April 24, 2020 • 51 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):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paul Mission Control decades. Most importantly, you are you, 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
(00:46):
talked about, just to keep everybody in touch as close
as we can be during these our days of quarantine.
Wanted to shout out in particular, Uh, Snake Pliskin, who
just heard our episode on the Smiley Face Killer theory. Snake,
you said, hey, conspiracy stuff, I just listened to your
(01:08):
Smiley Face Killers episode. In the last two months, male
subjects were pulled from the Milwaukee River. Uh 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
(01:29):
it's interesting because you know, um, as 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 of foot. What did you guys
(01:50):
think about that when we when we looked into that episode.
I mean, it's nice to have two people who have
decided to continue looking into it, especially for you know,
the individuals, uh like, the families of the victims that
are involved, just to have someone that it feels like
they're in your corner. Um. But you know, it did
(02:12):
seem like a bit of a stretch where we did
the episode. That doesn't mean it's you know, not real.
It just means we don't have enough evidence at this
point to connect everything. Yeah, I agree, And it just
felt like, you know, the smiley faces such a ubiquitous,
very um 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
(02:36):
to happen near a body of water, seemed like a
real kind of shot in the dark to me. Um,
and it seems like that is what the evidence bore
out that it that it did feel like a bit
of 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.
You know, well said, well said, And it sounds like
(02:58):
we're all on the same page with this one. Uh.
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, I want nothing
more than closure for the families who have who have
(03:20):
lost these children. Today, we're diving into something that fellow
long time listeners will be more than familiar with. Uh,
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 election, or at least it looks like
(03:41):
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 it's interesting because
it makes for a slick headline, but that's not entirely true.
So here are the facts. If you've listened to the show,
you know that propaganda is nothing new. Propaganda is something
(04:04):
that's been around forever because we've always needed we as
in us, every human UH, 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 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
(04:26):
all about the life and story of Edward Burns, who
is popularly known lovingly known as the father of public
relations i e. Propaganda. Right yeah, and you can. You
can read his work for yourself. It is surprisingly transparent
because Edward Burns felt like he was doing a good thing.
(04:49):
He thought it was making the world a better place.
You can find this stuff for free online. I like
to recommend for anybody who hasn't read him before checking
out Crystallizing Public Opinion and of course his breakout banger,
the single in his uh if his work as an album,
the book simply titled Propaganda. UH. I would also say
(05:11):
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 kirk Guard or something like that. Uh. And
you know he will 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
(05:32):
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 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. Propagandas information, it's not
(05:56):
always untrue, but propaganda is information with an agenda. It's biased,
it can be misleading, and it's meant to make you feel,
as the reader or the viewer, the audience member, that
what you're being told is leading you inevitably to an
(06:16):
obvious conclusion. But that conclusion is not always the truth.
It's it's very tricky. Uh. 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
(06:36):
released from a public relations perspective, whether it's the messaging
within a let's say a company and the way it
portrays itself in advertising, or especially a candidate and the
way they are portrayed within within an election year. Well, yeah,
I mean the term is spin right. Spin is literally
(06:57):
taking a truth and twist it. That is what spinning
something is. It is a way of 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
it's it's probably a bad idea to outright lie and
(07:18):
propaganda because you can you can call out a lie.
You can't call out a cleverly uh strategically placed partial
truth quite as easily, can't you? Right right? I think
I mentioned this in an earlier episode, but always makes
me think of that fantastic line from Emily Dickinson. Tell
the truth, but tell its slant, and you see more
(07:41):
and more of that. I want to arm everybody who's
been reading a lot of news, especially political news, with
a an easy tip to find stuff that maybe, if
not propaganda, uh, just opinion masquerading is fact. Uh. You
will notice this when you see by the verbs you
(08:01):
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 they slam or they blast
or they you know, excoreate whatever. All when they're putting
in those action verbs, that is the spin, that is
(08:21):
part of the narrative they're trying to make you agree with.
And and it's weird because typically here in the US,
before and after the advent of the internet, uh, when
we would hear about propaganda, it would be portrayed as
something that other countries do. Right. You might, for example,
(08:43):
remember hearing a news anchor saying something along the lines of,
look at all this crazy disinformation coming from Russia. RT
used to be known as the Russian Times or Russia
Times has a brand new crazy conspiracy theory, and they
might reference Russia's state level propaganda on everything from quote
(09:04):
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 North
Korea or Turkmenistan release. Have you guys ever seen those? Oh? Yes,
I recall this very vividly calling out the United States
(09:26):
for its use of propaganda. But in a propaganda format
it was, 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, Uh,
if that makes sense. I believed that there was a
(09:49):
US campaign to wage propaganda against North Korea when I
was watching their tape in particular. 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 this is uh the standard fodder
for asymmetrical means of warfare, right Why by a super
(10:14):
carrier when you can get the domestic population to turn
against its masters. We often see propaganda presented as a
tool in the dictator tool kit. You know, you can
use it to gaslight and suppress local populations, and you
can also use it to discredit any domestic opposition. But
(10:35):
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 anymore wrong. Sadly, what are we
talking about. We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor.
(10:56):
Here's where it gets crazy. Oh who do 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. There should be a law,
(11:17):
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. Yeah, and and like, uh,
you know, private entities are are a different thing. Everybody
expects propaganda from private entities. We just call them advertisements.
(11:40):
When he's at least this amazing mixtape a while back,
that's definitely propaganda. Burger king once you to think that
McDonald's is garbage, that's propaganda too. Uh. But it's it's different,
you know, when, as you said, Matt, there are their
tax dollars involved, And there is actually a law. It's
(12:01):
called the US Information and Educational Exchange Acts. Usually it's
street name is the Smith Mount m U n D
T Act. This is the 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
(12:22):
Department of State is based in this country. But Smith
Mount uh is is green lighting what could be euphemistically
called public diplomacy. I want to like walk this back
ever so slightly, like when you say public, So this
is governing public discourse in some way or like the
(12:42):
like like being is it trying to keep people honest?
Like what's the purpose? I don't I don't quite understand
if If it is meant for that, it doesn't seven
be doing a very good job, right right, So think
of things if um, you can listen to this, so
you can listen to this this now in the US,
but for a long time, uh, there were things like
(13:04):
v O A Voice of America. This is state sponsored
US content that specifically marketed to foreign audiences, you know,
like think of the Horn of Africa, think of East
or Southeast Asia, and it's it's meant to kind of
push the push Uncle Sam's narrative to to these foreign audiences.
(13:27):
And it uh. The the act itself, says uh or
said that this kind of stuff that we're piping out
two residents of other countries cannot be piped in here.
So that's why you can't turn on nine point one
or whatever your local NPR station is and hear them
talking about how uh dangerous the government actions of Myanmar
(13:51):
or Pakistan are. I see, Okay, So it's essentially like
giving permission for this kind of quote unquote. We'd never
all at propaganda. The propaganda is not even in the
thing that's sort of a dirty word, but it's essentially
allowing that legally within the framework of of our of
our government to to happen when it comes to outside countries.
