Operation Mockingbird – Assassination of JFK Skip to content January 4, 2023 10:43:33 PM Assassination of JFK A Study in the Assassination of JFK Primary Menu Home About Me Contact Me Sitemap Privacy Policy Terms of Use Hot TopicsHot Topics Revolution of Mind Bay of PigsBay of Pigs NSAM 263NSAM 263, National Security Action Memorandum 263 NSAM 273NSAM 273. National Security Action Memorandum 273 JFK & VietnamJFK and Vietnam The Official History of the Bay of Pigs Resources JFK NSAMs A Revolution of Mind Official History of the Bay of Pigs 50 Reasons for 50 Years FORUM Light/Dark Button Search for: Subscribe HomeHot TopicsOperation Mockingbird Disinformation Hot Topics Operation Mockingbird Greg Burnham 38 min read 24 How Democracy was manipulated through the mainstream Media by Staffan H. Westerberg & Pete Engwall In the early 1950’s, CIA launched a propaganda program put together utilizing the expansive media machine within the United States. This program, called Operation Mockingbird, is probably the most important vehicle ever for the power that is behind the CIA to control and manipulate the public. Mockingbird is perhaps the most devastating Intel project ever inflicted on the American people and democracy in the United States. Today most people have never heard of it, and the majority of JFK researchers rarely bring the truth of Mockingbird into their research equation. The mainstream media (MSM) never reports the true facts behind the murder of John F. Kennedy. Over the years they have frequently and wrongfully made it seem as if they had. But many journalists have no perception of the true facts; if they did, and acted on it, they would quickly encounter some problems. However, there are surely some within the media that must know the true circumstances behind the murder in Dallas, but have kept quiet about it. All the public gets to see are leading individuals within the establishment that never miss an opportunity to express the accuracy of the Warren Report, while different news reporters, anchor persons and other famous journalists often take the opportunity to refer to JFK researchers as crazy people. This situation has now been the norm for over 50 years and there is definitely something wrong with the picture. The one factor that has made this reality possible is that the mainstream media has been in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency since the early 1950’s. But without the work of Senator Frank Church and his “Church Committee” finding out about the CIA media program (Operation Mockingbird), the research community wouldn’t be sure of how and why the Warren Report could withstand such criticism and why the Press in this instance seemed to have lost all their fangs. The reason Mockingbird didn’t become known throughout America was perhaps because the media was involved in this particular intelligence work and therefore wouldn’t likely want to expose themselves. Still, we believe Mockingbird has been the key that not only controlled the reporting at the time of the shots in Dallas, but also controlled it ever since and is active for “the other side”. Or, as Jim Garrison probably would have expressed it, had he known about it: “Without the press’ complicity in the cover-up the Warren Commission and its Report would have been like a piece of meat in a mad dog’s mouth.” The Beginning Operation Mockingbird was not just another covert program in the Cold War. Analyzing what it could add to the already tilted balance of power in the United States, it makes perhaps for the most severe blow to the democratic processes in all of America’s history. From hundreds of examples to choose from, we have mostly focused on events associated with the Kennedy assassination, even if the program existed well before Kennedy was killed and long after 1963. Carl Bernstein The big secret of Mockingbird had lasted for nearly 25 years when Senator Frank Church and his committee in the mid 1970’s exposed it for what is was. Then in a 1977 Rolling Stone article journalist Carl Bernstein gave another devastating image of the so-called free press in the United States. Bernstein painted a picture of a totally corrupt press corps that was dangerously similar to what was the reality in a totalitarian state. Bernstein explained how the use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence gathering ever employed by the CIA. American journalists thought of themselves as trusted friends of the Agency who performed occasional favors in the national interest. From covering the war in Europe and in the Pacific and thereby working close together with agents from the Office of Strategic Services, it was later easy to continue the habit when the OSS turned into the CIA in 1947. “The CIA maintained ties with executives, reporters, stringers, photographers, columnists, bureau clerks and members of broadcast technical crews,” according to Bernstein. Some journalists were formally CIA contract agents, others were assets and some were perhaps just duped. People from the Press could provide a full range of clandestine services; journalists and reporters were used for handling foreigners as agents, to acquire and evaluate information and to plant false information with officials of foreign governments. