Carl Bernstein: The CIA and the Media
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”― William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.
Given the release of the executive summary from the Senate Intelligence report, it seems prudent to revisit an article that Carl Bernstein (yes, that Carl Bernstein) wrote for Rolling Stone in 1977, shortly after leaving the Washington Post.
Why? Because there's no indication that what Bernstein wrote about has changed for the better. If anything, it has probably gotten worse. Expect to see the effects of this arrangement played out in the media as an effort is made to divert attention or blunt the impact of the damning, horrifying, nauseating Senate Intelligence report.
by Carl Bernstein
...
In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations.
...
By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.
The CIA’s use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress. The general outlines of what happened are indisputable; the specifics are harder to come by.
...
During the 1976 investigation of the CIA by the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church, the dimensions of the Agency’s involvement with the press became apparent to several members of the panel, as well as to two or three investigators on the staff. But top officials of the CIA, including former directors William Colby and George Bush, persuaded the committee to restrict its inquiry into the matter and to deliberately misrepresent the actual scope of the activities in its final report. The multivolurne report contains nine pages in which the use of journalists is discussed in deliberately vague and sometimes misleading terms. It makes no mention of the actual number of journalists who undertook covert tasks for the CIA. Nor does it adequately describe the role played by newspaper and broadcast executives in cooperating with the Agency.
Carl Bernstein: The CIA and the Media
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Thank you for the OP, RufusTFirefly! The Mighty Wurlitzer plays its tune to shape, not enlighten, minds. As more proof of their ongoing curruption...
Mass Media ignoring 'RFK Believed in Conspiracy' shows corrupt nature of America's Press
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his sister Rory Kennedy told Charlie Rose that their father, the Attorney General of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy, believed there was a conspiracy behind the death of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. For the first time in almost 50 years, members of the slain president's family were on the record about their father's thoughts about the assassination.
The story made news, as it were, for a day or two -- it was on page 8 here in Detroit (try finding it using The Free Press or Detroit News web site search engines) -- and apart from several threads on DU, that's about it as coverage goes. The Charlie Rose interview was part of a program put together by the media and good people in Dallas to celebrate JFK's life.
What bothers me about the media coverage is the constant attack, not on the government's lousy investigation of the assassination and its attendant cover-up, but, rather, the attack on anyone who brings up the subject of conspiracy in the death of the president, even when it's children of attorney general who also was the brother of the slain president.
Check out this condescending piece of opinion from the Dallas Observer:
Not Even Charlie Rose Could Rein in RFK Jr. in Dallas Last Night. Also: Conspiracy Theories!
By Betsy Lewis Sat., Jan. 12 2013 at 11:01 AM
It got weird when he went into a historical lecture about his father's investigation into the JFK assassination. He was speaking about it as if he had been part of it, then cited a book called The Unspeakable by Jim Douglas (sic - actually "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" by James Douglass) as being the best book on the subject, then kept referencing things from the book. He was losing the audience, so he burst out, "My father believed that the Warren Report was a shoddy piece of craftsmanship," to the delighted applause of the mostly Baby Boomer audience.
Whenever Charlie Rose would ask about the family, RFK Jr. would evade the question until he heard either delighted Boomer applause or delighted Boomer laughter. One of his responses to a family question was an unrelated story about World War II. A lady behind me who must have recently Netflixed The Iron Lady kept saying, "Here here!" for the benefit of us unfortunate people around her.
Some of the strangest RFK Jr. outbursts with the biggest applause were:
"We're becoming a national security state!" (applause, "Here here!"
"Corporations want profits!" (applause, "Here here!"
"Corporations are great things, but we'd be nuts to let them run our government!" (applause, "Here here!"
"Nationalism in Africa! The end of colonialism!"
At this point, I don't think anyone knew what the hell he was talking about. It was something about the Kennedy family airlifting President Obama's father out of Kenya to begin a new life in America.
RFK Jr.: "Yes."
CONTINUED...
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/mixmaster/2013/01/charlie_rose_live_the_kennedy.php
Me, I don't believe any of that stuff was "out there." Why writer Betsy Lewis chooses to believe what the media tell her is true I'll guess lies in allegiance to a pay check.
Likewise for the lack of coverage given the story in the national media, where the same few corporations that swore up and down there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, both in 1990 and 2002, now want no part of "conspiracy talk" during the 50th anniversary observance. So far, as far as I'm aware, the Charlie Rose program has not aired.
What's more telling is what didn't get noted in the nation's corrupt mass media at all: The fact that Attorney General and later Senator Robert F. Kennedy also was assassinated. Some think that was a coincidence, because the mass media told them so. One thing's for certain, the questions still surrounding the deaths of two liberal icons doesn't get discussed at all today in our supposedly "free press."
I appreciate your extraordinary wealth of knowledge and your unflagging perseverance on these issues.
