September 2, 2025 • 54 mins
Propaganda has always been a powerful tool, and humanity's recent technological innovations have only amplified its reach. Long-standing laws in the US were meant to prevent US propaganda for foreign audiences from reaching the domestic population, but over time those laws have been eroded... and, as it turns out, Uncle Sam was secretly pushing propaganda on the people for years beforehand. Tune in to learn more about Operation Mockingbird.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, fellow conspiracy realist, let's have a big round of
applause for the mainstream media whooa oh my god, or
the CIA.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's the difference.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, there's a big difference. One of those is an
intelligence agency.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Okay, yes, the other.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
One reduces our intelligence little by little we turn it on. Sorry,
it's not really not really.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Kind of though. It's who knew the journalism would become
an endangered species in the United States other than pretty
much every student of history. Yeah, so okay, So back
in twenty twenty, we were we were looking into something
that fascinated us. We had her whispers in the wind.
(00:52):
We had heard elusive statements about how the United States
is totally fine with marketing propaganda for foreign audiences, but
had a deal for a long time that doesn't exist anymore,
about how it could not advertise propaganda to a domestic population,
(01:14):
and about how they were super into you know, this
thing we called amusing the past tense freedom of the press.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, there should be a separate thing, maybe almost a
fourth branch of the government.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Of technique, Yeah, immortal technique. Yes we're talking about yeah. Yeah,
These longstanding laws were eroding over time, in a very
quiet way. And in this episode your news agency or
the CIA, the story of Operation Mockingbird, we discover, to
(01:55):
our horror just how much of an influence US intelligence
agencies can have over the news you read every day.
And you know, Matt, I'd be really interested to revisit
this with the acceleration of social media, right, which is
now for a lot of people, it's a primary source
(02:17):
of news. So how is how are our friends at
the company. I haven't asked them. How are our friends
at the company touch in TikTok?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Other agencies touching touching TikTok and Facebook and all the hits.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I don't know now, correct me if I'm wrong here, Ben,
But what we're about to get into is when individuals
allegedly infiltrated like news operations, right.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah, yeah, what if anything just made it? At this point,
it just feels like they were just they were taking
extra steps, right because nowadays you just step in and
say don't print this or print it this way.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But yeah, Operation mocker.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff. They don't want you to know a
production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul. Mission control decands. Most importantly, you are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Now,
we've been starting off and on with a Twitter roll
call of sorts that we had talked about, just to
(03:53):
keep everybody in touch as close as we can be
during these our days of quarantine. Wanted to shout out
in particular Snake Pliskin, who just heard our episode on
the Smiley Face Killer theory. Snake, you said, hey, conspiracy stuff.
I just listened to your Smiley Face Killers episode. In
(04:15):
the last two months, male subjects were pulled from the
Milwaukee River and someone else, Lindsay at Backstreet on Twitter says,
one of the guys, Luke H was in my graduating
class in high school. I remember he went missing. It
was surreal seeing his mom on TV related to the
Smiley Face Killers. So it's interesting because you know, as
(04:36):
we said in our episode, the vast majority of law
enforcement believes there's nothing to the theory, but the two
men who have been spearheading the investigation themselves former law
enforcement are still convinced there's something nefarious afoot. What did
you guys think about that when we looked into that episode.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I mean, it's nice to have two people who have
decided to continue looking into it, especially for you know,
the individuals, like the families of the victims that are involved,
just to have someone that it feels like they're in
your corner. But you know, it did seem like a
bit of a stretch where we did the episode. That
(05:19):
doesn't mean it's you know, not real, just means we
don't have enough evidence at this point to connect everything.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, I agree, It just felt like, you know, the
smiley face is such a ubiquitous, very kind of easy
thing to spray paint on a wall. The existence of that,
you know, connected to multiple cases of drowning, which is
also an easy thing to happen near a body of water,
seemed like a real kind of shot in the dark
to me. And it seems like that is what the
(05:48):
evidence bore out. That it did feel like a bit
of a either a coincidence or just you know, somebody
getting a little overly obsessed and wanting to find an
answer where none existed, and that's certainly a thing that happens.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You know, well said, well said, And it sounds like
we're all on the same page with this one. We
have to add to that the enormous difficulty of proving
drowning by homicide. But with that being said, of course
we want to hear your arguments for or against it,
and we would, like everybody else listening, want nothing more
(06:21):
than closure for the families who have lost these children.
Today we're diving into something that fellow longtime listeners will
be more than familiar with, at least in principle. I mean,
hot gosh, we're in a new golden age of propaganda.
It's often said, right since before the twenty sixteen election,
(06:44):
or at least it looks like a new age if
you don't as long as you don't dive too deeply.
While we're saying we're in a new age of propaganda.
You know, it's interesting because it makes for a slick headline.
But that's not entirely true. So here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
If you've listened to this show, you know that propaganda
is nothing new. Propaganda is something that's been around forever
because we've always needed we as in us, every human,
those in power or those wanting to acquire power, have
always needed a way to convince others that their way
is the right way. And if for some reason you
(07:25):
didn't check out our very first episode of Stuff they
Don't Want You to Know in podcast form, you should
do that now because it's all about the life and
story of Edward Burnez, who is popularly known lovingly known
as the father of public relations i e. Propaganda.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Right, yeah, And you can read his work for yourself.
It is surprisingly transparent because Edward Burnes felt like he
was doing a good thing. He thought he was making
the world a better place. You can find this stuff
for free online, like to recommend for anybody who hasn't
read him before checking out Crystallizing Public Opinion and of
(08:06):
course his breakout banger, the single in his Uh. If
his work is an album, the book simply titled Propaganda,
I would also say he's he's a very clear and
talented writer. And these are easy reads. You know, it's
not like slogging your way through Kirkgard or something like that.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And you know he won't he will be he will
be not by no means the only uh, the only
author you find writing about propaganda or writing actual propaganda
if you look on the Internet these days, because it
is chock full of propaganda. As a matter of fact,
propaganda has become increasingly weaponized. It's a crown jewel in
(08:49):
the world of asymmetrical warfare. And have this in the notes,
but just just for anybody who's like heard the term
propaganda or wondering what it means. Propaganda's information. It's not
always untrue, but propaganda is information with an agenda. It's biased,
it can be misleading, and it's meant to make you feel,
(09:11):
as the reader or the viewer or the audience member,
that what you're being told is leading you inevitably to
an obvious conclusion. But that conclusion is not always the truth.
It's very tricky, I know.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I mean, yeah, yeah, it exists. You know, we're talking
about it existing now in modern days and the Internet
being chocked full of it. You could you can slightly
put a twist on anything that gets released from a
public relations perspective, whether it's the messaging within a let's
(09:48):
say a company and the way it portrays itself in
advertising or oh especially a candidate and the way they
are portrayed within an election year.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Well, yeah, I mean the term is right. Spin is
literally taking a truth and twisting it. That is what
spinning something is. It is a way of changing the
way a thing is perceived or quote unquote getting ahead
of it, which can basically mean controlling the narrative. It
doesn't necessarily mean that it's outright lying. In fact, it's
(10:20):
it's probably a bad idea to outright lie and propaganda
because you can call out a lie, you can't call
out a cleverly strategically placed partial truth quite as easily,
can you?
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Right right?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I think I mentioned this in earlier episode, but always
makes me think of that fantastic line from Emily Dickinson.
Tell the truth, but tell it slant, and you see
more and more of that. I want to arm everybody
who's been reading a lot of news, especially political news,
with an easy tip to find stuff that maybe, if
(10:57):
not propaganda, just opinion masquerading is fact. You'll notice this
when you see by the verbs you see in headlines,
like if you ever read something where it says like
politician a slams country Bees announcement of blah blah, blah
or they slam or they blast or they know, excoriate whatever.
(11:21):
All when they're putting in those action verbs, that is
the spin, that is part of the narrative they're trying
to make you agree with. And it's weird because typically
here in the US, before and after the advent of
the Internet, when we would hear about propaganda, it would
(11:42):
be portrayed as something that other countries do. Right. You might,
for example, remember hearing a news anchor saying something along
the lines of, look at all this crazy disinformation coming
from Russia. RT used to be know as the Russian
Times or Russia Times has a brand new crazy conspiracy theory,
(12:03):
and they might reference Russia's state level propaganda on everything
from quote unquote globalists, the five G and more. And
you might also, if you're a fan of The Daily
Show or a fan of excellent work like last week Tonight,
recall the weird over the top videos that countries like
(12:23):
North Korea or Turkmenistan release. Have you guys ever seen those?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Oh yes, I recall this very vividly calling out the
United States for its use of propaganda, but in a
propaganda format, it was fascinating and it was highly effective,
because I remember watching it and myself personally feeling moved
in that I believed. I believed it to an extent,
(12:51):
if that makes sense. I believed that there was a
US campaign to wage propaganda against North Korea when I
was watching their tape and partic And the problem is
it's kind of it was happening, It kind of is
happening at all times, but from all sides. As as
we said, this is the standard fodder for asymmetrical means
(13:15):
of warfare.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Right, Why buy a supercarrier when you can get the
domestic population to turn against its masters. We often see
propaganda presented as a tool in the dictator toolkit. You know,
you can use it to gaslight and suppress local populations,
and you can also use it to discredit any domestic opposition.