(14:12):
But it's something that we would never do to our
own people knowingly or in terms of demonizing other countries. Yeah,
nail on the head. In short, the United States always
knew that domestic propaganda could have a delatorious or damaging
effect on the population. We moved to protect ourselves from
(14:34):
ourselves and and this, uh, this comes into play like,
after after all, the propaganda of World War One and
and things like that, when people are scrambling for the
ration cards and so on. The reasoning here was pretty patriotic.
In fact, Uh, there's one Senator Edward Zarinsky who explained it, um,
(14:59):
I think pretty pretty succinctly when he was working with
a Senator Jay William Fulbright to try to push this
act through Congress. And the purpose would be to distinguish
what the US is doing from uh, the way the
Soviets were conducting their propaganda, um, he said. Zerinsky said,
quote from the Soviet Union, where domestic propaganda is a
(15:19):
principal government activity, attempting to kind of demonize that. So
Zarinsky and Senator Jay William Fulbright sold their amendments on
this idea of sensible rhetoric, which I've been trying to
get get at. American taxpayers shouldn't be funding propaganda for
American audiences, and that makes sense to me. But we
should be funding propaganda, you know it to all the
(15:39):
other countries that are our enemies or our potential rivals. Sure, yeah, yeah,
Like we shouldn't be lied to is the American public,
And you know what, we also shouldn't be paying people
for the privilege of being lied to. That makes sense
to me. It sounds like that's something all of us
are on board heard with and here's the news. Uh,
(16:02):
it's quiet news. So don't feel bad if you missed it.
This rule, this, this sort of differentiation between US and
the quote unquote bad guys, all ended in ten seven
years ago, almost exactly seven years There was a reform
that was passed in January and went into effect in July.
(16:24):
It had relatively little media coverage, and it changed the rule.
So ever since, 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
(16:45):
that doesn't really matter. It does, especially when you consider
how much programming that opened the door for It's it's huge. Yeah,
there's a ton of stuff produced prior to that that
you would never get inside the United States. Uh, the
stuff like the um, it's stuff that's made by the
Broadcasting Board of Governors, so Voice of America that we
(17:08):
already mentioned, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting,
all of those networks. Uh, they can only be viewed
or listened 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 the radio or something. Um,
if you're in a foreign country, if you were a
different place other than than the United States or territory,
(17:28):
theo's the only places you could listen to that stuff.
But uh, not anymore. And that content is viewed in
more than a hundred countries in sixty one languages. And
within that programming, you're gonna hear about human rights abuses
in Iran, uh, issues in Tibet like self immolation of
you know, certain believers there or protesters there, the human
(17:51):
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 places like a Rock, that's
where you're gonna find all of that kind of stuff.
But you know, to to be fair, I mean, we
have to know that there's definitely a reason for this.
There's some valid arguments for this. Uh. The v O
(18:12):
A S Charter makes makes this pretty boldly stated. Um,
they emphasize accuracy. Quote. Our journalists provide what many people
cannot get locally uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate.
How do you how do you like that language? Ben?
(18:32):
That's what they said, you know, that's that's their charter. Uh.
You know, I think it's a good point though, because
the uh, because it is what could be described, maybe
somewhat glibally as a pickle. There's an anonymous source where
several anonymous sources from the US government who say that
(18:53):
Voice of America warts and all does serve a good purpose.
They call it counter programming, counterpropagandistic programming for people in
incredibly unstable areas that have little media access. So take
Somalia for example. Smalia is of failed state. It's very
difficult to live there. And according to at least one source,
(19:16):
again who wished to remain anonymous, they say Somali's have
three options for news, word of Mouth, al Shabab, or
Voice of America Somalia. So their argument is this propaganda
has to exist because it is um. It is providing
like like you said in that mission statement, and all
it's providing uh quote unquote uncensored news. Uh And okay,
(19:43):
look clearly uncensored news and responsible discussion. UM. Responsible discussion
sounds like it could also be censorship. That could be
a that could be like someone's safe word for censorship, honestly,
but that also dodges the real question Okay, yeah, alright.
Granted this is important for areas of the world that
(20:03):
would not otherwise have any kind of international news or
any kind of 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. Uh. The argument is that
if we do that by doing that, since this programming
(20:26):
has been able to reach large expatriate communities like U
the to go back to the Smalley example, a big
part of the Smalley and diaspora is composed of people
who live in St. 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
(20:48):
in the country. So overall, they're saying, we're doing a
good thing. Do you believe them? We'll see, 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
(21:11):
the BBG the Broadcasting Board of Governors, again 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
(21:32):
a win win for everyone involved. Uh. She doesn't mention
this in her statements, but it is important to note. Uh,
you know, less we look at less, we look at
skance at the US for uh, marketing propaganda to U.
S citizens. We have to remember a ton of other
(21:53):
foreign countries are already marketing propaganda here, arguably a little
more successfully in some case. 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. Well
(22:15):
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 well if there's a 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
(22:37):
where it actually is propaganda of some sort because they're
reoccurring themes. Let's take a quick case in point here
and jump to Kansas City, Missouri, Missouri. How did Missouri
missa Missouri? Well, there was a New York Times article
that came out in February of this year that it's
written by Neil mc mc mcfarquhar, and he is talking
(23:02):
about a radio station that is broadcasting there in Kansas City.
It's called Radio spot Nick, and according to Neil in
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,
(23:25):
if you're in your car commuting, you're gonna hear this
if you are on that channel. And uh, it's a
little strange. Let let me just read this quote. In
the United States, talk radio on this channel, spot Nick
covers the political spectrum from right to left. So again
you're getting what may feel like balanced news, like you're
(23:45):
getting just a regular old station, but there is a
constant backbeat according to this article, that is that America
is damaged goods that there's something wrong with America. There's
things aren't going right. There are problems, major issues, and
here all here are all of the issues with America. UM.
And it's interesting just to know that this is happening
(24:06):
in the United States with what is believed, like we said, uh,
to be Russian propaganda. 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
spot Nick exists in the US primarily because of a
(24:27):
radio station owner named Pete Chartel. Uh he was laying
like two years ago, eighteen or so, he had to
lay off his entire staff and uh he sail. He
was having a fire sale on ad spots. He hadn't
paid himself in months and months. It looked like his
operation was going to close. But Radio spot Nick was
(24:50):
paying thirty thousand dollars a month to broadcast its programming
in d C. And that's what that's what led him
to to this. It was He's not like a Russian
sleeper agent allah the Americans that we know of, right right,
He's a guy who's trying to UM, who's trying to
(25:10):
keep the lights on it's an understandable thing. And this
is this is just one specific example. Uh, this could
be also it's been called public diplomacy. It could also
be called soft diplomacy. You know, you can win hearts
and minds without ever putting your hand on a gun
or god forbid, a nuclear weapon. But we wanted to
(25:33):
bring to your attention today something else. That's the that's
the lay of the land now, right. Whatever law protected
you quote unquote from domestic propaganda, uh is no longer
in effect. It hasn't been for almost seven years. So
please think critically about all the stuff you you've run
into since. Uh. It also turns out that there's much
(25:58):
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 sponsor. Uh. That, as far
as we know, is not US propaganda. Uh. And we'll
get back to you after the break. Here's where it
(26:21):
gets crazier, actually much crazy. Yeah. Yeah, we've got double
double the crazy here. First, I don't know it's a
double ment of crazy though, for sure. Uh, the US
has been conducting this domestic propaganda kind of operation. The
these sorts of endeavors for decades and decades. Uh since uh,
(26:46):
since your grandparents were alive easily if you know, uh,
it's it's uh. The easiest way to to crack this
one open is to start with two words. Operation mocking Bird. Yeah.
