty years, the CIA owned or subsidized more than fifty newspapers, news services, radio stations, periodicals and other communications facilities, most of them overseas. These were used for propaganda efforts, or even as cover for operations. Another dozen foreign news organizations were infiltrated by paid CIA agents. At least 22 American news organizations had employed American journalists who were also working for the CIA, and nearly a dozen American publishing houses printed some of the more than 1,000 books that had been produced or subsidized by the CIA. When asked in a 1976 interview whether the CIA had ever told its media agents what to write, William Colby replied, "Oh, sure, all the time."

Since domestic propaganda was a violation of the their charter, the CIA defined the predictable effects of their foreign publications as "blowback" or "domestic fallout," which they considered to be "inevitable and consequently permissible." But former CIA employees told the Times that apart from this unintended blowback, "some CIA propaganda efforts, especially during the Vietnam War, had been carried out with a view toward their eventual impact in the United States." The Times series concluded that at its peak, the CIA's network "embraced more than 800 news and public information organizations and individuals."<15>

By the time the Times series appeared, Congress was looking for a way out of the issue. Obligingly, Stansfield Turner promised that the CIA would avoid journalists "accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station." There were at least three problems with this that most press coverage overlooked: many stringers and freelancers are not accredited; it didn't cover any foreign-owned media; and as Gary Hart complained at the time, the new policy included a provision that allowed the CIA to unilaterally make exceptions whenever it wished.<16>

Within several years of this alleged policy, the new Reagan administration ignored it in favor of a shooting war in Central America, one component of which was an illegal CIA-administered propaganda war at home. Edgar Chamorro, a contra sympathizer in Miami with a background in public relations, was recruited by the CIA in late 1982. After two years of following the CIA's instructions regarding the manipulation of U.S. journalists and even members of Congress, Chamorro went public with his story.<17> By now Congress was clearly out-maneuvered, even though it alone held the purse strings that controlled funding for the war.
(snip/...)

http://www.namebase.org/news17.html