(13:39):
But if you think the US is somehow above this practice,
if you think the US is somehow immune to this practice,
you could not be any more wrong. Sadly, what are
we talking about. We'll tell you after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Oh hold on,
(14:05):
hold on, hold your horses, hold mine, hold the stable.
You might be saying, domestic propaganda would the United States
of America really be allowed to gaslight its own citizens.
No way. There should be a law.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
There should be a law, especially because we're talking about
the United States government, the thing, the entity that we
all prop up every time we pay our taxes, the
thing that we make happen that works for us ostensibly
on paper.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, And like you know, private entities are a different thing.
Everybody expects propaganda from private entities. We just call them advertisements.
Wendy's released this amazing mixtape a while back. That's definitely propaganda.
Burger King wants you to think that McDonald's is garbage.
(14:55):
That's propaganda too, But it's different, you know. And as
you said, Bet, there are their tax dollars involved. And
there was actually a law. It's called the US Information
and Educational Exchange Acts. Usually its street name is the
Smith Mount mun DT Act.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
This is the.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Authorization, the legal authorization for propaganda activities conducted by the
Department of State here in the US. Well, I say
here in the US. The Department of State is based
in this country, but smith Mont is is green lighting
what could be euphemistically called public diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
I want to like walk this back ever so slightly
like wouldn't you say public? So this is governing public
discourse in some way or like the like being is
it trying to keep people honest? Like what's the purpose?
I don't quite understand if if it is meant for that,
it doesn't seem to be doing a very good.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Job, right right, So think of things if you can
listen to this. So you can listen to this now
in the US, but for a long time there were
things like VOA Voice of America. This is state sponsored
US content that's specifically marketed to foreign audiences, you know,
(16:19):
like think of the Horn of Africa, think of East
or Southeast Asia, and it's meant to kind of push
the push Uncle Sam's narrative to these foreign audiences. And
the act itself says or said that this kind of
stuff that we're piping out to residents of other countries
(16:43):
cannot be piped in here. So that's why you can't
turn on ninety point one or whatever your local MPR
station is and hear them talking about how dangerous the
government actions of Myanmar Pakistan are.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I see, Okay, So it's essentially like giving permission for
this kind of quote unquote we'd never call it propaganda.
The propaganda's not even in the thing that's sort of
a dirty word, but it's essentially allowing that legally within
the framework of our government to happen when it comes
to outside countries. But it's something that we would never
(17:18):
do to our own people knowingly or in terms of
demonizing other countries.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, nail on the head. In short, the United States
always knew that domestic propaganda could have a deletorious or
damaging effect on the population. We moved to protect ourselves
from ourselves. And this comes into play after all, the
(17:47):
propaganda of World War One and things like that, when
people are scrambling for their ration cards and so on.
The reasoning here was pretty patriotic. In fact, there's one Senator,
Edward Zurinsky who explained it, I think pretty pretty succinctly
when he was working with Senator J. William Fulbright to
(18:10):
try to push this act through Congress.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
And the purpose would be to distinguish what the US
is doing from the way the Soviets were conducting their propaganda,
he said. Zarensky said, quote from the Soviet Union, where
domestic propaganda is a principal government activity, Attempting to kind
of demonize that. So Zarensky and Senator J. William Fulbright
sold their amendments on this idea of sensible rhetoric, which
(18:34):
I'm trying to get get at. American taxpayer shouldn't be
funding propaganda for American audiences, and that makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But we should be funding propaganda, you know, to all
the other countries that are our enemies or our potential rivals.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Sure, yeah, yeah, like we shouldn't be lied to as
the American public, and you know what, we also shouldn't
be paying people for the privilege being lied to. That
makes sense to me. It sounds like that's something all
of us are on board with. And here's the news.
It's quiet news. So don't feel bad if you missed it.
(19:10):
This rule, this sort of differentiation between US and the
quote unquote bad guys, all ended in twenty thirteen, seven
years ago, almost exactly seven years. There was a reform
that was passed in January of twenty thirteen. It went
into effect in July of twenty thirteen. It had relatively
(19:31):
little media coverage, and it changed the rule. So Ever,
since twenty thirteen, the US government has been allowed to
market propaganda directly to the residents of the United States.
And this sounds maybe arguably like a small difference, like
that doesn't really matter. It does, especially when you consider
(19:53):
how much programming that opened the door for. It's huge.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, there is a ton of produced prior to that
that you would never get inside the United States. The
stuff like the it's stuff that's made by the Broadcasting
Board of Governors, so Voice of America that we already mentioned,
Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting, all
of those networks, they can only be viewed or listened
(20:20):
to in broadcast quality, like the full quality that you're
meant to listen to. Let's say, like if you're in
your car listening to their radio or something, if you
were in a foreign country, if you're in a different
place other than the United States or a territory, those
are the only places you could listen to that stuff,
but not anymore. And that content is viewed in more
than one hundred countries in sixty one languages. And within
(20:45):
that programming, you're gonna hear about human rights abuses in Iran,
issues in Tibet, like self immolation of you know, certain
believers there or protesters there, human trafficking all across the
Asian continent, and all kinds of on the ground reporting
in war torn areas, in places like Egypt, also in
(21:06):
places like Iraq. That's where you're gonna find all of
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
But you know, to be fair, I mean, we have
to know that there's definitely a reason for this, there's
some valid arguments for this. The VOA's charter makes makes
this pretty boldly stated. They emphasize accuracy. Quote, our journalists
provide what many people cannot get locally uncensored news, responsible discussion,
(21:31):
and open debate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, how do you like that language, Ben, That's what
they said, you know, that's that's their charter.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I think it's a good point though, because the because
it is what could be described, maybe somewhat glibly as
a pickle. There's an anonymous source where several anonymous sources
from the US government who say that Voice of America,
warts and all, does serve a good purpose. They call
(22:04):
it counter programming, counter propagandistic programming for people in incredibly
unstable areas that have little media access. So take Somalia
for example. Somalia is a failed state. It's very difficult
to live there, and according to at least one source,
again who wished to remain anonymous, they say Somali's have
three options for news, word of Mouth, al Shabab, or
(22:29):
Voice of America Somalia. So their argument is this propaganda
has to exist because it is it is providing like
like you said in that mission statement, No, it's providing
quote unquote uncensored news. And okay, look, clearly uncensored news
(22:50):
and responsible discussion. Responsible discussion sounds like it could also
be censorship. That could be a that could be like
someone's safe word for sense, honestly, but that also dodges
the real question. Okay, yeah, all right. Granted this is
important for areas of the world that would not otherwise
have any kind of international news or any kind of
(23:12):
larger context, but that fails to answer the question about
why we would pipe this kind of stuff, which can
sometimes be orwellian, into the ears of people who live
in this country. The argument is that if we do that,
By doing that, since twenty thirteen, this programming has been
able to reach large expatriate communities, like to go back
(23:36):
to the Somali example, A big part of the Somali
and diaspora is composed of people who live in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
So they're saying, look, this is propaganda, but it's accurate,
and it lets us reach people, you know, who need
to be reached here in the country. So overall, they're saying,
we're doing a good thing. Do you believe them? We'll see,
(23:59):
we'll see. Proponents who argue in favor of Voice of
America and similar propaganda enterprises produced by the US government
say that they are transparent. As a matter of fact.
Spokesperson for the BBG, the Broadcasting Board of Governors again
(24:19):
named Lynn Well, would not even call what the organization
does propaganda. Instead, she said it's an argument for transparency.
She said, look, this is overall a good thing. Quote.
Now Americans will be able to know more about what
they are paying for with their tax dollars. Greater transparency,
she says, is a win win for everyone involved. She
(24:41):
doesn't mention this in her statements, but it is important
to note, you know, lest we look at less, we
look at scants at the US for marketing propaganda to
US citizens, we have to remember a ton of other
foreign countries are already marketing propaganda here. Arguably a little
(25:03):
more successfully in some cases.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, and you know, before you say hey, yeah, yeah,
BBC News in the United States, that's obviously propaganda. Hey,
come on, we don't know, maybe it is, but it's
certainly something that comes on my radio when I listened
to NPR in the morning.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Well that's the thing though, it's all about like what
your opinion of propaganda is, and like what's the rubric?
You know, like I don't know that there is one exactly,
because so much of it you can't prove is a
lie or is.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Well, if there's the slant that Ben kind of mentioned
at the top of this here, that's where you end
up kind of seeing the crack, seeing where it actually
is propaganda some sort, because they are reoccurring themes. Let's
take a quick case in point here and jump to
Kansas City, Missouri, Missouri, Missouri, Missouri. Well, there was a
(25:57):
New York Times article that came out in February of
this year that it's written by Neil mcfarquhar, and he
is talking about a radio station that is broadcasting there
in Kansas City. It's called Radio Sputnik, And according to
(26:17):
Neil and the New York Times, it is a propaganda
arm of the Russian government, and it started broadcasting on
three radio stations in that area during the prime drive time.
So radio, if you're in your car commuting, you're going
to hear this if you are on that channel. And
it's a little strange. Let me just read this quote.