Operation mocking Bird was a secret campaign by the U
S c i A designed to influence the media, our media.
(27:10):
It was started by Cord Meyer and Alan W. Dulles
uh and later run by Frank Wisner after Dulles became
the head of the c i A. On paper, it
was all about fighting communism, fighting the reds, the roost keys,
and promoting Western values. Uh. Wisner was told to create
(27:31):
an organization the concentrated on quote propaganda, economic warfare, preventative
direct action including sabotage, anti sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures, uh,
subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups,
and US support of indigenous anti communist elements and threatened
(27:56):
countries of the free world. Hold on, let's unpack this.
So this is like a free reign to kind of
collude with other countries and like an effort of h
of covert warfare back against our own country. Yeah, this
is uh, this is a quote that directly speaks to
our earlier episodes on why a lot of foreign countries
(28:17):
don't trust nonprofits. Uh. This is this, This is a
war of ideology, and Wisener is Wisener is tasked with
controlling the narrative 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 UM transparent political
(28:43):
opponents of a regime to uh student body that gets
uh that gets radicalized. Uh. Wisner also is pulling journalists
from the US who are who are a credit it
and who work at uh some top notch publications of
(29:03):
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, UH, and he has Graham
run this project within the journalism industry, and Graham starts
recruiting other people. Uh. There's a laundry list of names
who may be familiar to our fellow listeners, who are
(29:26):
history buffs into the murky world of spycraft. We're talking
about people like James Truett, Russell Wiggins, UH, Phil Guillen,
John Hayes, Alan Barth And there's 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 uh rarely
(29:50):
ever mentioned in actual documents. We have one mention that
will cite later. But then you will also here it's
still described as a quote alleged opera ration. But but
what what did it do? So we've got that, like
you said, well, we've got a lot to unpack in
Wisners sort of mandate. But how did that translate to
actual things they did with journalists here? Well, ultimately, this
(30:15):
thing that we're calling Operation mocking Bird, it was an
influence campaign, a way to influence all the media different media,
print media, uh, television. It was to incentivize or threaten
so carrot or stick uh journalists to really put out
the stories that the people running this operation wanted to
(30:39):
actually be out there, to be talked about around the
water cooler, to be things that would generally be in
the zeitgeist um or. And this is really important. When
a big news story would come out, the operatives that
we're working, you know, led by Philip Graham there would
be able to spin the news and those big stories
(30:59):
as they come out, we can put a little something
on it before we you know, 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. Yeah, that's the thing. A method
(31:22):
called catch and kill where you basically like intercept the
story and uh, in some way or another, influence it
to not ever see the light of day, whether it's
through intimidation, tactics, or bribery or any number of ways. Yeah,
it's kind of similar to the tactic or the phenomenon
known as the Overton window, which is sort of influencing
(31:44):
the bounds of what can be talked about, what is
considered credible or legitimate or valid conversation. Uh. Good examples
of this would be, uh, the suppression of agent orange
reporting 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
(32:07):
of depleted uranium, which has been used in firearm rounds.
There should be more, but for a long time there
wasn't the the organizations that the CIA contacted, organizations and individuals. Uh,
they wanted to present as you said, that the CIA's view.
The CIA also funded student and cultural organizations and used
(32:31):
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, no,
it started to franchise out. They would work to influence
foreign media, They work to influence political campaigns in other countries.
(32:52):
And this was all by the way, this was all
just like gravy on the meat loaf. That was other
illegal CIA operations already happening. Sorry for that painful comparison.
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
(33:15):
author named Deborah Davis. Uh. 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 the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS, and other
communications vehicles and they were. They were getting big name
(33:36):
journalists like too many to name, but well we've got
an example of like at least one or two, we
sure do. UM. One of the most important journalists under
the control of Operation Locking Bird was Joseph Alsop, who
wrote articles forever three hundred different newspapers. And he was
far from the only player the mocking Bird UH project
(33:56):
of influence. The sphere of influence that wise are held
UM included journalists from the New York Herald, Tribune, Time Magazine,
Miami News, the Washington Star, Newsweek, the Chattanooga Times. I
mean paper is large and small. No, you know, none
were too insignificant. The whole idea was to influence broadly
(34:17):
and uh and also narrowly if needed. The list goes
on UM. 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. UH,
he says, quote, some three thousand salaried and contracts CIA
employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts. That's that's not insignificant,
(34:42):
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 legal kind of? Right?
The idea that it's illegal, it's almost a misnomer kind
of because it's like it's obviously got sanctioned the blessing
from someone that's a very on on high. You know,
(35:03):
I always wonder about that. 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 in 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
(35:27):
going to be contradictory agendas. 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 uh, some sheaf of documents that's rotting in the
(35:47):
dusty hall. Uh? And you know, even if those documents
are things like the U. S. Constitution. Uh, It's it's
very easy for very intelligent people to rationalize all sorts
of horrible behavior. And this this goes into um, yeah,
this goes into the subversion of the free press. That's
exactly what happened, Matt. I appreciate that you pointed out.
(36:09):
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, uh, keep stories out of the
news too, as you said, Noel catch and to kill
Wisner was able to stop newspapers from reporting the overthrow
(36:31):
of the government of Iran, at least for a while, uh,
to prevent them from reporting on the coup and Guatemala,
which we should also mentioned Edward Burns was instrumental in
uh drumming up at least ideological support for this is
where this is where Eisenhower himself kind of shows up. Uh.
(36:52):
Henry Luch. Henry Luch. He is 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 just uh,
he wasn't just a hard working in trepid journalists. He
became key in Operation Mockingbird, and because of his personal
(37:13):
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, and this
(37:35):
nation is gonna fall if we let these reds get
in and and launch their fifth column or whatever. So
he used his magazines in the concert kind of with
Operation Mockingbird to help get Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president.
And then in nineteen fifty three the web expands because
Eisenhower appointed appointed a family member of Henry Luches to
(38:01):
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 dirty way. They took a dirty path to get there.
