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During my time at the CIA, I was responsible for briefing the press and circulating disinformation. Disinformation is not necessarily a lie, but rather a half truth. We would select influential journalists and provide them with information that we wanted to convey to the American public. We targeted respected journalists like Robert Chaplin, Kais Beach, Bud Merrick, Malcolm Brown, and Maynard Parker. I would cultivate their trust by sharing valid information and then slip in the data we wanted to spread, which may not have been true. We would also create an environment where journalists couldn't fact-check by briefing diplomats who would confirm our false information. Personally, I am opposed to these disinformation activities as they serve no useful purpose for the CIA.

I'm here to ask Anderson Cooper about Operation Mockingbird and the CIA's influence on mainstream media. A German reporter claimed the CIA bribed and extorted him to publish stories. Why is there a pro-government slant in Western media, like biased coverage of Putin and Assad compared to Saudi Arabia? Cooper is surrounded by security, preventing conversation on important issues like government manipulation of news. Is he avoiding the question because of his CIA past during college? A prominent German journalist recently revealed that the CIA is still manipulating the media, writing scripts for them. The media is just another branch of the government, a mouthpiece for propaganda, unable to face real questions. Cooper is hiding behind his security.

I briefed the press as an analyst and interrogator for the CIA, circulating disinformation to influence public opinion. I targeted influential journalists like Robert Chaplin and Kais Beach, planting false information to support US interests in Vietnam. I would also mislead reporters by briefing diplomats to provide false confirmation. Despite my involvement, I now oppose these propaganda tactics, believing they serve no purpose for the CIA.

I'm not sure if there was a CIA conspiracy to remove me from office, but it's possible. The CIA had a motive because I was critical of them and wanted to make changes. I can't say if there was a conspiracy, but it would be interesting for an investigative reporter to look into it. I don't think the CIA would go as far as to harm those who expose their operations nowadays.

The CIA's main function is gathering intelligence, but it also engages in covert actions and propaganda. We disseminate propaganda to influence public opinion, sometimes working with journalists. This involves planting false stories, sometimes by using compromised journalists or even creating false narratives with fabricated evidence. This practice isn't limited to foreign countries; we've also planted false stories in the US press. For example, during the Angolan war, we used false stories about Cuban atrocities, including fake photos, which were then spread internationally. We've also sponsored the publication of numerous propaganda books in English, influencing public opinion about Vietnam. While the CIA admits to some propaganda efforts abroad, they deny similar activities within the United States. However, this is untrue, as we planted false stories in the Washington Post.

There are functions of the CIA that include running secret wars and disseminating propaganda to influence people's minds, a major function that overlaps with information gathering. You have contact with a journalist; you will give him true stories and you’ll get information from him, and you will also give him false stories. You also work on human vulnerabilities to recruit journalists as agents to control what they do, so you don’t have to set them up by deception. You can tell them to plant stories on a schedule. Concrete evidence of using the press this way was highlighted by the church committee in 1975, and later by Woodward and Bernstein in Rolling Stone, noting that about 400 journalists cooperated with the CIA to consciously introduce stories in the press. A concrete example from Angola: one third of the staff was propaganda. There were propagandists around the world, principally in London, Kinshasa, and Zambia. They would take stories they wrote and put them in the Zambia Times, then pull them out and send them to a journalist on payroll in Europe. But the cover story was that the journalist had gotten them from his stringer in Lusaka who had gotten them from the Zambia Times, and after that point, the journalists, Reuters, and AFP, the management was not witting of it. The contact man in Europe was used to pump dozens of stories about Cuban atrocities, Cuban rapists, but there was not a single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure, raw false propaganda to create an illusion of communists, you know, eating babies for breakfast.

Planted stories intended for foreign countries were circulated in the US, raising concerns about CIA manipulation of news. CIA involvement with American journals and TV networks was discussed, with details kept confidential. CBS had contacts with the CIA, and the investigation will assess any wrongdoing. The use of CIA sources by reporters was considered acceptable in the past but requires caution now due to public scrutiny.