(26:40):
In the United States talk radio on this channel, Sputnik
covers the political spectrum from right to left. So again
you're getting what may feel like balanced news, like you're
getting just a regular old station, but there is a
constant backbeat according to this article, is that America is
damaged to goods, that there's something wrong with America. There's
(27:01):
things aren't going right, there are problems, major issues, and
here here are all of the issues with America. And
it's interesting just to know that this is happening in
the United States with what is believed, like we said,
to be Russian propaganda.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
We want to emphasize this is legal. You can learn
a lot about the story, and you have to remember
there's a human element. So this radio Sputnik exists in
the US primarily because of a radio station owner named
Pete Chartel. He was laying like two years ago, twenty
(27:39):
eighteen or so he had to lay off his entire staff,
and he was having a fire sale on ad spots.
He hadn't paid himself in months and months, and looked
like his operation was going to close. But Radio Sputnik
was paying thirty thousand dollars a month to broadcast it's
programming in DC, and that's what that's what led him
(28:02):
to this. It was He's not like a Russian sleeper
agent allah the Americans guy that we know of, right right,
He's a guy who's trying to who's trying to keep
the lights on. It's an understandable thing. And this is
just one specific example. This could be also it's been
(28:24):
called public diplomacy. It could also be called soft diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You know, you can.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Win hearts and minds without ever putting your hand on
a gun or god forbid, a nuclear weapon. But we
wanted to bring to your attention today something else. That's
the lay of the land now, right whatever law protected you,
quote unquote from domestic propaganda is no longer in effect.
(28:51):
It hasn't been for almost seven years, So please think
critically about all the stuff you've run into since twenty thirteen.
It also turns out that there's much more to this story.
The US has been flouting its own laws for even longer.
We're going to take a pause for word from our
(29:12):
sponsor that, as far as we know, is not US propaganda,
and we'll get back to you after the break. Here's
where it gets crazier, actually much crazier. Yeah, yeah, we've
got double double the crazy here is that first, I
(29:35):
don't know, it's a double mint of crazy though. For sure.
The US has been conducting this domestic propaganda kind of operation,
the these sorts of endeavors for decades and decades since uh,
since your grandparents were alive. Easily if you you know, uh,
(29:55):
it's it's the easiest way to crack the this would
open is to start with two words. Operation Mockingbird. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Operation Mockingbird was a secret campaign by the USCIA designed
to influence the media, our media. It was started by
Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles and later run by
Frank Weisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA.
On paper, it was all about fighting communism, fighting the Reds,
(30:30):
the Rooskies, and promoting Western values. Wisner was told to
create an organization that concentrated on quote propaganda, economic warfare,
preventative direct action including sabotage, anti sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures,
subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups,
(30:55):
and a support of indigenous anti communist elements and threatened
countries of the free world. Hold on, let's unpack this,
and this is like a free reign to kind of
collude with other countries and like a effort of covert
warfare back against our own country.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, this is a quote that directly speaks to our
earlier episodes on why a lot of foreign countries don't
trust nonprofits. This is this. This is a war of ideology,
and Weisner is Wisner is tasked with controlling the narrative
(31:34):
in the US and later franchising or expanding into a
global war. So that's why like underground resistance groups that
could be anybody from transparent political opponents of a regime
to a student body that gets that gets radicalized. Wisner
(31:58):
also is pulling journalists from the US who are who
are accredited and who work at some top notch publications
of note here, and he's he's getting them to help
fight the battle at home. He turns a guy named
Philip Graham at the Washington Post, and he has Graham
(32:18):
run this project within the journalism industry, and Graham starts
recruiting other people. There's a laundry list of names who
may be familiar to our fellow listeners, who are history
buffs into the murky world of spycraft. We're talking about
people like James Truett, Russell Wiggins, Phil Gilan, John Hayes,
(32:40):
Alan Barth. And here's something important. Technically, when you read
about this in official sources, declassified documents, and so on,
you'll you'll hear the program rarely ever mentioned in actual documents.
We have one mention that we'll cite later, But then
you'll also here it's still described as a quote alleged operation.
(33:05):
But what did it do? So we've got that, like
you said, we've got a lot to unpack in Wizner's
sort of mandate. But how did that translate to actual
things they did with journalists here?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Well, ultimately, this thing that we're calling Operation Mockingbird, it
was an influence campaign, a way to influence all the media,
different media, print media, television. It was to incentivize or threaten,
so carrot or stick journalists to really put out the
(33:40):
stories that the people running this operation wanted to actually
be out there, to be talked about around the water cooler,
to be things that would generally be in the zeitgeist.
Or and this is really important when a big news
story would come out, the operatives that were working, you know,
led by Philip Graham, would be able to spin the
(34:03):
news and those big stories as they come out, we
can put a little something on it before we send
it out into the world that's going to change the
way people are going to view this particular story. Or
and this is probably the worst part to hide news
stories from the public, just to keep things that they've
found unfavorable out of our ears and eyes.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yeah, that's the thing. A method called catch and kill
where you basically like intercept the story and in some
way or another influence it to not ever see the
light of day, whether it's through intimidation, tactics, or a
bribery or any number of ways.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, it's kind of similar to the tactic or the
phenomenon known as the Overton window, which is sort of
influencing the bounds of what can be talked about, what
is considered credible or legitimate or valid conversation. Good examples
of this would be the suppression of agent orange reporting
(35:02):
for a while. Another I don't know if this is
a solid example, but a good question to ask is
why isn't there more reporting about the health effects of
depleted uranium which has been used in firearm rounds. There
should be more, but for a long time there wasn't.
The organizations that the CIA contacted, organizations and individuals they
(35:28):
wanted to present, as you said, Matt, the CIA's view.
The CIA also funded student and cultural organizations and used
magazines as fronts, not necessarily specialized trade magazines all the time,
more the kind of stuff you would see in a
waiting room at your local doctors or dentist's office. And
then as it developed, kind of like you said, Nol,
(35:49):
it started to franchise out. They would work to influence
foreign media, they would worked to influence political campaigns in
other countries. And this was all by the way, this
was all just like gravy on the meatloaf. That was
other illegal CIA operations already happening. Sorry for that painful comparison.
(36:09):
It didn't get lunch today, so I'm very all my
comparisons are like food based for right now. But we know,
we know that Wisner was a huge success. There's an
author named Deborah Davis. She had wrote a book called
Catherine the Great, and when she's talking about Wisner, she says,
by the early nineteen fifties, Wisner owned respective members of
(36:32):
the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles.
And they were getting big name journalists like too many
to name, but well, we've got an example of at
least one or two.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We sure do.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
One of the most important journalists under the control of
Operation Rockingbird was Joseph Alsopp, who wrote articles for over
three hundred different newspapers, and he was far from the
only player the mocking Bird project of influence. The sphere
of influence that Weisner held included journalists from the New
York Herald, Tribune, Time Magazine, Miami News, the Washington Star, Newsweek,
(37:12):
the Chattanooga Times. I mean paper is large and small. No,
you know, none were too insignificant. The whole idea was
to influence broadly and also narrowly if needed. The list
goes on. According to a guy by the name of
Alex Constantine, who wrote a book called Mockingbird the subversion
of the free press by the CIA in the fifties.
(37:35):
He says, quote, some three thousand salaried and contracts CIA
employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts. That's that's not insignificant, Ben,
we talk about the idea of illegal CIA operations. It's
just that's always interesting to me to hear that, because,
you know, isn't it like it's just extra illegal kind
(37:58):
of right, the idea that it's legal. It's almost a
misnomer kind of because it's like it's obviously got the sanction,
the blessing from someone that's a very on high you know,
I always wonder about that.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, it's uh, it's the Congressional military industrial complex, right.
That was the original phrase Eisenhower was going to use,
but it got edited out of his speech, so he
doesn't mention Congress and it. Yeah, you know, it's there's
so many moving parts to an organization the size of
the US government that they're inevitably going to be contradictory agendas.
(38:34):
And if you are able to pursue what you see
as the greater good, uh, and there's only one or
two pesky laws stopping you, then wouldn't you put doing
the right thing over following some some sheaf of documents
that's rotting in a dusty hall.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And you know, even if those documents are things like
the US Constitution, it's it's very easy for very intelligent
people to rationalize all sorts of horrible behavior. And this
this goes into, Yeah, this goes into the subversion of
the free press. That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I appreciate you pointed out. One of the most dangerous
capabilities of Operation mocking Bird was to again I'm like
legally required to say allegedly so, was to allegedly keep
stories out of the news, to as you said, Noel
catch and to kill Weisner was able to stop newspapers
(39:34):
from reporting the overthrow of the government of Iran, at
least for a while, to prevent them from reporting on
the coup in Guatemala, which we shall also mention Edward
Bernez was instrumental in drumming up at least ideological support
for this is where this is where Eisenhower himself kind
(39:55):
of shows up. Henry luch or Henry Luce as the
owner at the time of a large media empire and
the rules were a little bit different for him because
he was a tycoon. You know, he was a mogul.
He wasn't, he wasn't just a hard working, intrepid journalist.
He became key in Operation mocking Bird, and because of
(40:17):
his personal wealth and power, he was able to push
his own agenda. He really wanted a more right wing
presidential administration, and he did this because he thought it
was the best way to fight communism. So he was
one of those guys who was always at the time saying, well,
you know, the Democrats are very, very soft on communism,
(40:39):
and this nation is going to fall if we let
these reds get in and launch their fifth column or whatever.
So he used his magazines in concert kind of with
Operation mocking Bird to help get Dwight d. Eisenhower elected president.