(38:21):
And then other members to to your point about um
or that that point about contradicting 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. Yes, yeah,
This is where we're going to talk about kind of
the the fall of this operation, why it wasn't successful,
(38:46):
and why it allegedly doesn't continue right now. Yeah, it's
it's because our boy, Jed gro Hoover Um was not
happy with how powerful the CIA had grown. Um he
referred to Wisener's network as Wisener's gang of weirdos. And
then he actually started looking for dirt on the members
(39:08):
of Wisener's Gang of Weirdos, looking into their past, and
didn't take him long to figure out that some of
them had been active, uh surprise, surprise in Oh Heavens
to Betsy left wing politics back in the nineteen thirties,
which is at that time was was essentially tantamount to
being a commie. Right. Yeah, that's and Joseph McCarthy, who
(39:32):
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 risk or they were compromised. He claimed the CIA
was a quote sync whole of communists, and he said,
I'm I'm gonna root out a hundred of them. One
of his first targets was cord Meyer, who at that
(39:54):
time was still working still allegedly working for Operation mocking Bird.
But to put it bluntly, McCarthy had no idea who
he was messing with. Uh. Wisner unleashed mocking Bird on McCarthy. Uh.
Several members of the media that were also working on
this operation, Drew Pearson, Ed Murrow, Walter Lippman, and more.
(40:19):
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. But
the way we got there was dirty and it was
orchestrated in part by the CIA. There aren't a lot
(40:41):
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. It's weird because it feels like the
change in public opinion, you know, when you're thinking about
McCarthy is um And I know we haven't outlined that
(41:02):
to its full extent in this episode, but as Ben said,
we will later. But you you may think of the
public support that McCarthy had for rooting out communists in
the way that he was in the you know, administration
was at that time. Um, there was such support for it,
or there was perceived support for it, um in a
(41:24):
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 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
(41:44):
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, the winds of change
came and now McCarthy was out. But no, there was
some assistance there, allegedly. And this this where we get
to a point where we we ask ourselves what happened
to Operation Mockingbird. Eventually, all good and evil things must
(42:08):
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 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.
(42:29):
This is early seventies, nineteen seventy two, nineteen seventy four.
Congress was becoming concerned uh that the president would be
able to use the powers of the intelligence networks for
their own nefarious ends. And then this all hits a
powder keg moment when the famous reporter Seymour Hirsch publishes
(42:49):
is nineteen seventy five expose a about c I a
domestic surveillance which you know, fellow listeners, you've you've heard
us talk about that before. Long story short. This leads
Congress to authorize a series of investigations into the CIA
from ninety five to nineteen seventy six. They examined a
ton of different operations. They also find CIA ties with
(43:11):
journalists as well as private voluntary organizations, but none of
these reports, interestingly enough, specifically refer to Operation mocking Bird.
All the famous Church Committee report found was that quote,
the CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign
individuals around the world who provide intelligence and at times
(43:34):
attempt to influence opinion through the use of propaganda and this.
This is weird because the CIA already knew the heat
was coming, and they had they had begun restricting their
use of domestic journalists and foreign journalists, at least according
to them. Uh like right as this was all hitting
(43:56):
the fan. So in nineteen seventy three, the former director
of the CIA, William Colby, told the Church Committee UM
that he believed, as a general policy, Um, the CIA
won't be able to use clandestine uh operations anymore, won't
be able to use staff to perpetrate these kinds of
(44:17):
operations UM on US publications. It's it's it's it's uh,
which have a substantial impact is what he says, quote
uh or influence on public opinion. Um. So he's essentially
shutting this down, right. And just three years after that,
George H. W. Bush, who was in the CIA director
(44:37):
you know, member of the Bush political dynasty would 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 US news service, newspaper, periodical, radio,
(44:58):
or television network or station. So there we go, problem solved, right,
nineteen seventy six on we are G two G that
is short for good to go, uh we or are we?
We do have to mention uh we tease the one
specific mention of Operation mocking Bird in official docks the
(45:19):
Family Jewels, the Infamous Family Jewels, Massy classification of CIA documents,
uh says the following in full. Here, it's interesting to
see how they characterize mocking Bird. 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. Projects
(45:42):
mocking Bird, a telephone intercept activity was conducted between twelve
of March nineteen sixty three and fifteenth of June nineteen
sixty three, so a very short time there, 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
(46:05):
and special intelligence. And you know, that's it sounds like
a very tiny operation, right There are two newsmen who
have access to information that they probably shouldn't have or
that you know, someone is feeding to them, or that uh,
you know, in some way, these guys are getting access
to that secret information that they shouldn't have it. So
(46:26):
they checked out two guys, they wire tapped them, and
they figured out what happened, and then it was over right,
But they stopped, right, I mean, if everything's fine, they're
not doing this anymore. That they put the brakes on
this program, so no worries, Everything is all good, right. Yeah,
that leads us to our conclusion, and we wish there
was a little bit different because the answer really to
(46:48):
that excellent question is not so fast. You know, decades
have passed since the mid seventies, but numerous people, some
of your faithful hosts included, believe this program never really stopped.
And it's easy to see why a lot of people
believe that this is the era of fake news. After all,
maybe we don't even need the CIA to conduct this anymore.
(47:11):
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 mentioned from Family
Jewels talks about a project mocking Bird. We're talking about
an Operation mocking Bird. That's that's the closest we could get.
(47:33):
And they sound like very different things. 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 mocking Bird was to
(47:53):
figure out what the heck was happening with the operation.
I mean, honestly, because the people involved, Robert Kennedy, Rob McNamara,
huge names, These people are involved directly with the tiny
snippet we talked about Project mocking Bird. Joseph Carroll is involved.
I mean, it's it's just it's so insane to imagine
(48:15):
if Operation mocking Bird was real, absolutely was real, just
full stop, and they were doing all these things. Who
who knows exactly how many people were involved and would
have information about this compartmentalized activity. Um, you know, it's
that whole thing where maybe the left hand has no
(48:37):
idea what the right hand is doing. Yeah, And and
then the big question is if you had this tremendous network,
this infrastructure, and you knew that you were on the
verge of of discovering technology that would give you even
more control, why the hell would you walk away? It's
it's a question that can't really be answered, and if
you dig into Operation mocking Bird you will you'll see
(49:00):
that it's still legally again an alleged operation, but there
is also there's no solid cut off tape other than
the like nineteen seventies statements, uh that 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 where we leave it to you.
(49:22):
What do you think, folks, Operation mocking Bird. Is it
a small time conspiracy to hasslesome 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. Yeah. You can reach us in the
usual ways on the internet at Facebook or we have
(49:44):
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy. You can
also find us on Instagram and Twitter. It's some combination
of conspiracy stuff, conspiracy stuff show um. We also have
a telephone number that are good. Buddy Matt is kind
enough to sort of be the gate keeper of that's right.
Our number is one eight three three st d w
(50:07):
y t K. 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 Knowle's awesome hats that he
wears on Instagram all the time, or that he's wearing
right now Ben sunglasses that he's wearing while recording an
(50:28):
episode of stuff. I want you to know because you
gotta be be a 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, let's move on. I think it's the
perfect amount. Do you hit the Goldilock zone with that one?
(50:51):
Old friends? Uh, but wait, you might be saying I
hate social media, I don't get it, or I I
hate Tyke can phone twenty but I have something important
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do I get in touch with you? Well, we have
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(51:14):
address where we are conspiracy at iHeart Radio dot com
(51:37):
stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paul Mission Control decades. Most importantly, you are you, 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
(00:46):
talked about, just to keep everybody in touch as close
as we can be during these our days of quarantine.
