Operation Mockingbird: The CIA Controls The Media

After World War 2, the US and the Soviet Union were immediately at each others throats. A battle for influence had begun all over the world, Capitalism vs Communism, known as the Cold War. During this time, propaganda was a key weapon used. It was during this time in the late 1940's and throughout the 1950's that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began to pay off publishers and journalists in the biggest news sources. This was called Operation Mockingbird. There were two main architects of Mockingbird. The first was Frank Wisner, who was the director of the counter intelligence Department of the CIA. His job was to recruit journalists to present the news and repress the stories that the CIA wanted. Wisner was incredibly successful at this. According to Deborah Davis, the author of Katharine The Great :
"By the 1950's, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."
Wisner didn't do this alone, but received a lot of help from Philip Graham. Graham was the publisher of The Washington Post and served as a graduate of the Army Intelligence School Flarrisberg, Pennsylvania. Together, Wisner and Graham recruited journalists and publishers from every major news source:

• James Truitt: Life and Times magazine. VP of Newsweek
• Russell Wiggins: served as a Naval officer in the Pacific theatre of World War II, then returned to work for the US State Department. managing editor of The Washington Post. personal assistant to Phillip Graham at the Washington Post
  *Philip Geyelin: 1943, joined the U.S. Marines and fought at Iwo Jima. 1946 he joined The Wall Street Journal as a foreign correspondent, 1967 he was hired as deputy editorial page editor by The Washington Post and soon became senior editor.
• lan Barth: 1941 during World War II, he worked first in the Treasury and then the Office of War Information. Barth also contributed to The New York Times Magazine and Book Review
• Stewart Alsop: Family ties to the Roosevelts (FDR). From 1945 to 1958 was co-writer of "Matter of Fact" column for the New York Herald Tribune. He went on to write articles and a regular column for the Saturday Evening Post until 1968 and then a weekly column for Newsweek from 1968 to 1974
• Joseph Alsop: Brother of Stewart Alsop, worked on “Matter of Fact”. Family ties to the Roosevelts, Alsop soon became well-connected in Franklin Roosevelt's Washington. 1936, The Saturday Evening Post had awarded him a contract to write about politics. became a close friend and influential adviser to Kennedy after his election, in November 1960
• James Reston: He was associated for many years with The New York Times. He joined the Associated Press in 1934. In 1942, he took leave of absence to establish a U.S. Office of War Information in London. Rejoining the Times in 1945. Reston served as associate editor of the Times from 1964 to 1968, executive editor from 1968 to 1969, and vice president from 1969 to 1974. Reston was a key contact of former CIA chief Allen Dulles.
  Other members of the press involved in Mockingbird include:
• Ben Bradlee ( Newsweek ). Walter Pincus ( Washington Post ). Walter Winchell ( New York Daily Mirror ). Drew Pearson. Walter Lippmann, William Allen White. Edgar Ansel Mowrer ( Chicago Daily News ) Hal Hendrix ( Miami News ). Whitelaw Reid ( New York Herald Tribune ), lerrv O'Leary ( Washington Star). William C. Baggs ( Miami News) . Herb Gold ( Miami News) and Charles L. Bartlett ( Chattanooga Times) and C.D. Jackson (Time Magazine).
  Some of the big players and media sources that were under the influence of the CIA include:
• William Palev (CBS), Henry Luce ( Time Magazine and Life Magazine) . Arthur Hays Sulzberger ( New York Times ). Helen Rogers Reid ( New York Herald Tribune ). Dorothy Schiff ( New York Post ). Alfred Friendly (Washington Post ). Barry Bingham ( Louisville Courier-journal ) and lames S. Copley ( Copley News Services )
  By the 1950's, it is estimated that about 3000 CIA operatives were engaged in the spreading of propaganda, many of them were in fact posing as journalists in many of these big news outlets mentioned above. Frank Wisner was able to repress big stories, such as the CIA's plans to over throw the governments of Guatemala and Iran. The CIA Office of Policy Coordination paid for Operation Mockingbird by siphoning off funds from the Marshal plan, which was the plan to invest $12 Billion into Western Europe to rebuild it after WWII.
  
  How is Operation Mockingbird still used today? In much of the same way of pushing certain stories and repressing others, and they still use operatives as journalists and publishers. What many people might not know, is that Anderson Cooper had an internship at the CIA for a couple summers, then spun almost 360 degrees (pun intended) and went into journalism, despite the fact he had never shown an interest before and had no education or experience in the subject to become on of CNN's prominent personalities and one of their headlining anchors.
  The narrative is being controlled. The game is rigged. We are constantly under a barrage of propaganda meant to control our minds. Fake news is not a new phenomena, it has been going on for decades.