And then in nineteen fifty three, the web expands because
(41:00):
Eisenhower appointed a family member of Henry Luchis to become
ambassador to Italy. This was the first first American woman
ambassador to a major country. So on the offset, that
seems like a very very good thing. It's more representation
in politics, right, But they got there because in a
(41:23):
dirty way, they took a dirty path to get there,
and then other members to your point about point about
contradicting your agendas. Other powerful people in the government, other
members of other institutions started to become worry of the
CIA's power, even envious of it.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yes, this is where we're going to talk about kind
of the fall of this operation, why it wasn't successful,
and why it allegedly doesn't continue right now.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Aha, Yeah, it's because our boy j ed Gar Hoover
was not happy with how powerful the CIA had grown.
He referred to Weisner's network as Wisner's Gang of Weirdos,
and then he actually started looking for dirt on the
members of Wisner's Gang of Weirdos, looking into their past,
(42:17):
and didn't take him long to figure out that some
of them had been active surprise surprise in Oh Heavens
TEBETSI left wing politics back in the nineteen thirties, which
is at that time was essentially tantamount to being a commie.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, that's and Joseph McCarthy, who will dive into in
a future episode on the House on American Activities Committee.
Joseph McCarthy also started trying to target members of the
CIA and say that they were security risks or they
were compromised. He claimed the CIA was a quote sinkhole
of communists, and he said, I'm going to root out
(42:55):
one hundred of them. One of his first targets was
coord Meyer, who at that time was still working still
allegedly working for Operation Mockingbird. But to put it bluntly,
McCarthy had no idea who he was messing with. Weisner
unleashed mocking Bird on McCarthy. Several members of the media
(43:17):
that were also working on this operation, Drew Pearson, Ed Murrow, Walter, Lippman,
and Moore, they went into attack mode. They're part of
the reason that McCarthy got such damaging press coverage. Again, again,
we're not here to defend McCarthy, and he clearly became
a flim flam man who was out of his depth.
(43:38):
But the way we got there was dirty and it
was orchestrated in part by the CIA. There aren't a
lot of good guys here, if you know, if you
delve into the story, and the US government was then
attacking its own people and attacking its own you know,
technically its own agenda.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Well, it's weird because it feels like the change in
public opinion, you know, when you're thinking about McCarthy as
and I know we haven't outlined that to its full
extent in this episode, but as Ben said, we will later.
But you may think of the public support that McCarthy
had for rooting out communists in the way that he
(44:19):
was and the you know, administration was at that time.
There was such support for it, or there was perceived
support for it in a lot of ways, and then
to have that perceived support just completely taken away by
these very prominent voices within the media industry. You can
(44:40):
really see you can see it happening, I guess. And
it's not something It's not in a way that I
would have imagined if I was just reading it in
you know, a history book, the way it has been
recorded over all these years. It's just, you know, the
winds have change, came and now McCarthy was out. No,
(45:00):
there was some assistance there allegedly, yep.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And this where we get to a point where we
ask ourselves what happened to Operation Mockingberg. Eventually, all good
and evil things must come to an end, right. This
operation had so many players, it couldn't be secret forever.
It was an open secret in the industry. In the
journalism industry by the late nineteen sixties, it started to
(45:24):
lose its cover in the seventies in a big way
because of Watergate. So the Watergate scandal exacerbated concern about
the power of intelligence agencies. This is early seventies, nineteen
seventy two, nineteen seventy four. Congress was becoming concerned that
the president would be able to use the powers of
the intelligence networks for their own nefarious ends. And then
(45:48):
this all hits a powder keg moment when the famous
reporter Seymour Hirsch publishes is nineteen seventy five expose about
CIA domestic surveillance, which, fellow listeners, you've heard us talk
about that before. Long story short. This leads Congress to
authorize a series of investigations into the CIA from nineteen
(46:09):
seventy five to nineteen seventy six. They examined a ton
of different operations. They also find CIA ties with journalists
as well as private voluntary organizations, but none of these reports,
interestingly enough, specifically refer to Operation Mockingbird. All the famous
Church Committee report found was that quote the CIA currently
(46:32):
maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the
world who provide intelligence and at times attempt to influence
opinion through the use of propaganda. And this is weird
because the CIA already knew the heat was coming, and
they had begun restricting their use of domestic journalists and
(46:55):
foreign journalists, at least according to them, like right as
this was all hitting the fan.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
So in nineteen seventy three, the former director of the CIA,
William Colby, told the Church Committee that he believed, as
a general policy, the CIA won't be able to use
clandestine operations anymore, won't be able to use staff to
perpetrate these kinds of operations on US publications. It's it's
(47:26):
it's it's uh, which have a substantial impact, is what
he says, quote, or influence on public opinion. So he's
essentially shutting this down, right.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
And just three years after that, George H. W. Bush,
who was then the CIA director, you know, member of
the Bush political dynasty he'd later go on to be president,
he said the following quote, effective immediately, CIA will not
enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full
time or part time news correspondent accredited by any new
(48:00):
US news service. Newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station.
So there we go, the problem solved right nineteen seventy
six on we are g to G that is short
for good to go, or are we? We do have
to mention we tease. The one specific mention of Operation
(48:21):
Mockingbird in official docs, the Family Jewels, The Infamous Family
Jewels Massy classification of CIA documents says the following in full.
It's interesting to see how they characterize Mockingbird.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
And this comes from and you can find this right
now if you're hanging out the Black Vault dot com.
And this is a quote from the sixth page that
you'll find there. Project Mockingbird, a telephone intercept activity was
conducted between twelve of March nineteen sixty three and fifteenth
of June nineteen sixty three, so very short time there,
(48:57):
and targeted to Washington based newsman who at the time
had been publishing news articles based on and frequently quoting
classified materials of this agency, the CIA and others, including
top secret and special intelligence. And you know that's it
sounds like a very tiny operation, right There are two
(49:17):
newsmen who have access to information that they probably shouldn't
have or that you know someone is feeding to them,
or that you know in some way these guys are
getting access to that secret information that they shouldn't have it.
So they checked out two guys, they wired tapped them,
and they figured out what happened, and then it was
over right.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
But they stopped, right, I mean, if everything's fine, they're
not doing this anymore. They put the brakes on this program,
so no worries. Everything's all good, right.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, that leads us to our conclusion, and we wish
there was a little bit different because the answer really
to that excellent question is not so fast. You know,
decades have passed since the mid seventies, but people, some
of your faithful hosts included, believe this program never really stopped.
And it's easy to see why a lot of people
(50:08):
believe that this is the era of fake news. After all,
maybe we don't even need the CIA to conduct this anymore.
Maybe the massive consolidation of media conglomerates alone has led
to more effective control over more media than ever before.
The thing is, you'll notice that that mention from Family
(50:30):
Jewels talks about a Project mocking Bird. We're talking about
an Operation mocking Bird. That's that's the closest we could get.
And they sound like very different things.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
They sound like completely different things. One is feeding information
to the press, the other is trying to figure out
how the press is getting all this dang information. So
maybe maybe Operation Mockingbird was happening, and then Project Mockingbird
was to figure out what the heck was happening with
the operation. I mean, honestly, because the people involved, Robert Kennedy,
(51:04):
Robert McNamara, huge names, These people are involved directly with
the tiny snippet we talked about Project Mockingbird. Joseph Carroll
is involved. I mean, it's just it's so insane to
imagine if Operation mocking Bird was real, absolutely was real,
(51:25):
just full stop, and they were doing all these things.
Who knows exactly how many people were involved and would
have information about this compartmentalized activity. You know, it's that
whole thing where maybe the left hand has no idea
what the right hand is doing.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Yeah, and then the big question is if you had
this tremendous network, this infrastructure, and you knew that you
were on the verge of discovering technology that would give
you even more control, why the hell would you walk
away it's a question that can really be answered. And
if you dig into Operation Mockingbird, you will you'll see
(52:04):
that it's still legally again an alleged operation, but there
is also there's no solid cutoff tape. Other than the
nineteen seventy statements that we mentioned just a few minutes ago.
You will not find an official end for this thing,
because this thing doesn't officially really exist. So this is
(52:26):
where we leave it to you. What do you think, folks,
Operation Mockingbird. Is it a small time conspiracy to hassle
some journalists, was it a deeper conspiracy to rule the
mind of the public. Was it a conspiracy that never
actually ended? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (52:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
You can reach us in the usual ways on the
internet at Facebook or we have our Facebook group here's
where it gets crazy. You can also find this on
Instagram and Twitter at some combination of conspiracy stuff conspiracy
stuff show. We also have a telephone number that are good.
Buddy Matt is kind enough to sort of be the gatekeeper.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Of that's right. Our number is one eight three three
std WYTK. Leave a message we you know, we'll hear it.
Whatever you want to say, whether you want to talk
about this episode, or when you want to hear in
the future or a past episode, or if you want
to talk about Nol's awesome hats that he wears on
(53:26):
Instagram all the time, or that he's wearing right now,
Ben's sunglasses that he's wearing while recording an episode of
stuff that I want you to know because got a
b BA while you're making this show. I've got a
magic the gathering background on Zoom right now. Actually, all
of us have really nice psychedelic backgrounds right now. Call
us and talk to us about that. What should we
put in our background when we make these episodes? Too much? Okay,
(53:50):
let's move on.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
I think it's the perfect amount. Do you hit the
Goldilocks zone with that one old friend? But wait, you
might be saying, I social media, I don't get it,
or I hate tyger on phone. It's twenty twenty. But
I have something important that you or my fellow listeners
need to hear. How do I get in touch with you? Well,
(54:12):
we have good news for you, my friend. You can
reach us directly twenty four to seven at our good
old fashioned email address where we.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Oh, fellow conspiracy realist, let's have a big round of
applause for the mainstream media whooa oh my god, or
the CIA.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's the difference.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, there's a big difference. One of those is an
intelligence agency.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Okay, yes, the other.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
One reduces our intelligence little by little we turn it on. Sorry,
it's not really not really.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Kind of though. It's who knew the journalism would become
an endangered species in the United States other than pretty
much every student of history. Yeah, so okay, So back
in twenty twenty, we were we were looking into something
that fascinated us. We had her whispers in the wind.