Wanted to shout out in particular, Uh, Snake Pliskin, who
just heard our episode on the Smiley Face Killer theory. Snake,
you said, hey, conspiracy stuff, I just listened to your
(01:08):
Smiley Face Killers episode. In the last two months, male
subjects were pulled from the Milwaukee River. Uh 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
(01:29):
it's interesting because you know, um, as 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 of foot. What did you guys
(01:50):
think about that when we when we looked into that episode.
I mean, it's nice to have two people who have
decided to continue looking into it, especially for you know,
the individuals, uh like, the families of the victims that
are involved, just to have someone that it feels like
they're in your corner. Um. But you know, it did
(02:12):
seem like a bit of a stretch where we did
the episode. That doesn't mean it's you know, not real.
It just means we don't have enough evidence at this
point to connect everything. Yeah, I agree, And it just
felt like, you know, the smiley faces such a ubiquitous,
very um 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
(02:36):
to happen near a body of water, seemed like a
real kind of shot in the dark to me. Um,
and it seems like that is what the evidence bore
out that it that it did feel like a bit
of 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.
You know, well said, well said, And it sounds like
(02:58):
we're all on the same page with this one. Uh.
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, I want nothing
more than closure for the families who have who have
(03:20):
lost these children. Today, we're diving into something that fellow
long time listeners will be more than familiar with. Uh,
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 election, or at least it looks like
(03:41):
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 it's interesting because
it makes for a slick headline, but that's not entirely true.
So here are the facts. If you've listened to the show,
you know that propaganda is nothing new. Propaganda is something
(04:04):
that's been around forever because we've always needed we as
in us, every human UH, 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 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
(04:26):
all about the life and story of Edward Burns, who
is popularly known lovingly known as the father of public
relations i e. Propaganda. Right yeah, and you can. You
can read his work for yourself. It is surprisingly transparent
because Edward Burns felt like he was doing a good thing.
(04:49):
He thought it was making the world a better place.
You can find this stuff for free online. I like
to recommend for anybody who hasn't read him before checking
out Crystallizing Public Opinion and of course his breakout banger,
the single in his uh if his work as an album,
the book simply titled Propaganda. UH. I would also say
(05:11):
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 kirk Guard or something like that. Uh. And
you know he will 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
(05:32):
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 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. Propagandas information, it's not
(05:56):
always untrue, but propaganda is information with an agenda. It's biased,
it can be misleading, and it's meant to make you feel,
as the reader or the viewer, the audience member, that
what you're being told is leading you inevitably to an
(06:16):
obvious conclusion. But that conclusion is not always the truth.
It's it's very tricky. Uh. 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
(06:36):
released from a public relations perspective, whether it's the messaging
within a let's say a company and the way it
portrays itself in advertising, or especially a candidate and the
way they are portrayed within within an election year. Well, yeah,
I mean the term is spin right. Spin is literally
(06:57):
taking a truth and twist it. That is what spinning
something is. It is a way of 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
it's it's probably a bad idea to outright lie and
(07:18):
propaganda because you can you can call out a lie.
You can't call out a cleverly uh strategically placed partial
truth quite as easily, can't you? Right right? I think
I mentioned this in an earlier episode, but always makes
me think of that fantastic line from Emily Dickinson. Tell
the truth, but tell its slant, and you see more
(07:41):
and more of that. I want to arm everybody who's
been reading a lot of news, especially political news, with
a an easy tip to find stuff that maybe, if
not propaganda, uh, just opinion masquerading is fact. Uh. You
will notice this when you see by the verbs you
(08:01):
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 they slam or they blast
or they you know, excoreate whatever. All when they're putting
in those action verbs, that is the spin, that is
(08:21):
part of the narrative they're trying to make you agree with.
And and it's weird because typically here in the US,
before and after the advent of the internet, uh, when
we would hear about propaganda, it would be portrayed as
something that other countries do. Right. You might, for example,
(08:43):
remember hearing a news anchor saying something along the lines of,
look at all this crazy disinformation coming from Russia. RT
used to be known as the Russian Times or Russia
Times has a brand new crazy conspiracy theory, and they
might reference Russia's state level propaganda on everything from quote
(09:04):
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 North
Korea or Turkmenistan release. Have you guys ever seen those? Oh? Yes,
I recall this very vividly calling out the United States
(09:26):
for its use of propaganda. But in a propaganda format
it was, 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, Uh,
if that makes sense. I believed that there was a
(09:49):
US campaign to wage propaganda against North Korea when I
was watching their tape in particular. 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 this is uh the standard fodder
for asymmetrical means of warfare, right Why by a super
(10:14):
carrier when you can get the domestic population to turn
against its masters. We often see propaganda presented as a
tool in the dictator tool kit. You know, you can
use it to gaslight and suppress local populations, and you
can also use it to discredit any domestic opposition. But
(10:35):
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 anymore wrong. Sadly, what are we
talking about. We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor.
(10:56):
Here's where it gets crazy. Oh who do 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. There should be a law,
(11:17):
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. Yeah, and and like, uh,
you know, private entities are are a different thing. Everybody
expects propaganda from private entities. We just call them advertisements.
(11:40):
When he's at least this amazing mixtape a while back,
that's definitely propaganda. Burger king once you to think that
McDonald's is garbage, that's propaganda too. Uh. But it's it's different,
you know, when, as you said, Matt, there are their
tax dollars involved, And there is actually a law. It's
(12:01):
called the US Information and Educational Exchange Acts. Usually it's
street name is the Smith Mount m U n D
T Act. This is the 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
(12:22):
Department of State is based in this country. But Smith
Mount uh is is green lighting what could be euphemistically
called public diplomacy. I want to like walk this back
ever so slightly, like when you say public, So this
is governing public discourse in some way or like the
(12:42):
like like being is it trying to keep people honest?
Like what's the purpose? I don't I don't quite understand
if If it is meant for that, it doesn't seven
be doing a very good job, right right, So think
of things if um, you can listen to this, so
you can listen to this this now in the US,
but for a long time, uh, there were things like
(13:04):
v O A Voice of America. This is state sponsored
US content that specifically marketed to foreign audiences, you know,
like think of the Horn of Africa, think of East
or Southeast Asia, and it's it's meant to kind of
push the push Uncle Sam's narrative to to these foreign audiences.
(13:27):
And it uh. The the act itself, says uh or
said that this kind of stuff that we're piping out
two residents of other countries cannot be piped in here.
So that's why you can't turn on nine point one
or whatever your local NPR station is and hear them
talking about how uh dangerous the government actions of Myanmar
(13:51):
or Pakistan are. I see, Okay, So it's essentially like
giving permission for this kind of quote unquote. We'd never
all at propaganda. The propaganda is not even in the
thing that's sort of a dirty word, but it's essentially
allowing that legally within the framework of of our of
our government to to happen when it comes to outside countries.