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA and editors shared their staffs. Columnists and commentators were referred to at the Agency as “known assets” and could be counted on to perform a variety of undercover tasks. Media owners, publishers and news executives pledged resources of their companies. Certain editors even gave private briefings to Allen Dulles after trips abroad. Henry Luce of Time and Life magazines allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience. Frank Wisner was the Agency’s foremost orchestrator of “black operations,” including many in which journalists were involved, while James Angleton ran a completely independent group of journalist operatives who performed sensitive and frequently dangerous assignments. Wisner liked to boast of his “mighty Wurlitzer,” a wondrous propaganda instrument he built and played, with help from the press. Finally, an anonymous CIA operative told Carl Bernstein “one journalist is worth twenty agents. He has access and the ability to ask questions without arousing suspicion.” Allen Dulles, Cord Meyer, Richard Helms, Frank Wisner, Philip Graham In the beginning, Mockingbird was created and led by Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Cord Meyer, Richard Helms and publisher Philip Graham of The Washington Post. Their main focus was to interact behind the scenes with major media outlets and get reporters on the CIA payroll. The Agency had them all in their pockets: ABC, CBS, NBC, Time, Life, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Scripps-Howard and Copley News Service etc. In the beginning of the 1970’s it is said that CIA had over a thousand journalists working with secret assignments – creating propaganda articles for use at home and abroad, engaged in intelligence-gathering and serving as go-betweens. The question becomes: Did Operation Mockingbird mean that there were no real investigative journalism or ditto journalists in the U.S.? Are we to understand that the MSM was similar to the Soviet style of “journalism” represented by the newspaper Pravda? Not likely, but when it comes to certain political and historical issues then the so-called Operation Mockingbird kicks in – one of these being the Kennedy assassination. We believe that in order to fool the public a vast portion of reported news must be true; you can only hide what is false if you have a large truth to hide it in. Here are our perception of the many faces and possibilities of how Mockingbird could have been applied: Reporters on the CIA payroll forcing witnesses to change their story Special assets within the media who affect others to act and report incorrect conclusions, opinions and perceptions CIA directing assets within the media Editors who can review texts and change facts to suit Reporters and other assets in the field become watchdogs for developing news Editors that step in to defend and shift focus Assets that control debates and create diversions News organizations and chief editors who avoid critique and project the official line Media organizations that project false images and scenarios Media Management that work with policies and establish in-house views – which leads to a hidden culture Agency infiltrating social media Photo editors that manipulate images Falsification of historical events and interactions and influence with private researchers Disinformation campaigns In the beginning it was supposedly Philip Graham of the Washington Post that had the role of leading Mockingbird in the media landscape, reporting to Cord Meyer. The exact inner workings are not visible, but coming from WWII and the OSS one could speculate that Graham would have acted within a system that would let orders go from the top and pass through the different organizational levels, just the way it works in the military. That way it only took a few editors to create a massive and rapid impact on the news and how they were presented. With a few examples we will show how the list above could look in reality. Forced Witness We do not know exactly how Mockingbird worked or still works, neither what it is called today. Like many of you we can only guess and have our suspicions. For the sake of simplicity we will call signs of the unhealthy relationship between the CIA and the mainstream media for Mockingbird, even if the name or the phenomenon as well as modus operandi could have been changed over the years. One notable sign of Mockingbird is that the U.S. media outlets and news organizations don’t seem to compete with each other. They more resemble runners in a consecutive