(00:52):
We had heard elusive statements about how the United States
is totally fine with marketing propaganda for foreign audiences, but
had a deal for a long time that doesn't exist anymore,
about how it could not advertise propaganda to a domestic population,
(01:14):
and about how they were super into you know, this
thing we called amusing the past tense freedom of the press.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, there should be a separate thing, maybe almost a
fourth branch of the government.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Of technique, Yeah, immortal technique. Yes we're talking about yeah. Yeah,
These longstanding laws were eroding over time, in a very
quiet way. And in this episode your news agency or
the CIA, the story of Operation Mockingbird, we discover, to
(01:55):
our horror just how much of an influence US intelligence
agencies can have over the news you read every day.
And you know, Matt, I'd be really interested to revisit
this with the acceleration of social media, right, which is
now for a lot of people, it's a primary source
(02:17):
of news. So how is how are our friends at
the company. I haven't asked them. How are our friends
at the company touch in TikTok?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Other agencies touching touching TikTok and Facebook and all the hits.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I don't know now, correct me if I'm wrong here, Ben,
But what we're about to get into is when individuals
allegedly infiltrated like news operations, right.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah, yeah, what if anything just made it? At this point,
it just feels like they were just they were taking
extra steps, right because nowadays you just step in and
say don't print this or print it this way.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But yeah, Operation mocker.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff. They don't want you to know a
production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul. Mission control decands. Most importantly, you are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Now,
we've been starting off and on with a Twitter roll
call of sorts that we had talked about, just to
(03:53):
keep everybody in touch as close as we can be
during these our days of quarantine. Wanted to shout out
in particular Snake Pliskin, who just heard our episode on
the Smiley Face Killer theory. Snake, you said, hey, conspiracy stuff.
I just listened to your Smiley Face Killers episode. In
(04:15):
the last two months, male subjects were pulled from the
Milwaukee River and someone else, Lindsay at Backstreet on Twitter says,
one of the guys, Luke H was in my graduating
class in high school. I remember he went missing. It
was surreal seeing his mom on TV related to the
Smiley Face Killers. So it's interesting because you know, as
(04:36):
we said in our episode, the vast majority of law
enforcement believes there's nothing to the theory, but the two
men who have been spearheading the investigation themselves former law
enforcement are still convinced there's something nefarious afoot. What did
you guys think about that when we looked into that episode.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I mean, it's nice to have two people who have
decided to continue looking into it, especially for you know,
the individuals, like the families of the victims that are involved,
just to have someone that it feels like they're in
your corner. But you know, it did seem like a
bit of a stretch where we did the episode. That
(05:19):
doesn't mean it's you know, not real, just means we
don't have enough evidence at this point to connect everything.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, I agree, It just felt like, you know, the
smiley face is such a ubiquitous, very kind of easy
thing to spray paint on a wall. The existence of that,
you know, connected to multiple cases of drowning, which is
also an easy thing to happen near a body of water,
seemed like a real kind of shot in the dark
to me. And it seems like that is what the
(05:48):
evidence bore out. That it did feel like a bit
of a either a coincidence or just you know, somebody
getting a little overly obsessed and wanting to find an
answer where none existed, and that's certainly a thing that happens.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You know, well said, well said, And it sounds like
we're all on the same page with this one. We
have to add to that the enormous difficulty of proving
drowning by homicide. But with that being said, of course
we want to hear your arguments for or against it,
and we would, like everybody else listening, want nothing more
(06:21):
than closure for the families who have lost these children.
Today we're diving into something that fellow longtime listeners will
be more than familiar with, at least in principle. I mean,
hot gosh, we're in a new golden age of propaganda.
It's often said, right since before the twenty sixteen election,
(06:44):
or at least it looks like a new age if
you don't as long as you don't dive too deeply.
While we're saying we're in a new age of propaganda.
You know, it's interesting because it makes for a slick headline.
But that's not entirely true. So here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
If you've listened to this show, you know that propaganda
is nothing new. Propaganda is something that's been around forever
because we've always needed we as in us, every human,
those in power or those wanting to acquire power, have
always needed a way to convince others that their way
is the right way. And if for some reason you
(07:25):
didn't check out our very first episode of Stuff they
Don't Want You to Know in podcast form, you should
do that now because it's all about the life and
story of Edward Burnez, who is popularly known lovingly known
as the father of public relations i e. Propaganda.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Right, yeah, And you can read his work for yourself.
It is surprisingly transparent because Edward Burnes felt like he
was doing a good thing. He thought he was making
the world a better place. You can find this stuff
for free online, like to recommend for anybody who hasn't
read him before checking out Crystallizing Public Opinion and of
(08:06):
course his breakout banger, the single in his Uh. If
his work is an album, the book simply titled Propaganda,
I would also say he's he's a very clear and
talented writer. And these are easy reads. You know, it's
not like slogging your way through Kirkgard or something like that.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And you know he won't he will be he will
be not by no means the only uh, the only
author you find writing about propaganda or writing actual propaganda
if you look on the Internet these days, because it
is chock full of propaganda. As a matter of fact,
propaganda has become increasingly weaponized. It's a crown jewel in
(08:49):
the world of asymmetrical warfare. And have this in the notes,
but just just for anybody who's like heard the term
propaganda or wondering what it means. Propaganda's information. It's not
always untrue, but propaganda is information with an agenda. It's biased,
it can be misleading, and it's meant to make you feel,
(09:11):
as the reader or the viewer or the audience member,
that what you're being told is leading you inevitably to
an obvious conclusion. But that conclusion is not always the truth.
It's very tricky, I know.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I mean, yeah, yeah, it exists. You know, we're talking
about it existing now in modern days and the Internet
being chocked full of it. You could you can slightly
put a twist on anything that gets released from a
public relations perspective, whether it's the messaging within a let's
(09:48):
say a company and the way it portrays itself in
advertising or oh especially a candidate and the way they
are portrayed within an election year.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Well, yeah, I mean the term is right. Spin is
literally taking a truth and twisting it. That is what
spinning something is. It is a way of changing the
way a thing is perceived or quote unquote getting ahead
of it, which can basically mean controlling the narrative. It
doesn't necessarily mean that it's outright lying. In fact, it's
(10:20):
it's probably a bad idea to outright lie and propaganda
because you can call out a lie, you can't call
out a cleverly strategically placed partial truth quite as easily,
can you?
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Right right?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I think I mentioned this in earlier episode, but always
makes me think of that fantastic line from Emily Dickinson.
Tell the truth, but tell it slant, and you see
more and more of that. I want to arm everybody
who's been reading a lot of news, especially political news,
with an easy tip to find stuff that maybe, if
(10:57):
not propaganda, just opinion masquerading is fact. You'll notice this
when you see by the verbs you see in headlines,
like if you ever read something where it says like
politician a slams country Bees announcement of blah blah, blah
or they slam or they blast or they know, excoriate whatever.
(11:21):
All when they're putting in those action verbs, that is
the spin, that is part of the narrative they're trying
to make you agree with. And it's weird because typically
here in the US, before and after the advent of
the Internet, when we would hear about propaganda, it would
(11:42):
be portrayed as something that other countries do. Right. You might,
for example, remember hearing a news anchor saying something along
the lines of, look at all this crazy disinformation coming
from Russia. RT used to be know as the Russian
Times or Russia Times has a brand new crazy conspiracy theory,
(12:03):
and they might reference Russia's state level propaganda on everything
from quote unquote globalists, the five G and more. And
you might also, if you're a fan of The Daily
Show or a fan of excellent work like last week Tonight,
recall the weird over the top videos that countries like
(12:23):
North Korea or Turkmenistan release. Have you guys ever seen those?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Oh yes, I recall this very vividly calling out the
United States for its use of propaganda, but in a
propaganda format, it was fascinating and it was highly effective,
because I remember watching it and myself personally feeling moved
in that I believed. I believed it to an extent,
(12:51):
if that makes sense. I believed that there was a
US campaign to wage propaganda against North Korea when I
was watching their tape and partic And the problem is
it's kind of it was happening, It kind of is
happening at all times, but from all sides. As as
we said, this is the standard fodder for asymmetrical means
(13:15):
of warfare.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Right, Why buy a supercarrier when you can get the
domestic population to turn against its masters. We often see
propaganda presented as a tool in the dictator toolkit. You know,
you can use it to gaslight and suppress local populations,
and you can also use it to discredit any domestic opposition.
(13:39):
But if you think the US is somehow above this practice,
if you think the US is somehow immune to this practice,
you could not be any more wrong. Sadly, what are
we talking about. We'll tell you after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Oh hold on,
(14:05):
hold on, hold your horses, hold mine, hold the stable.