The discussion centers on concerns about the CIA’s influence over American media and how covert connections abroad could affect news domestically. Speaker 0 states a real concern: planted stories intended to serve a national purpose abroad could come back home and be circulated and believed in the United States, implying the CIA could manipulate the news in the U.S. by channeling it through a foreign country. The participants agree to examine this matter carefully. Speaker 1 raises a targeted question about individuals paid by the CIA contributing to major American journals, effectively asking whether there are CIA-paid contributors to prominent news outlets. Speaker 2 acknowledges that there are people who submit pieces to American journals and asks about whether any are paid by the CIA who are working for television networks, indicating a potential broader reach across media. Speaker 2 suggests that detailing “this kind of getting into the details” is something they would prefer to handle in an executive session, signaling a desire to limit public discussion at that stage. Speaker 3 provides historical context from CBS, noting that “the ships had been established” by the time the speaker became head of the news and public affairs operation in 1954, and that he was told to carry on with them, implying an established framework of CIA involvement or collaboration. Speaker 0 reiterates the need to evaluate the information and to “include any evidence of wrongdoing or any evidence of impropriety in our final report and make recommendations,” indicating a plan to compile findings and address possible abuses. The question is revisited: “Do you have any people being paid by the CIA who are contributing to the national news services, AP and UPI?” Speaker 2 again wants to move the discussion to an executive session, suggesting sensitivity about the specifics and possibly broader implications. Speaker 0 notes that the final report’s content or title “that remains to be decided,” leaving unresolved how the findings will be presented. Speaker 3 asserts that correspondents at the time “made use of the CIA agent chiefs of station and other members of the executive staff of CIA as sources of information which were useful in their assessments of world conditions,” indicating direct use of CIA personnel as information sources. The question is asked whether this practice continues today, and Speaker 3 responds affirmatively, though with caveat: due to revelations of the 1970s, a reporter “has got to be much more circumspect” and careful, or risk being looked at with considerable disfavor by the public. The speaker emphasizes the need for greater prudence in contemporary reporting in light of those revelations.

The CIA has various functions, some more legitimate than others. One function is to run secret wars, while another is to disseminate propaganda to influence people's minds. They use journalists to spread both true and false stories, exploiting their vulnerabilities to control them. In the past, the CIA had around 400 journalists cooperating with them, including well-known names. An example of their manipulation is seen in the Angola war, where they planted false stories about Cuban atrocities to create an illusion of communist brutality. This shows how the CIA uses the press to further their agenda.

The CIA used dummy foundations to channel money to other foundations, which then passed it on to private organizations. These legitimate foundations were part of the 15,000 charitable funds in America, established by wealthy individuals and influenced by the American establishment. CBS newsman Norman Glubach reports on some of these foundations, including one located at 73 Tremont Street in Boston.

"They have much more power than most people would like to think." "When we think of the media in this country, the problem is that they have a sense of self righteousness, a double standard on issue after issue after issue." "They can find everything wrong with somebody else but they will not look inside and ever admit that they could be wrong themselves." "And what was involved here in the Watergate thing was the unfairness of it." "Oh, there was a legitimate thing to investigate but they refused to balance it." "They allowed their advocacy to get ahead of their reporting which is their job to do." "You know President Eisenhower in his farewell address wrote about and warned against the power of the military industrial complex."

Speaker 0: I began my journey into chronicling the censorship industrial complex. Speaker 1: Some of the most terrifying conversations I've had with some of my dear friends who work inside CIA, and their jobs is to go to other countries, get involved in elections, protests that will help overthrow a regime. It's no secret at this point. The CIA has been doing that for years, for decades. But the most terrifying conversations I've had are the ones where they would look to me and say, my god. Like, the twenty twenty election? We're doing to our people what we do to others. Speaker 2: CIA, the other intelligence agencies were exposed with projects like Operation Mockingbird. Speaker 0: The State Department, USAID, the Central Intelligence Agency went from free speech diplomacy to promoting censorship. Speaker 2: They created, purchased, controlled assets at the New York Times, the Washington Post, all of these top down media structures that used to control the information that Americans got. Speaker 3: I pulled into the driveway, opened up my garage door, these two gentlemen come out of a blue sedan with government license plates. And they came up to me and said, you're mister Solomon? And I said, yes. And they said, you're at the tip of a very large and dangerous iceberg. Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. The the FBI sent agents over to my home to serve a subpoena. They're questioning me about my tweets. How is that not chilling? Speaker 2: Our whole page on Facebook for the world Seventh day Adventist World Church was removed. Speaker 5: The level of censorship that we experienced from publishing this documentary was beyond anything I could have imagined, and we really didn't even understand why. Speaker 3: We are going to win back the White House. The Russian collusion started broken '16. That's where the big lie first erupted. Speaker 6: Russian operatives used social media to rile up the American electorate and boost the candidacy of Donald Trump. Speaker 0: That's why they went after Trump with the Russia gate and with the FBI probes and with the CIA impeachments and things like that. Speaker 3: My FBI sources told me there's nothing there. And I kept wondering to myself, how could it be that something that's not true be taken so seriously and be portrayed as true? Speaker 7: How do you expand sort of top down control in this society? How do we flip? How do we invert America? Speaker 6: The evidence that the Supreme Court recounts is bone chilling. The federal government would call a private media company and say, cancel this speaker or take down this post. Speaker 3: I mean, just think about this. A sitting president of The United States had his Twitter and Facebook accounts frozen. Our founding fathers could not possibly have imagined that. Is there a chance that this documentary will be censored? Speaker 1: I think there's a huge chance this documentary gets censored. Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's interesting when you look at so many of the big censorship cases in The United States involving COVID, Hunter Biden's laptop. They all go back to a common thread. What is that thread? National security. Speaker 0: Google Jigsaw produced world's first AI censorship product. Things the model were trained on, support for Donald Trump, Brexit referendum that the State Department tried very desperately to stop. These are all these sort Speaker 5: of component pieces of what you called the censorship industrial complex. Speaker 3: Censorship Industrial Complex. Censorship Speaker 2: Industrial Complex. Speaker 7: Censorship Industrial Complex. Censorship Industrial Complex. Speaker 1: I've long felt that it was a bubbling god complex.