(14:12):
But it's something that we would never do to our
own people knowingly or in terms of demonizing other countries. Yeah,
nail on the head. In short, the United States always
knew that domestic propaganda could have a delatorious or damaging
effect on the population. We moved to protect ourselves from
(14:34):
ourselves and and this, uh, this comes into play like,
after after all, the propaganda of World War One and
and things like that, when people are scrambling for the
ration cards and so on. The reasoning here was pretty patriotic.
In fact, Uh, there's one Senator Edward Zarinsky who explained it, um,
(14:59):
I think pretty pretty succinctly when he was working with
a Senator Jay William Fulbright to try to push this
act through Congress. And the purpose would be to distinguish
what the US is doing from uh, the way the
Soviets were conducting their propaganda, um, he said. Zerinsky said,
quote from the Soviet Union, where domestic propaganda is a
(15:19):
principal government activity, attempting to kind of demonize that. So
Zarinsky and Senator Jay William Fulbright sold their amendments on
this idea of sensible rhetoric, which I've been trying to
get get at. American taxpayers shouldn't be funding propaganda for
American audiences, and that makes sense to me. But we
should be funding propaganda, you know it to all the
(15:39):
other countries that are our enemies or our potential rivals. Sure, yeah, yeah,
Like we shouldn't be lied to is the American public,
And you know what, we also shouldn't be paying people
for the privilege of being lied to. That makes sense
to me. It sounds like that's something all of us
are on board heard with and here's the news. Uh,
(16:02):
it's quiet news. So don't feel bad if you missed it.
This rule, this, this sort of differentiation between US and
the quote unquote bad guys, all ended in ten seven
years ago, almost exactly seven years There was a reform
that was passed in January and went into effect in July.
(16:24):
It had relatively little media coverage, and it changed the rule.
So ever since, 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
(16:45):
that doesn't really matter. It does, especially when you consider
how much programming that opened the door for It's it's huge. Yeah,
there's a ton of stuff produced prior to that that
you would never get inside the United States. Uh, the
stuff like the um, it's stuff that's made by the
Broadcasting Board of Governors, so Voice of America that we
(17:08):
already mentioned, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting,
all of those networks. Uh, they can only be viewed
or listened 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 the radio or something. Um,
if you're in a foreign country, if you were a
different place other than than the United States or territory,
(17:28):
theo's the only places you could listen to that stuff.
But uh, not anymore. And that content is viewed in
more than a hundred countries in sixty one languages. And
within that programming, you're gonna hear about human rights abuses
in Iran, uh, issues in Tibet like self immolation of
you know, certain believers there or protesters there, the human
(17:51):
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 places like a Rock, that's
where you're gonna find all of that kind of stuff.
But you know, to to be fair, I mean, we
have to know that there's definitely a reason for this.
There's some valid arguments for this. Uh. The v O
(18:12):
A S Charter makes makes this pretty boldly stated. Um,
they emphasize accuracy. Quote. Our journalists provide what many people
cannot get locally uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate.
How do you how do you like that language? Ben?
(18:32):
That's what they said, you know, that's that's their charter. Uh.
You know, I think it's a good point though, because
the uh, because it is what could be described, maybe
somewhat glibally as a pickle. There's an anonymous source where
several anonymous sources from the US government who say that
(18:53):
Voice of America warts and all does serve a good purpose.
They call it counter programming, counterpropagandistic programming for people in
incredibly unstable areas that have little media access. So take
Somalia for example. Smalia is of failed state. It's very
difficult to live there. And according to at least one source,
(19:16):
again who wished to remain anonymous, they say Somali's have
three options for news, word of Mouth, al Shabab, or
Voice of America Somalia. So their argument is this propaganda
has to exist because it is um. It is providing
like like you said in that mission statement, and all
it's providing uh quote unquote uncensored news. Uh And okay,
(19:43):
look clearly uncensored news and responsible discussion. UM. Responsible discussion
sounds like it could also be censorship. That could be
a that could be like someone's safe word for censorship, honestly,
but that also dodges the real question Okay, yeah, alright.
Granted this is important for areas of the world that
(20:03):
would not otherwise have any kind of international news or
any kind of 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. Uh. The argument is that
if we do that by doing that, since this programming
(20:26):
has been able to reach large expatriate communities like U
the to go back to the Smalley example, a big
part of the Smalley and diaspora is composed of people
who live in St. 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
(20:48):
in the country. So overall, they're saying, we're doing a
good thing. Do you believe them? We'll see, 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
(21:11):
the BBG the Broadcasting Board of Governors, again 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
(21:32):
a win win for everyone involved. Uh. She doesn't mention
this in her statements, but it is important to note. Uh,
you know, less we look at less, we look at
skance at the US for uh, marketing propaganda to U.
S citizens. We have to remember a ton of other
(21:53):
foreign countries are already marketing propaganda here, arguably a little
more successfully in some case. 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. Well
(22:15):
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 well if there's a 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
(22:37):
where it actually is propaganda of some sort because they're
reoccurring themes. Let's take a quick case in point here
and jump to Kansas City, Missouri, Missouri. How did Missouri
missa Missouri? Well, there was a New York Times article
that came out in February of this year that it's
written by Neil mc mc mcfarquhar, and he is talking
(23:02):
about a radio station that is broadcasting there in Kansas City.
It's called Radio spot Nick, and according to Neil in
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,
(23:25):
if you're in your car commuting, you're gonna hear this
if you are on that channel. And uh, it's a
little strange. Let let me just read this quote. In
the United States, talk radio on this channel, spot Nick
covers the political spectrum from right to left. So again
you're getting what may feel like balanced news, like you're
(23:45):
getting just a regular old station, but there is a
constant backbeat according to this article, that is that America
is damaged goods that there's something wrong with America. There's
things aren't going right. There are problems, major issues, and
here all here are all of the issues with America. UM.
And it's interesting just to know that this is happening
(24:06):
in the United States with what is believed, like we said, uh,
to be Russian propaganda. 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
spot Nick exists in the US primarily because of a
(24:27):
radio station owner named Pete Chartel. Uh he was laying
like two years ago, eighteen or so, he had to
lay off his entire staff and uh he sail. He
was having a fire sale on ad spots. He hadn't
paid himself in months and months. It looked like his
operation was going to close. But Radio spot Nick was
(24:50):
paying thirty thousand dollars a month to broadcast its programming
in d C. And that's what that's what led him
to to this. It was He's not like a Russian
sleeper agent allah the Americans that we know of, right right,
He's a guy who's trying to UM, who's trying to
(25:10):
keep the lights on it's an understandable thing. And this
is this is just one specific example. Uh, this could
be also it's been called public diplomacy. It could also
be called soft diplomacy. You know, you can win hearts
and minds without ever putting your hand on a gun
or god forbid, a nuclear weapon. But we wanted to
(25:33):
bring to your attention today something else. That's the that's
the lay of the land now, right. Whatever law protected
you quote unquote from domestic propaganda, uh is no longer
in effect. It hasn't been for almost seven years. So
please think critically about all the stuff you you've run
into since. Uh. It also turns out that there's much
(25:58):
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 sponsor. Uh. That, as far
as we know, is not US propaganda. Uh. And we'll
get back to you after the break. Here's where it
(26:21):
gets crazier, actually much crazy. Yeah. Yeah, we've got double
double the crazy here. First, I don't know it's a
double ment of crazy though, for sure. Uh, the US
has been conducting this domestic propaganda kind of operation. The
these sorts of endeavors for decades and decades. Uh since uh,
(26:46):
since your grandparents were alive easily if you know, uh,
it's it's uh. The easiest way to to crack this
one open is to start with two words. Operation mocking Bird. Yeah.