You might be saying, domestic propaganda would the United States
of America really be allowed to gaslight its own citizens.
No way. There should be a law.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
There should be a law, especially because we're talking about
the United States government, the thing, the entity that we
all prop up every time we pay our taxes, the
thing that we make happen that works for us ostensibly
on paper.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, And like you know, private entities are a different thing.
Everybody expects propaganda from private entities. We just call them advertisements.
Wendy's released this amazing mixtape a while back. That's definitely propaganda.
Burger King wants you to think that McDonald's is garbage.
(14:55):
That's propaganda too, But it's different, you know. And as
you said, Bet, there are their tax dollars involved. And
there was actually a law. It's called the US Information
and Educational Exchange Acts. Usually its street name is the
Smith Mount mun DT Act.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
This is the.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Authorization, the legal authorization for propaganda activities conducted by the
Department of State here in the US. Well, I say
here in the US. The Department of State is based
in this country, but smith Mont is is green lighting
what could be euphemistically called public diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
I want to like walk this back ever so slightly
like wouldn't you say public? So this is governing public
discourse in some way or like the like being is
it trying to keep people honest? Like what's the purpose?
I don't quite understand if if it is meant for that,
it doesn't seem to be doing a very good.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Job, right right, So think of things if you can
listen to this. So you can listen to this now
in the US, but for a long time there were
things like VOA Voice of America. This is state sponsored
US content that's specifically marketed to foreign audiences, you know,
(16:19):
like think of the Horn of Africa, think of East
or Southeast Asia, and it's meant to kind of push
the push Uncle Sam's narrative to these foreign audiences. And
the act itself says or said that this kind of
stuff that we're piping out to residents of other countries
(16:43):
cannot be piped in here. So that's why you can't
turn on ninety point one or whatever your local MPR
station is and hear them talking about how dangerous the
government actions of Myanmar Pakistan are.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I see, Okay, So it's essentially like giving permission for
this kind of quote unquote we'd never call it propaganda.
The propaganda's not even in the thing that's sort of
a dirty word, but it's essentially allowing that legally within
the framework of our government to happen when it comes
to outside countries. But it's something that we would never
(17:18):
do to our own people knowingly or in terms of
demonizing other countries.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, nail on the head. In short, the United States
always knew that domestic propaganda could have a deletorious or
damaging effect on the population. We moved to protect ourselves
from ourselves. And this comes into play after all, the
(17:47):
propaganda of World War One and things like that, when
people are scrambling for their ration cards and so on.
The reasoning here was pretty patriotic. In fact, there's one Senator,
Edward Zurinsky who explained it, I think pretty pretty succinctly
when he was working with Senator J. William Fulbright to
(18:10):
try to push this act through Congress.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
And the purpose would be to distinguish what the US
is doing from the way the Soviets were conducting their propaganda,
he said. Zarensky said, quote from the Soviet Union, where
domestic propaganda is a principal government activity, Attempting to kind
of demonize that. So Zarensky and Senator J. William Fulbright
sold their amendments on this idea of sensible rhetoric, which
(18:34):
I'm trying to get get at. American taxpayer shouldn't be
funding propaganda for American audiences, and that makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But we should be funding propaganda, you know, to all
the other countries that are our enemies or our potential rivals.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Sure, yeah, yeah, like we shouldn't be lied to as
the American public, and you know what, we also shouldn't
be paying people for the privilege being lied to. That
makes sense to me. It sounds like that's something all
of us are on board with. And here's the news.
It's quiet news. So don't feel bad if you missed it.
(19:10):
This rule, this sort of differentiation between US and the
quote unquote bad guys, all ended in twenty thirteen, seven
years ago, almost exactly seven years. There was a reform
that was passed in January of twenty thirteen. It went
into effect in July of twenty thirteen. It had relatively
(19:31):
little media coverage, and it changed the rule. So Ever,
since twenty thirteen, the US government has been allowed to
market propaganda directly to the residents of the United States.
And this sounds maybe arguably like a small difference, like
that doesn't really matter. It does, especially when you consider
(19:53):
how much programming that opened the door for. It's huge.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, there is a ton of produced prior to that
that you would never get inside the United States. The
stuff like the it's stuff that's made by the Broadcasting
Board of Governors, so Voice of America that we already mentioned,
Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting, all
of those networks, they can only be viewed or listened
(20:20):
to in broadcast quality, like the full quality that you're
meant to listen to. Let's say, like if you're in
your car listening to their radio or something, if you
were in a foreign country, if you're in a different
place other than the United States or a territory, those
are the only places you could listen to that stuff,
but not anymore. And that content is viewed in more
than one hundred countries in sixty one languages. And within
(20:45):
that programming, you're gonna hear about human rights abuses in Iran,
issues in Tibet, like self immolation of you know, certain
believers there or protesters there, human trafficking all across the
Asian continent, and all kinds of on the ground reporting
in war torn areas, in places like Egypt, also in
(21:06):
places like Iraq. That's where you're gonna find all of
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
But you know, to be fair, I mean, we have
to know that there's definitely a reason for this, there's
some valid arguments for this. The VOA's charter makes makes
this pretty boldly stated. They emphasize accuracy. Quote, our journalists
provide what many people cannot get locally uncensored news, responsible discussion,
(21:31):
and open debate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, how do you like that language, Ben, That's what
they said, you know, that's that's their charter.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I think it's a good point though, because the because
it is what could be described, maybe somewhat glibly as
a pickle. There's an anonymous source where several anonymous sources
from the US government who say that Voice of America,
warts and all, does serve a good purpose. They call
(22:04):
it counter programming, counter propagandistic programming for people in incredibly
unstable areas that have little media access. So take Somalia
for example. Somalia is a failed state. It's very difficult
to live there, and according to at least one source,
again who wished to remain anonymous, they say Somali's have
three options for news, word of Mouth, al Shabab, or
(22:29):
Voice of America Somalia. So their argument is this propaganda
has to exist because it is it is providing like
like you said in that mission statement, No, it's providing
quote unquote uncensored news. And okay, look, clearly uncensored news
(22:50):
and responsible discussion. Responsible discussion sounds like it could also
be censorship. That could be a that could be like
someone's safe word for sense, honestly, but that also dodges
the real question. Okay, yeah, all right. Granted this is
important for areas of the world that would not otherwise
have any kind of international news or any kind of
(23:12):
larger context, but that fails to answer the question about
why we would pipe this kind of stuff, which can
sometimes be orwellian, into the ears of people who live
in this country. The argument is that if we do that,
By doing that, since twenty thirteen, this programming has been
able to reach large expatriate communities, like to go back
(23:36):
to the Somali example, A big part of the Somali
and diaspora is composed of people who live in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
So they're saying, look, this is propaganda, but it's accurate,
and it lets us reach people, you know, who need
to be reached here in the country. So overall, they're saying,
we're doing a good thing. Do you believe them? We'll see,
(23:59):
we'll see. Proponents who argue in favor of Voice of
America and similar propaganda enterprises produced by the US government
say that they are transparent. As a matter of fact.
Spokesperson for the BBG, the Broadcasting Board of Governors again
(24:19):
named Lynn Well, would not even call what the organization
does propaganda. Instead, she said it's an argument for transparency.
She said, look, this is overall a good thing. Quote.
Now Americans will be able to know more about what
they are paying for with their tax dollars. Greater transparency,
she says, is a win win for everyone involved. She
(24:41):
doesn't mention this in her statements, but it is important
to note, you know, lest we look at less, we
look at scants at the US for marketing propaganda to
US citizens, we have to remember a ton of other
foreign countries are already marketing propaganda here. Arguably a little
(25:03):
more successfully in some cases.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, and you know, before you say hey, yeah, yeah,
BBC News in the United States, that's obviously propaganda. Hey,
come on, we don't know, maybe it is, but it's
certainly something that comes on my radio when I listened
to NPR in the morning.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Well that's the thing though, it's all about like what
your opinion of propaganda is, and like what's the rubric?
You know, like I don't know that there is one exactly,
because so much of it you can't prove is a
lie or is.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Well, if there's the slant that Ben kind of mentioned
at the top of this here, that's where you end
up kind of seeing the crack, seeing where it actually
is propaganda some sort, because they are reoccurring themes. Let's
take a quick case in point here and jump to
Kansas City, Missouri, Missouri, Missouri, Missouri. Well, there was a
(25:57):
New York Times article that came out in February of
this year that it's written by Neil mcfarquhar, and he
is talking about a radio station that is broadcasting there
in Kansas City. It's called Radio Sputnik, And according to
(26:17):
Neil and the New York Times, it is a propaganda
arm of the Russian government, and it started broadcasting on
three radio stations in that area during the prime drive time.
So radio, if you're in your car commuting, you're going
to hear this if you are on that channel. And
it's a little strange. Let me just read this quote.
(26:40):
In the United States talk radio on this channel, Sputnik
covers the political spectrum from right to left. So again
you're getting what may feel like balanced news, like you're
getting just a regular old station, but there is a
constant backbeat according to this article, is that America is
damaged to goods, that there's something wrong with America. There's
(27:01):
things aren't going right, there are problems, major issues, and
here here are all of the issues with America. And
it's interesting just to know that this is happening in
the United States with what is believed, like we said,
to be Russian propaganda.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
We want to emphasize this is legal. You can learn
a lot about the story, and you have to remember
there's a human element. So this radio Sputnik exists in
the US primarily because of a radio station owner named
Pete Chartel. He was laying like two years ago, twenty
(27:39):
eighteen or so he had to lay off his entire staff,
and he was having a fire sale on ad spots.