I was wondering if you had a chance to look into Operation Mockingbird, the declassified program from the 1970s where the CIA infiltrated the mainstream media. Do you think it could be happening today? I find it concerning that domestic American coverage of world events focuses on Russia and Iran, but not Saudi Arabia. Why aren't human rights violations in Saudi Arabia covered as extensively as they should be? Go to Saudi Arabia and do it yourself. I don't mean to be rude, but Anderson Cooper's Wikipedia page states he received CIA training in college but no journalism training.

Speaker 1 discusses the possibility of a CIA conspiracy to remove them from office, citing CIA's advanced knowledge of the break-in and their dissatisfaction with the agency. They express a belief that the CIA feared them due to plans to reform the organization. While unsure about a conspiracy, they suggest it would be an intriguing topic for investigative reporting. They doubt the CIA would resort to eliminating those who expose their operations in the present day.

The CIA has admitted to having operatives embedded in major media outlets to influence stories for their benefit. Reports indicate that they have relationships with reporters from various national news organizations, persuading them to alter or withhold stories that could threaten national security. Evidence from the Pike Committee revealed that 42 CIA employees were placed in key media centers, often as national security reporters. A Time Life board member remarked that journalists are merely taking dictation from powerful entities, indicating a loss of journalistic integrity. Some reporters have shared experiences of their stories being spiked by editors, and payments to these operatives were made discreetly, often without proper reporting to tax authorities.

The CIA has been known to plant inaccurate and fabricated news reports. In Angola, the CIA manipulated the media to push the narrative of Russian and Cuban aggression. They created stories and used propaganda to support their agenda. The CIA's efforts were successful, as newspapers around the world unknowingly published their fabricated stories. Similar tactics were used in Central America, particularly in the campaign against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The CIA spread disinformation about arms flow and Soviet bases in Nicaragua, despite evidence to the contrary. The media played a role in perpetuating these false narratives. It is important for readers to be critical of the news they consume and not believe everything they read.

We spoke to someone with access to hidden CIA documents about their involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The response was clear: yes, the CIA was involved. This revelation suggests that there are powerful forces within the U.S. government that operate beyond democratic control, capable of influencing elections and concealing their actions, including the murder of a president. This undermines the very concept of democracy. Trust in the government has declined since Kennedy's assassination, and those in the know, including every CIA director since 1963, have been aware of this troubling reality.