relay. There is also a constant lack of critique from the press aimed at the Government. In Sweden the Press is free – at least as free a press can be. Of course everything that is published constitutes opinions and choices, but when it comes to investigative journalism it is mostly aimed from the perspective below and up, from left to right or right to left. Seldom goes the punch from the top to the bottom, which is what the U.S. mainstream media wholeheartedly engages in when it comes to the JFK assassination. There are many different examples of this, for instance when Orville Nix in 1967 was interviewed by the CBS. In this interview the reporter asked Nix from where the shots had come from. “From behind the picket fence, on the knoll,” Nix told CBS. “Stop,” said the reporter and repeated: “Where did the shots come from?” And Mr. Nix told the reporter again what he had seen; unlike the reporter, Nix had actually been in Dealey Plaza when Kennedy was killed. But that was of no apparent concern to the reporter: “Mr. Nix, where did the Warren Commission say the shots came from?” Orville Nix: “From the Book Depository.” Reporter: “Yes, and that’s what we want you to say.” A reporter in a free press would not under any circumstances act the way the reporter from CBS did with Orville Nix in 1967. If this was a sign of Mockingbird is unclear, but it sure wasn’t a sign of free and unbiased journalism. This reporter clearly wanted a predetermined answer, regardless of the truth. There are many examples of suspicious behavior in the U.S. Press around President Kennedy. For instance when Kennedy on the 4th of April 1961 held a secret meeting in the White House concerning Operation Zapata – what was to be known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. The day after, when the President was still not sure whether he would give the operation a green light or not, a New York Times reporter informed the head of the American Bureau of Information, Ed Murrow that the invasion force was already on their way. The New York Times allegedly had the “whole story” but would not go public until Murrow would set up a press conference in Miami when the invasion force had landed on the beaches in Cuba. Ed Murrow called Allen Dulles who told him they were ready without giving exact details about the size of the force and when exactly they would reach Cuba. When President Kennedy found out about this he was disgusted: “Castro doesn’t need spies – all he has to do is to read the newspaper.” From an outside viewpoint it definitely looks like the New York Times not only knew about the “secret” operation against Fidel Castro, the paper was well aware of the U.S. involvement – and acted in such a way to maybe put pressure on the President. And traces of “maneuvering” by the Press in highly secret Government political affairs were not uncommon by any means. In the summer and fall of 1963, when Kennedy worked hard against his own cabinet in order to withdraw from the conflict in South Vietnam (NSAM 263), we can see how certain members of the Press acted together with Kennedy’s adversaries in the Government – the Washington columnist Joseph Alsop for example. In mid-September he traveled to Saigon to meet up with friend and U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. Henry Cabot Lodge, Joseph Alsop Four days later Alsop wrote in The Washington Post that President Diem and his brother Nuh were planning to force the Americans out of the country while the Ngo brothers themselves would start peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese Government. This was of course a lie by Alsop, and perhaps a way to raise the pressure in Washington to support a coup in Saigon. Whatever it was, Joe Alsop seemed to promote the same angle and agenda as individuals in the State Department and CIA that pushed for going to war. That same month correspondent Hal Hendrix of the Scripps-Howard News Service wrote an article published on the 24th, which told of a coup d’état that had taken place in the Dominican Republic. The overthrowing of President Juan Bosch was a “justified cause”, according to Hendrix. One problem was that the article was published the day before it actually happened. Hal Hendrix was only one of many journalists that the Church Committee found to be involved in Operation Mockingbird. CIA Directs Assets Not many Americans are aware of a secret document that CIA supposedly prepared on the 4th of January 1967. The document with the ID #1035-960 and marked PSYCH (for Psychological Warfare) was a CIA directive sent out to their assets in CBS, ABC, NBC and New York Times with the purpose of arming them with arguments to defend the Warren Report against critics like Mark Lane and others. When it comes to this peculiar CIA document, all anyone needs to know is the mere existence of the document to understand that CIA has something to hide and there was an