Operation mocking Bird was a secret campaign by the U
S c i A designed to influence the media, our media.
(27:10):
It was started by Cord Meyer and Alan W. Dulles
uh and later run by Frank Wisner after Dulles became
the head of the c i A. On paper, it
was all about fighting communism, fighting the reds, the roost keys,
and promoting Western values. Uh. Wisner was told to create
(27:31):
an organization the concentrated on quote propaganda, economic warfare, preventative
direct action including sabotage, anti sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures, uh,
subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups,
and US support of indigenous anti communist elements and threatened
(27:56):
countries of the free world. Hold on, let's unpack this.
So this is like a free reign to kind of
collude with other countries and like an effort of h
of covert warfare back against our own country. Yeah, this
is uh, this is a quote that directly speaks to
our earlier episodes on why a lot of foreign countries
(28:17):
don't trust nonprofits. Uh. This is this, This is a
war of ideology, and Wisener is Wisener is tasked with
controlling the narrative 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 UM transparent political
(28:43):
opponents of a regime to uh student body that gets
uh that gets radicalized. Uh. Wisner also is pulling journalists
from the US who are who are a credit it
and who work at uh some top notch publications of
(29:03):
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, UH, and he has Graham
run this project within the journalism industry, and Graham starts
recruiting other people. Uh. There's a laundry list of names
who may be familiar to our fellow listeners, who are
(29:26):
history buffs into the murky world of spycraft. We're talking
about people like James Truett, Russell Wiggins, UH, Phil Guillen,
John Hayes, Alan Barth And there's 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 uh rarely
(29:50):
ever mentioned in actual documents. We have one mention that
will cite later. But then you will also here it's
still described as a quote alleged opera ration. But but
what what did it do? So we've got that, like
you said, well, we've got a lot to unpack in
Wisners sort of mandate. But how did that translate to
actual things they did with journalists here? Well, ultimately, this
(30:15):
thing that we're calling Operation mocking Bird, it was an
influence campaign, a way to influence all the media different media,
print media, uh, television. It was to incentivize or threaten
so carrot or stick uh journalists to really put out
the stories that the people running this operation wanted to
(30:39):
actually be out there, to be talked about around the
water cooler, to be things that would generally be in
the zeitgeist um or. And this is really important. When
a big news story would come out, the operatives that
we're working, you know, led by Philip Graham there would
be able to spin the news and those big stories
(30:59):
as they come out, we can put a little something
on it before we you know, 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. Yeah, that's the thing. A method
(31:22):
called catch and kill where you basically like intercept the
story and uh, in some way or another, influence it
to not ever see the light of day, whether it's
through intimidation, tactics, or bribery or any number of ways. Yeah,
it's kind of similar to the tactic or the phenomenon
known as the Overton window, which is sort of influencing
(31:44):
the bounds of what can be talked about, what is
considered credible or legitimate or valid conversation. Uh. Good examples
of this would be, uh, the suppression of agent orange
reporting 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
(32:07):
of depleted uranium, which has been used in firearm rounds.
There should be more, but for a long time there
wasn't the the organizations that the CIA contacted, organizations and individuals. Uh,
they wanted to present as you said, that the CIA's view.
The CIA also funded student and cultural organizations and used
(32:31):
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, no,
it started to franchise out. They would work to influence
foreign media, They work to influence political campaigns in other countries.
(32:52):
And this was all by the way, this was all
just like gravy on the meat loaf. That was other
illegal CIA operations already happening. Sorry for that painful comparison.
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
(33:15):
author named Deborah Davis. Uh. 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 the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS, and other
communications vehicles and they were. They were getting big name
(33:36):
journalists like too many to name, but well we've got
an example of like at least one or two, we
sure do. UM. One of the most important journalists under
the control of Operation Locking Bird was Joseph Alsop, who
wrote articles forever three hundred different newspapers. And he was
far from the only player the mocking Bird UH project
(33:56):
of influence. The sphere of influence that wise are held
UM included journalists from the New York Herald, Tribune, Time Magazine,
Miami News, the Washington Star, Newsweek, the Chattanooga Times. I
mean paper is large and small. No, you know, none
were too insignificant. The whole idea was to influence broadly
(34:17):
and uh and also narrowly if needed. The list goes
on UM. 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. UH,
he says, quote, some three thousand salaried and contracts CIA
employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts. That's that's not insignificant,
(34:42):
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 legal kind of? Right?
The idea that it's illegal, it's almost a misnomer kind
of because it's like it's obviously got sanctioned the blessing
from someone that's a very on on high. You know,
(35:03):
I always wonder about that. 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 in 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
(35:27):
going to be contradictory agendas. 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 uh, some sheaf of documents that's rotting in the
(35:47):
dusty hall. Uh? And you know, even if those documents
are things like the U. S. Constitution. Uh, It's it's
very easy for very intelligent people to rationalize all sorts
of horrible behavior. And this this goes into um, yeah,
this goes into the subversion of the free press. That's
exactly what happened, Matt. I appreciate that you pointed out.
(36:09):
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, uh, keep stories out of the
news too, as you said, Noel catch and to kill
Wisner was able to stop newspapers from reporting the overthrow
(36:31):
of the government of Iran, at least for a while, uh,
to prevent them from reporting on the coup and Guatemala,
which we should also mentioned Edward Burns was instrumental in
uh drumming up at least ideological support for this is
where this is where Eisenhower himself kind of shows up. Uh.
(36:52):
Henry Luch. Henry Luch. He is 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 just uh,
he wasn't just a hard working in trepid journalists. He
became key in Operation Mockingbird, and because of his personal
(37:13):
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, and this
(37:35):
nation is gonna fall if we let these reds get
in and and launch their fifth column or whatever. So
he used his magazines in the concert kind of with
Operation Mockingbird to help get Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president.
And then in nineteen fifty three the web expands because
Eisenhower appointed appointed a family member of Henry Luches to
(38:01):
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 dirty way. They took a dirty path to get there.
(38:21):
And then other members to to your point about um
or that that point about contradicting 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. Yes, yeah,
This is where we're going to talk about kind of
the the fall of this operation, why it wasn't successful,
(38:46):
and why it allegedly doesn't continue right now. Yeah, it's
it's because our boy, Jed gro Hoover Um was not
happy with how powerful the CIA had grown. Um he
referred to Wisener's network as Wisener's gang of weirdos. And
then he actually started looking for dirt on the members
(39:08):
of Wisener's Gang of Weirdos, looking into their past, and
didn't take him long to figure out that some of
them had been active, uh surprise, surprise in Oh Heavens
to Betsy left wing politics back in the nineteen thirties,
which is at that time was was essentially tantamount to
being a commie. Right. Yeah, that's and Joseph McCarthy, who
(39:32):
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 risk or they were compromised. He claimed the CIA
was a quote sync whole of communists, and he said,
I'm I'm gonna root out a hundred of them. One
of his first targets was cord Meyer, who at that
(39:54):
time was still working still allegedly working for Operation mocking Bird.