The discussion centers on concerns that planted stories intended to serve a national purpose abroad could come back and be circulated in the United States, potentially allowing the CIA to manipulate U.S. news by channeling it through a foreign country. There is emphasis on looking at this very carefully. Questions were raised about whether any people paid by the CIA contribute to major American journals or to television networks. One speaker notes that some individuals submit pieces to American journals, and asks about whether any are paid by the CIA who work for television networks. The response indicates that this is a level of detail better addressed in executive session. It is stated that at CBS, the CIA had contacted the organization, and that by the time the head of the news and public affairs operation was appointed in 1954, “the ships had been established,” and he was told about them and asked to carry on with them. Regarding final reporting, there is a commitment to evaluate all the detailed information and to include any evidence of wrongdoing or impropriety in the final report and to make recommendations. The question is raised again about whether there are people paid by the CIA contributing to national news services such as AP and UPI, with the response again preferring to handle those details in executive session. When asked whether the new organization’s final report would be named, the speaker indicates that this remains to be decided. It is asserted that correspondents at that time were allowed to make use of CIA agent chiefs of station and other CIA executive staff as sources of information useful in their assessments of world conditions. The question is asked whether this continues today. The response acknowledges that it probably does for a reporter, but notes that due to revelations of the 1970s, a reporter would need to be much more circumspect now, and must be careful not to be viewed with considerable disfavor by the public.

Speaker 0: Wikipedia is a propaganda operation, and one of its founders told me that the CIA or the American intel community is heavily involved in shaping the message, on Wikipedia. Did you come across evidence of that? Speaker 1: On the weaponization working group, as it's described by attorney general Bondi and the president's direction, intelligence community is one of the groups who was weaponized against the people, obviously. It's obvious. The question is, how are we gonna get to the bottom of it? Right? How are gonna get to the bottom of some of the weaponization of the government intelligence community against the citizens? And that's what I that's where I'm going now.

In Saigon, I operated under various covers, but those I interacted with knew I was with the CIA. I was there from 1969 to 1975, involved in analysis and press briefings, sometimes disseminating disinformation. Our success rate in planting information was about 70-80%. I targeted respected journalists to gain their trust and share data, which often included half-truths. While independent reporting was strong, many journalists were wary of CIA contacts. The CIA's primary objective is intelligence gathering, but disinformation can be counterproductive. After publishing my book, "Decent Interval," I faced a lawsuit for not submitting it for government censorship, leading to a Supreme Court ruling that imposed restrictions on government employees regarding their writings. The court's decision expanded the conditions for prior restraint, impacting First Amendment rights.

The CIA's troubles stem from its use of tax-free foundations. The CIA created dummy foundations to channel money to legitimate philanthropic foundations. These legitimate foundations then mixed CIA money with their own and passed it on to private organizations on the CIA payroll during the 40s, 50s, and 60s. These foundations are part of the American establishment, the power structure of wealthy families, law firms, and universities that have influenced American life since World War II. CBS reported on some of the foundations which channeled money for the CIA, such as one located at 73 Tremont Street, Boston.

In late 2015, my boss, Peter Daskin, approached me and asked if we should work with the CIA. Having worked in national security before, I wasn't surprised. I suggested it wouldn't hurt to talk to them, as there could be financial benefits. Peter mentioned their interest in the places, people, and data we were working with, particularly in China. After that conversation, he confirmed the relationship with the CIA over the next two months. It's not uncommon for programs like this to gather intelligence on foreign laboratories.

Speaker 0 asks if there are people paid by the CIA who contribute to American journals, television networks, and national news services. Speaker 1 prefers to discuss these details in an executive session. Speaker 2, from CBS, confirms that they were contacted by the CIA and continued working with them. Speaker 1 again defers to executive session when asked about specific news organizations. Speaker 2 believes it was acceptable for reporters to use CIA sources in the past, but acknowledges the need for caution due to public disfavor.

In late 2015, my boss, Peter Daskin, approached me and asked if we should work with the CIA. I used to work in a classified environment and have experience in national security, so I wasn't surprised. I told him it wouldn't hurt to talk to them, as there could be financial benefits. Peter mentioned that the CIA was interested in our work in China and the data we were collecting. After this conversation, he confirmed the relationship with the CIA over the next two months. I wasn't shocked because programs like this are often used to gather intelligence on foreign laboratories.

Secrecy is repugnant in a free society. The assassination of President Kennedy occurred at 1 PM CST. We must overcome societal divisions – racial, economic, etc. – and work together. The assassinations of both Kennedy brothers are acknowledged. The dangers of excessive concealment outweigh the justifications for it. We must not let the need for security be used to expand censorship. The CIA’s purpose was creating constant wars for the military-industrial complex. Many Americans distrust the Warren Commission report. We must protect our freedoms; they are coming after us. No official should use my words as an excuse to censor, stifle dissent, or withhold facts. Some media push personal agendas, threatening our democracy. We seek a true peace, not one enforced by American weapons; we all share this planet and our children’s future.