He hadn't paid himself in months and months, and looked
like his operation was going to close. But Radio Sputnik
was paying thirty thousand dollars a month to broadcast it's
programming in DC, and that's what that's what led him
(28:02):
to this. It was He's not like a Russian sleeper
agent allah the Americans guy that we know of, right right,
He's a guy who's trying to who's trying to keep
the lights on. It's an understandable thing. And this is
just one specific example. This could be also it's been
(28:24):
called public diplomacy. It could also be called soft diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You know, you can.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Win hearts and minds without ever putting your hand on
a gun or god forbid, a nuclear weapon. But we
wanted to bring to your attention today something else. That's
the lay of the land now, right whatever law protected you,
quote unquote from domestic propaganda is no longer in effect.
(28:51):
It hasn't been for almost seven years, So please think
critically about all the stuff you've run into since twenty thirteen.
It also turns out that there's much more to this story.
The US has been flouting its own laws for even longer.
We're going to take a pause for word from our
(29:12):
sponsor that, as far as we know, is not US propaganda,
and we'll get back to you after the break. Here's
where it gets crazier, actually much crazier. Yeah, yeah, we've
got double double the crazy here is that first, I
(29:35):
don't know, it's a double mint of crazy though. For sure.
The US has been conducting this domestic propaganda kind of operation,
the these sorts of endeavors for decades and decades since uh,
since your grandparents were alive. Easily if you you know, uh,
(29:55):
it's it's the easiest way to crack the this would
open is to start with two words. Operation Mockingbird. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Operation Mockingbird was a secret campaign by the USCIA designed
to influence the media, our media. It was started by
Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles and later run by
Frank Weisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA.
On paper, it was all about fighting communism, fighting the Reds,
(30:30):
the Rooskies, and promoting Western values. Wisner was told to
create an organization that concentrated on quote propaganda, economic warfare,
preventative direct action including sabotage, anti sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures,
subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups,
(30:55):
and a support of indigenous anti communist elements and threatened
countries of the free world. Hold on, let's unpack this,
and this is like a free reign to kind of
collude with other countries and like a effort of covert
warfare back against our own country.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, this is a quote that directly speaks to our
earlier episodes on why a lot of foreign countries don't
trust nonprofits. This is this. This is a war of ideology,
and Weisner is Wisner is tasked with controlling the narrative
(31:34):
in the US and later franchising or expanding into a
global war. So that's why like underground resistance groups that
could be anybody from transparent political opponents of a regime
to a student body that gets that gets radicalized. Wisner
(31:58):
also is pulling journalists from the US who are who
are accredited and who work at some top notch publications
of note here, and he's he's getting them to help
fight the battle at home. He turns a guy named
Philip Graham at the Washington Post, and he has Graham
(32:18):
run this project within the journalism industry, and Graham starts
recruiting other people. There's a laundry list of names who
may be familiar to our fellow listeners, who are history
buffs into the murky world of spycraft. We're talking about
people like James Truett, Russell Wiggins, Phil Gilan, John Hayes,
(32:40):
Alan Barth. And here's something important. Technically, when you read
about this in official sources, declassified documents, and so on,
you'll you'll hear the program rarely ever mentioned in actual documents.
We have one mention that we'll cite later, But then
you'll also here it's still described as a quote alleged operation.
(33:05):
But what did it do? So we've got that, like
you said, we've got a lot to unpack in Wizner's
sort of mandate. But how did that translate to actual
things they did with journalists here?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Well, ultimately, this thing that we're calling Operation Mockingbird, it
was an influence campaign, a way to influence all the media,
different media, print media, television. It was to incentivize or threaten,
so carrot or stick journalists to really put out the
(33:40):
stories that the people running this operation wanted to actually
be out there, to be talked about around the water cooler,
to be things that would generally be in the zeitgeist.
Or and this is really important when a big news
story would come out, the operatives that were working, you know,
led by Philip Graham, would be able to spin the
(34:03):
news and those big stories as they come out, we
can put a little something on it before we send
it out into the world that's going to change the
way people are going to view this particular story. Or
and this is probably the worst part to hide news
stories from the public, just to keep things that they've
found unfavorable out of our ears and eyes.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yeah, that's the thing. A method called catch and kill
where you basically like intercept the story and in some
way or another influence it to not ever see the
light of day, whether it's through intimidation, tactics, or a
bribery or any number of ways.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, it's kind of similar to the tactic or the
phenomenon known as the Overton window, which is sort of
influencing the bounds of what can be talked about, what
is considered credible or legitimate or valid conversation. Good examples
of this would be the suppression of agent orange reporting
(35:02):
for a while. Another I don't know if this is
a solid example, but a good question to ask is
why isn't there more reporting about the health effects of
depleted uranium which has been used in firearm rounds. There
should be more, but for a long time there wasn't.
The organizations that the CIA contacted, organizations and individuals they
(35:28):
wanted to present, as you said, Matt, the CIA's view.
The CIA also funded student and cultural organizations and used
magazines as fronts, not necessarily specialized trade magazines all the time,
more the kind of stuff you would see in a
waiting room at your local doctors or dentist's office. And
then as it developed, kind of like you said, Nol,
(35:49):
it started to franchise out. They would work to influence
foreign media, they would worked to influence political campaigns in
other countries. And this was all by the way, this
was all just like gravy on the meatloaf. That was
other illegal CIA operations already happening. Sorry for that painful comparison.
(36:09):
It didn't get lunch today, so I'm very all my
comparisons are like food based for right now. But we know,
we know that Wisner was a huge success. There's an
author named Deborah Davis. She had wrote a book called
Catherine the Great, and when she's talking about Wisner, she says,
by the early nineteen fifties, Wisner owned respective members of
(36:32):
the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles.
And they were getting big name journalists like too many
to name, but well, we've got an example of at
least one or two.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We sure do.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
One of the most important journalists under the control of
Operation Rockingbird was Joseph Alsopp, who wrote articles for over
three hundred different newspapers, and he was far from the
only player the mocking Bird project of influence. The sphere
of influence that Weisner held included journalists from the New
York Herald, Tribune, Time Magazine, Miami News, the Washington Star, Newsweek,
(37:12):
the Chattanooga Times. I mean paper is large and small. No,
you know, none were too insignificant. The whole idea was
to influence broadly and also narrowly if needed. The list
goes on. According to a guy by the name of
Alex Constantine, who wrote a book called Mockingbird the subversion
of the free press by the CIA in the fifties.
(37:35):
He says, quote, some three thousand salaried and contracts CIA
employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts. That's that's not insignificant, Ben,
we talk about the idea of illegal CIA operations. It's
just that's always interesting to me to hear that, because,
you know, isn't it like it's just extra illegal kind
(37:58):
of right, the idea that it's legal. It's almost a
misnomer kind of because it's like it's obviously got the sanction,
the blessing from someone that's a very on high you know,
I always wonder about that.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, it's uh, it's the Congressional military industrial complex, right.
That was the original phrase Eisenhower was going to use,
but it got edited out of his speech, so he
doesn't mention Congress and it. Yeah, you know, it's there's
so many moving parts to an organization the size of
the US government that they're inevitably going to be contradictory agendas.
(38:34):
And if you are able to pursue what you see
as the greater good, uh, and there's only one or
two pesky laws stopping you, then wouldn't you put doing
the right thing over following some some sheaf of documents
that's rotting in a dusty hall.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And you know, even if those documents are things like
the US Constitution, it's it's very easy for very intelligent
people to rationalize all sorts of horrible behavior. And this
this goes into, Yeah, this goes into the subversion of
the free press. That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I appreciate you pointed out. One of the most dangerous
capabilities of Operation mocking Bird was to again I'm like
legally required to say allegedly so, was to allegedly keep
stories out of the news, to as you said, Noel
catch and to kill Weisner was able to stop newspapers
(39:34):
from reporting the overthrow of the government of Iran, at
least for a while, to prevent them from reporting on
the coup in Guatemala, which we shall also mention Edward
Bernez was instrumental in drumming up at least ideological support
for this is where this is where Eisenhower himself kind
(39:55):
of shows up. Henry luch or Henry Luce as the
owner at the time of a large media empire and
the rules were a little bit different for him because
he was a tycoon. You know, he was a mogul.
He wasn't, he wasn't just a hard working, intrepid journalist.
He became key in Operation mocking Bird, and because of
(40:17):
his personal wealth and power, he was able to push
his own agenda. He really wanted a more right wing
presidential administration, and he did this because he thought it
was the best way to fight communism. So he was
one of those guys who was always at the time saying, well,
you know, the Democrats are very, very soft on communism,
(40:39):
and this nation is going to fall if we let
these reds get in and launch their fifth column or whatever.
So he used his magazines in concert kind of with
Operation mocking Bird to help get Dwight d. Eisenhower elected president.