inappropriate connection between CIA, the White House and the Press. As far as we understand, CIA had nothing to do with investigating the murder of John F. Kennedy, neither did they have the role of acting as the Presidents Press Corps – nor should they have had anything to do with any president possibly falling on his face. That is officially. So why on earth would they step in and create a defense for the Warren Commission and its report? Why would they tell so-called “free reporters” and “journalists” how to deal with critique of the Warren Report? One reason for this could be Mockingbird and that the Agency used their media assets to conceal and cover for President Johnson and his supposed “murder investigators” in the Commission. Editorial Changes and Watchdogs One major consequence of Mockingbird is that the public doesn’t really have an unbiased ally on their side. If the president is corrupt or controlled, if senators and congressmen have secret agendas and if judges are bought – where could the common man and woman turn to for help and assistance? Certainly not the mainstream media. The evidence for this is sometimes very obvious, sometimes more subtle and difficult to detect. On the afternoon of the assassination in Dallas, local reporter Connie Kritzberg interviewed Dr. Kemp Clarke and was told that the wound in the throat was a wound of entry – which she wrote in her article. When the article was published the day after, the editor had made a change in Kritzberg’s text. The part where Clarke said the neck wound was a wound of entry – which would indicate a shot from in front – was taken out of the article. The editor told Kritzberg that “the FBI” had told him to make the change. Connie Kritzberg felt that by doing that the FBI had changed the meaning of the story. If this was a “normal” situation – where a trauma doctor really was the authority of a medical situation – why would an alleged Federal Agent go to a newspaper and demand to make editorial changes? How did he get an order like that? This kind of action is unheard of in a free democratic society. It can only mean one thing – “they” needed to project false images and got full cooperation from the media. Jesse Curry The next morning (23rd) we have the encounter between the press and Dallas Chief of Police Jesse Curry that we described in the article about JD Tippit. Before we focused on how Curry must have told lies to the press corps, and this time we will try to show if Mockingbird could have played a part. This story is at a first glance very hard to detect, but we will scrutinize the essence of one reporter’s question to Curry that was: “What lead you to Oswald?” That was without a doubt the most important question that weekend. It was also the most logical question to ask because they didn’t know. And for a group of reporters surrounding the Dallas chief it didn’t really matter who asked it, they would all benefit from both the question as well as the answer that Curry was about to deliver. We all know what happened; Chief Curry didn’t have a logical answer, he didn’t know what to say that would make sense. Why? Possibly because the police officers that had arrested Oswald seemed to know well beforehand who they were about to arrest, where they were going to arrest him and when it would happen. Because there was no solid and logical – official – information that the Dallas Police received in the time period between 12:30pm and 1:51pm, besides the ticket taker Julia Postal’s phone call about a mysterious man who entered the theatre without paying for a ticket. Chief Curry stumbled on the answer and he must have known it didn’t look very favorable or professional. And the reporters didn’t try to stop him; they just let him get himself into a babbling dilemma: Reporter: “Chief Curry, could you detail for us what lead you to Oswald?” Curry: “Not exactly, except uh… in the building we… when we went to the building why he was observed in the building at the time, but the manager told us that he worked there… And the officer passed him on up then because the manager said he is an employee.” Curry still had not answered the question. And the group of reporters seemed to wait for him to make sense of the situation: “Why him, why Lee Harvey Oswald, what led you to arrest him?” And this is perhaps when Mockingbird kicked in to save the Chief. We don’t know if the reporter in question, Bob Clarke of the ABC, had anything to do with the Agency or a plan of Mockingbird sorts, but either this would be the most awkward question of that weekend or Clarke knew just fine what he was doing. Before the reporters got the answer as to why the police had arrested Oswald, Bob Clarke cut in because he wanted to know whether Chief Curry believed that the smudged print on the weapon that killed President Kennedy would show that it came from Oswald. We will repeat this… truncated (63,860 more characters in archive)