But to put it bluntly, McCarthy had no idea who
he was messing with. Uh. Wisner unleashed mocking Bird on McCarthy. Uh.
Several members of the media that were also working on
this operation, Drew Pearson, Ed Murrow, Walter Lippman, and more.
(40:19):
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. But
the way we got there was dirty and it was
orchestrated in part by the CIA. There aren't a lot
(40:41):
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. It's weird because it feels like the
change in public opinion, you know, when you're thinking about
McCarthy is um And I know we haven't outlined that
(41:02):
to its full extent in this episode, but as Ben said,
we will later. But you you may think of the
public support that McCarthy had for rooting out communists in
the way that he was in the you know, administration
was at that time. Um, there was such support for it,
or there was perceived support for it, um in a
(41:24):
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 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
(41:44):
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, the winds of change
came and now McCarthy was out. But no, there was
some assistance there, allegedly. And this this where we get
to a point where we we ask ourselves what happened
to Operation Mockingbird. Eventually, all good and evil things must
(42:08):
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 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.
(42:29):
This is early seventies, nineteen seventy two, nineteen seventy four.
Congress was becoming concerned uh that the president would be
able to use the powers of the intelligence networks for
their own nefarious ends. And then this all hits a
powder keg moment when the famous reporter Seymour Hirsch publishes
(42:49):
is nineteen seventy five expose a about c I a
domestic surveillance which you know, fellow listeners, you've you've heard
us talk about that before. Long story short. This leads
Congress to authorize a series of investigations into the CIA
from ninety five to nineteen seventy six. They examined a
ton of different operations. They also find CIA ties with
(43:11):
journalists as well as private voluntary organizations, but none of
these reports, interestingly enough, specifically refer to Operation mocking Bird.
All the famous Church Committee report found was that quote,
the CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign
individuals around the world who provide intelligence and at times
(43:34):
attempt to influence opinion through the use of propaganda and this.
This is weird because the CIA already knew the heat
was coming, and they had they had begun restricting their
use of domestic journalists and foreign journalists, at least according
to them. Uh like right as this was all hitting
(43:56):
the fan. So in nineteen seventy three, the former director
of the CIA, William Colby, told the Church Committee UM
that he believed, as a general policy, Um, the CIA
won't be able to use clandestine uh operations anymore, won't
be able to use staff to perpetrate these kinds of
(44:17):
operations UM on US publications. It's it's it's it's uh,
which have a substantial impact is what he says, quote
uh or influence on public opinion. Um. So he's essentially
shutting this down, right. And just three years after that,
George H. W. Bush, who was in the CIA director
(44:37):
you know, member of the Bush political dynasty would 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 US news service, newspaper, periodical, radio,
(44:58):
or television network or station. So there we go, problem solved, right,
nineteen seventy six on we are G two G that
is short for good to go, uh we or are we?
We do have to mention uh we tease the one
specific mention of Operation mocking Bird in official docks the
(45:19):
Family Jewels, the Infamous Family Jewels, Massy classification of CIA documents,
uh says the following in full. Here, it's interesting to
see how they characterize mocking Bird. 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. Projects
(45:42):
mocking Bird, a telephone intercept activity was conducted between twelve
of March nineteen sixty three and fifteenth of June nineteen
sixty three, so a very short time there, 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
(46:05):
and special intelligence. And you know, that's it sounds like
a very tiny operation, right There are two newsmen who
have access to information that they probably shouldn't have or
that you know, someone is feeding to them, or that uh,
you know, in some way, these guys are getting access
to that secret information that they shouldn't have it. So
(46:26):
they checked out two guys, they wire tapped them, and
they figured out what happened, and then it was over right,
But they stopped, right, I mean, if everything's fine, they're
not doing this anymore. That they put the brakes on
this program, so no worries, Everything is all good, right. Yeah,
that leads us to our conclusion, and we wish there
was a little bit different because the answer really to
(46:48):
that excellent question is not so fast. You know, decades
have passed since the mid seventies, but numerous people, some
of your faithful hosts included, believe this program never really stopped.
And it's easy to see why a lot of people
believe that this is the era of fake news. After all,
maybe we don't even need the CIA to conduct this anymore.
(47:11):
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 mentioned from Family
Jewels talks about a project mocking Bird. We're talking about
an Operation mocking Bird. That's that's the closest we could get.
(47:33):
And they sound like very different things. 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 mocking Bird was to
(47:53):
figure out what the heck was happening with the operation.
I mean, honestly, because the people involved, Robert Kennedy, Rob McNamara,
huge names, These people are involved directly with the tiny
snippet we talked about Project mocking Bird. Joseph Carroll is involved.
I mean, it's it's just it's so insane to imagine
(48:15):
if Operation mocking Bird was real, absolutely was real, just
full stop, and they were doing all these things. Who
who knows exactly how many people were involved and would
have information about this compartmentalized activity. Um, you know, it's
that whole thing where maybe the left hand has no
(48:37):
idea what the right hand is doing. Yeah, And and
then the big question is if you had this tremendous network,
this infrastructure, and you knew that you were on the
verge of of discovering technology that would give you even
more control, why the hell would you walk away? It's
it's a question that can't really be answered, and if
you dig into Operation mocking Bird you will you'll see
(49:00):
that it's still legally again an alleged operation, but there
is also there's no solid cut off tape other than
the like nineteen seventies statements, uh that 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 where we leave it to you.
(49:22):
What do you think, folks, Operation mocking Bird. Is it
a small time conspiracy to hasslesome 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. Yeah. You can reach us in the
usual ways on the internet at Facebook or we have
(49:44):
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy. You can
also find us on Instagram and Twitter. It's some combination
of conspiracy stuff, conspiracy stuff show um. We also have
a telephone number that are good. Buddy Matt is kind
enough to sort of be the gate keeper of that's right.
Our number is one eight three three st d w
(50:07):
y t K. 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 Knowle's awesome hats that he
wears on Instagram all the time, or that he's wearing
right now Ben sunglasses that he's wearing while recording an
(50:28):
episode of stuff. I want you to know because you
gotta be be a 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, let's move on. I think it's the
perfect amount. Do you hit the Goldilock zone with that one?
(50:51):
Old friends? Uh, but wait, you might be saying I
hate social media, I don't get it, or I I
hate Tyke can phone twenty but I have something important
that you or my fellow listeners need to hear. How
do I get in touch with you? Well, we have
good news for you, my friend. You can reach us
directly twenty four seven at our good old fashioned email
(51:14):
address where we are conspiracy at iHeart Radio dot com
(51:37):
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