Screen shot of CIA statement re journalists

Released JFK File Confirms CIA Had Agents Working In News Media

November 11, 2017 Fatih Siyasi 1823 Views CIA journalists, fake news, George H.W. Bush, House Select Committee on Assassinations, jfk assassination files, Stansfield Turner, Walter Fauntroy, William Colby

While it is this author’s belief that the release of the secret JFK assassination files by the U.S. government will likely be used to further manipulate the public – either through selective redaction, outright falsification, selective reporting by the mainstream media or some combination thereof – the released files will have to contain at least a few nuggets of useful information to ensure the entire trove enjoys sufficient legitimacy with the public.

There is one file that was released in the first batch (in October, 2017) that is not being discussed by the mainstream media. Upon closer inspection, the reason why quickly becomes self-evident. That file is Record Number 104-10322-10231, titled “LETTERS: CORRESPONDENCE WITH MEMBERS OF CONGRESS RE ALLEGATION OF CIA USE OF JOURNALISTS” and dated 06/13/1977 (a link is provided below).

“The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” — former CIA Director William Colby

Record Number 104-10322-10231

This file contains correspondence between then Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Stansfield Turner and Congressman Walter Fauntroy concerning allegations the Congressman publicly made that journalists on the payroll of the CIA might be responsible for negative press coverage of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The Committee was formed in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of both President John F. Kennedy and civil rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Congressman Walter Fauntroy was a close associate of MLK and sat on the Committee.

In the correspondence, DCI Turner flatly denies that there are U.S. journalists employed by the Central Intelligence Agency but acknowledges that the CIA has employed U.S. journalists in the past. Included in the file is not only the letter in which the CIA Director makes this acknowledgment to Congressman Fauntroy, but some supporting documents worth a closer look (and hanging on to, if you’re so inclined).

STATEMENT (regarding CIA use of U.S. journalists)

One of these supporting documents worth a closer look is a statement issued by one of Stansfield Turner’s DCI predecessors, George Herbert Walker Bush. This is the same George Herbert Walker Bush that would later become 41st President of the United States. The document, located at page 3 of the file, is typed on CIA letterhead and is simply titled “STATEMENT”.

The statement is not signed by Bush or anyone else. However, it does make clear that the Central Intelligence Agency has entered into paid relationships with U.S. journalists and that at least some of these relationships were still active at the time the CIA issued the statement on February 11, 1976. This is significant because it would logically follow that these journalists were engaged in domestic propaganda in clear violation of the CIA’s mandate.

However, a search for any news stories pertaining to the release of such a damning statement by the Director of the CIA turns up nothing. This author is too young to remember the times in which the statement was issued, nor am I a JFK assassination aficionado. But I am old enough to remember other times when it seems the CIA statement should have gotten news coverage. For example, when George H.W. Bush ran for president in 1980 and settled for being Ronald Reagan’s running mate, as well as Reagan-Bush’s re-election campaign in 1984. Or how about Bush’s own successful campaign for president in 1988 or his failed re-election bid in 1992?

Or how about as recent as 2013, when Udo Ulfkotte, former editor of one of Germany’s largest newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, publicly admitted that he had been on the CIA payroll to spin the news in a way that was positive for the United States and negative for its opponents. But not a peep about this statement issued by the CIA under George H.W. Bush, printed in black and white on CIA letterhead, admitting to this very practice. That is peculiar, to say the least.

Memorandum for the Record

At page 16 of the file there is further evidence of the CIA practice of employing journalists in the American media in a document titled “Memorandum for the Record” and stamped “INTERNAL USE ONLY”. This a memo drafted by another of Stansfield Turner’s DCI predecessors, William E. Colby, dated 4 DEC 1973. The memo is in reference to conversations that DCI Colby had with a reporter and an assistant managing editor of the Washington Star-News.

In these conversations, DCI Colby confirmed that the CIA did, in fact, have about forty journalists working for or with the CIA. Specifically, 3 – 5 “staff journalists of significant journals” without the knowledge of the publisher, 3 -5 more who were approved by the publisher’s management, “10 or so with trade journals such as trade or industry journals of general utilization” and about 40 “free lance stringers”.

In the memo, Colby notes that he also attempted to get the paper to defer publishing the story, but it went to print on November 30, 1973. The Washington Star-News story was followed up with a similar story published by The Washington Post on December 1, 1973, the very next day. Neither story names William Colby or any other CIA personnel by name as the source of the information. Clippings of both articles are included in the same JFK file.

Who’s the “Fake News” Now?

In light of the recent exposure of mainstream media collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, the continuously collapsing “RussiaGate” story and the mainstream media’s attack on anything or anyone that doesn’t comport with the status quo’s narrative as “fake news”, this document is very prescient. It is also being ignored by the mainstream press for obvious reasons.

And let’s be clear, the gatekeepers of information in the twenty-first century, Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, now firmly fall under the category of “mainstream media”. Their embrace of the “fake news” narrative and willingness to suppress free speech in the interests of stopping the spread of “fake news” should be met with all the more scrutiny. Not only because of this revelation from the JFK assassination files, but also because none of them are talking about it.

One additional interesting note. The fact that Congressman Fauntroy sat on the House Committee on Assassinations is conspicuously absent from his Wikipedia page as of date of this article.

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Resource Links:

Record Number 104-10322-10231

STATEMENT (regarding CIA use of U.S. journalists)

Memorandum for the Record

Who’s the “Fake News” Now?

Fatih Siyasi

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