And then in nineteen fifty three, the web expands because
(41:00):
Eisenhower appointed a family member of Henry Luchis to become
ambassador to Italy. This was the first first American woman
ambassador to a major country. So on the offset, that
seems like a very very good thing. It's more representation
in politics, right, But they got there because in a
(41:23):
dirty way, they took a dirty path to get there,
and then other members to your point about point about
contradicting your agendas. Other powerful people in the government, other
members of other institutions started to become worry of the
CIA's power, even envious of it.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yes, this is where we're going to talk about kind
of the fall of this operation, why it wasn't successful,
and why it allegedly doesn't continue right now.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Aha, Yeah, it's because our boy j ed Gar Hoover
was not happy with how powerful the CIA had grown.
He referred to Weisner's network as Wisner's Gang of Weirdos,
and then he actually started looking for dirt on the
members of Wisner's Gang of Weirdos, looking into their past,
(42:17):
and didn't take him long to figure out that some
of them had been active surprise surprise in Oh Heavens
TEBETSI left wing politics back in the nineteen thirties, which
is at that time was essentially tantamount to being a commie.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, that's and Joseph McCarthy, who will dive into in
a future episode on the House on American Activities Committee.
Joseph McCarthy also started trying to target members of the
CIA and say that they were security risks or they
were compromised. He claimed the CIA was a quote sinkhole
of communists, and he said, I'm going to root out
(42:55):
one hundred of them. One of his first targets was
coord Meyer, who at that time was still working still
allegedly working for Operation Mockingbird. But to put it bluntly,
McCarthy had no idea who he was messing with. Weisner
unleashed mocking Bird on McCarthy. Several members of the media
(43:17):
that were also working on this operation, Drew Pearson, Ed Murrow, Walter, Lippman,
and Moore, they went into attack mode. They're part of
the reason that McCarthy got such damaging press coverage. Again, again,
we're not here to defend McCarthy, and he clearly became
a flim flam man who was out of his depth.
(43:38):
But the way we got there was dirty and it
was orchestrated in part by the CIA. There aren't a
lot of good guys here, if you know, if you
delve into the story, and the US government was then
attacking its own people and attacking its own you know,
technically its own agenda.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Well, it's weird because it feels like the change in
public opinion, you know, when you're thinking about McCarthy as
and I know we haven't outlined that to its full
extent in this episode, but as Ben said, we will later.
But you may think of the public support that McCarthy
had for rooting out communists in the way that he
(44:19):
was and the you know, administration was at that time.
There was such support for it, or there was perceived
support for it in a lot of ways, and then
to have that perceived support just completely taken away by
these very prominent voices within the media industry. You can
(44:40):
really see you can see it happening, I guess. And
it's not something It's not in a way that I
would have imagined if I was just reading it in
you know, a history book, the way it has been
recorded over all these years. It's just, you know, the
winds have change, came and now McCarthy was out. No,
(45:00):
there was some assistance there allegedly, yep.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And this where we get to a point where we
ask ourselves what happened to Operation Mockingberg. Eventually, all good
and evil things must come to an end, right. This
operation had so many players, it couldn't be secret forever.
It was an open secret in the industry. In the
journalism industry by the late nineteen sixties, it started to
(45:24):
lose its cover in the seventies in a big way
because of Watergate. So the Watergate scandal exacerbated concern about
the power of intelligence agencies. This is early seventies, nineteen
seventy two, nineteen seventy four. Congress was becoming concerned that
the president would be able to use the powers of
the intelligence networks for their own nefarious ends. And then
(45:48):
this all hits a powder keg moment when the famous
reporter Seymour Hirsch publishes is nineteen seventy five expose about
CIA domestic surveillance, which, fellow listeners, you've heard us talk
about that before. Long story short. This leads Congress to
authorize a series of investigations into the CIA from nineteen
(46:09):
seventy five to nineteen seventy six. They examined a ton
of different operations. They also find CIA ties with journalists
as well as private voluntary organizations, but none of these reports,
interestingly enough, specifically refer to Operation Mockingbird. All the famous
Church Committee report found was that quote the CIA currently
(46:32):
maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the
world who provide intelligence and at times attempt to influence
opinion through the use of propaganda. And this is weird
because the CIA already knew the heat was coming, and
they had begun restricting their use of domestic journalists and
(46:55):
foreign journalists, at least according to them, like right as
this was all hitting the fan.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
So in nineteen seventy three, the former director of the CIA,
William Colby, told the Church Committee that he believed, as
a general policy, the CIA won't be able to use
clandestine operations anymore, won't be able to use staff to
perpetrate these kinds of operations on US publications. It's it's
(47:26):
it's it's uh, which have a substantial impact, is what
he says, quote, or influence on public opinion. So he's
essentially shutting this down, right.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
And just three years after that, George H. W. Bush,
who was then the CIA director, you know, member of
the Bush political dynasty he'd later go on to be president,
he said the following quote, effective immediately, CIA will not
enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full
time or part time news correspondent accredited by any new
(48:00):
US news service. Newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station.
So there we go, the problem solved right nineteen seventy
six on we are g to G that is short
for good to go, or are we? We do have
to mention we tease. The one specific mention of Operation
(48:21):
Mockingbird in official docs, the Family Jewels, The Infamous Family
Jewels Massy classification of CIA documents says the following in full.
It's interesting to see how they characterize Mockingbird.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
And this comes from and you can find this right
now if you're hanging out the Black Vault dot com.
And this is a quote from the sixth page that
you'll find there. Project Mockingbird, a telephone intercept activity was
conducted between twelve of March nineteen sixty three and fifteenth
of June nineteen sixty three, so very short time there,
(48:57):
and targeted to Washington based newsman who at the time
had been publishing news articles based on and frequently quoting
classified materials of this agency, the CIA and others, including
top secret and special intelligence. And you know that's it
sounds like a very tiny operation, right There are two
(49:17):
newsmen who have access to information that they probably shouldn't
have or that you know someone is feeding to them,
or that you know in some way these guys are
getting access to that secret information that they shouldn't have it.
So they checked out two guys, they wired tapped them,
and they figured out what happened, and then it was
over right.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
But they stopped, right, I mean, if everything's fine, they're
not doing this anymore. They put the brakes on this program,
so no worries. Everything's all good, right.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, that leads us to our conclusion, and we wish
there was a little bit different because the answer really
to that excellent question is not so fast. You know,
decades have passed since the mid seventies, but people, some
of your faithful hosts included, believe this program never really stopped.
And it's easy to see why a lot of people
(50:08):
believe that this is the era of fake news. After all,
maybe we don't even need the CIA to conduct this anymore.
Maybe the massive consolidation of media conglomerates alone has led
to more effective control over more media than ever before.
The thing is, you'll notice that that mention from Family
(50:30):
Jewels talks about a Project mocking Bird. We're talking about
an Operation mocking Bird. That's that's the closest we could get.
And they sound like very different things.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
They sound like completely different things. One is feeding information
to the press, the other is trying to figure out
how the press is getting all this dang information. So
maybe maybe Operation Mockingbird was happening, and then Project Mockingbird
was to figure out what the heck was happening with
the operation. I mean, honestly, because the people involved, Robert Kennedy,
(51:04):
Robert McNamara, huge names, These people are involved directly with
the tiny snippet we talked about Project Mockingbird. Joseph Carroll
is involved. I mean, it's just it's so insane to
imagine if Operation mocking Bird was real, absolutely was real,
(51:25):
just full stop, and they were doing all these things.
Who knows exactly how many people were involved and would
have information about this compartmentalized activity. You know, it's that
whole thing where maybe the left hand has no idea
what the right hand is doing.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Yeah, and then the big question is if you had
this tremendous network, this infrastructure, and you knew that you
were on the verge of discovering technology that would give
you even more control, why the hell would you walk
away it's a question that can really be answered. And
if you dig into Operation Mockingbird, you will you'll see
(52:04):
that it's still legally again an alleged operation, but there
is also there's no solid cutoff tape. Other than the
nineteen seventy statements that we mentioned just a few minutes ago.
You will not find an official end for this thing,
because this thing doesn't officially really exist. So this is
(52:26):
where we leave it to you. What do you think, folks,
Operation Mockingbird. Is it a small time conspiracy to hassle
some journalists, was it a deeper conspiracy to rule the
mind of the public. Was it a conspiracy that never
actually ended? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (52:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
You can reach us in the usual ways on the
internet at Facebook or we have our Facebook group here's
where it gets crazy. You can also find this on
Instagram and Twitter at some combination of conspiracy stuff conspiracy
stuff show. We also have a telephone number that are good.
Buddy Matt is kind enough to sort of be the gatekeeper.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Of that's right. Our number is one eight three three
std WYTK. Leave a message we you know, we'll hear it.
Whatever you want to say, whether you want to talk
about this episode, or when you want to hear in
the future or a past episode, or if you want
to talk about Nol's awesome hats that he wears on
(53:26):
Instagram all the time, or that he's wearing right now,
Ben's sunglasses that he's wearing while recording an episode of
stuff that I want you to know because got a
b BA while you're making this show. I've got a
magic the gathering background on Zoom right now. Actually, all
of us have really nice psychedelic backgrounds right now. Call
us and talk to us about that. What should we
put in our background when we make these episodes? Too much? Okay,
(53:50):
let's move on.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
I think it's the perfect amount. Do you hit the
Goldilocks zone with that one old friend? But wait, you
might be saying, I social media, I don't get it,
or I hate tyger on phone. It's twenty twenty. But
I have something important that you or my fellow listeners
need to hear. How do I get in touch with you? Well,
(54:12):
we have good news for you, my friend. You can
reach us directly twenty four to seven at our good
old fashioned email address where we.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
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