Declassified: A Look at 20th Century American Secrecy

by Brad Hirn

If this so-called "Information Age" was originally characterized by unprecedented access to information, then we all should have seen it coming. Information is a commodity. It is manipulated into disinformation and completely distorted into misinformation. It is cut up and compartmentalized, select parts never to be publicly released. It is in enormous supply, and yet it is rare. It is one of the most important products today.

From where do we get our information? If you identify with liberal social policy, you despise FOX News, that vile perpetuator of right-wing propaganda. Instead, you read The New York Times, a supposedly reliable source, right? What about Carl Bernstein's 1977 Rolling Stone article in which he describes the Times' general policy of providing assistance to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whenever possible? What about The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, New York Herald-Tribune, The Saturday Evening Post, The Miami Herald, Time-Life, CBS News, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, the Associated Press, United Press International, the Mutual Broadcasting System, and Reuters, all confirmed by the early 1950s to have snug relationships with the CIA?

These aren't isolated cases of press organizations willingly providing help for the sake of "national interest." These are selectively placed individuals numbering in the 400s working covertly within major press sectors while on the CIA payroll. This is news management.

But then-director of the CIA George Bush, Sr. took care of that in 1976: He issued an order prohibiting the CIA from employing journalists for Agency work — unless the Director of Central Intelligence gave approval. Why did The Washington Post publish an article in February 1996 contradicting that order? Apparently the CIA had been employing American journalists since the 1976 order, just in "extraordinarily rare circumstances."

And what about Gary Webb, author of the August 1996 San Jose Mercury News series entitled "Dark Alliance"? Here's a snippet from the controversial series:
“For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a Mercury News investigation has found.”

Of course, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times all worked to discredit Webb and humiliate him as a raving conspiracy nut. He was accused of trying to sell movie rights through “Dark Alliance.” The Mercury News even printed a retraction and reassigned Webb to a suburban desk. For his "clean-up" of the reportedly fraudulent series, Editor Jerry Ceppos was awarded the 1997 Ethics in Journalism award by the Society of Professional Journalists. Even the CIA's 1998 report confirming Webb's allegations — quoted in a July 17, 1998 New York Times article — didn't sway the paper from publishing this opening sentence in his December 13, 2004 obituary: "Gary Webb, a reporter who won national attention with a series of articles, later discredited, linking the Central Intelligence Agency to the spread of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, was found dead on Friday at his home in Carmichael, Calif., near Sacramento." Webb's suicide was largely ignored by both the press and the people.

Seven multinational corporations currently own all but one of the U.S. television networks, more than 80 percent of the global music market, a large share of book and commercial magazine publishing, most of the world's commercial cable TV channels, the major U.S. film studios, most satellite broadcasting worldwide, and a good chunk of European television. Disney, AOL-Time Warner, Sony, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, and Bertelsmann of Germany are those corporations.

Rewind the clock: For more than two years of the Manhattan Project's operation — the modern epitome of governmental secrecy — not one Congressional member knew of its existence, despite its final price tag of $2 billion (a staggering amount for the time).

How about post-World War II: In September 1946, President Harry Truman authorized Operation PAPERCLIP, an endeavor to provide German scientists and engineers asylum in the U.S. in exchange for their scientific knowledge and assistance in monitoring Soviet activity, building advanced weaponry such as the V-2 rocket, and developing operational spacecraft. While Truman ordered ardent Nazis to be strictly prohibited from the program, Bosquet Wev, director of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), worked with the U.S. Army to erase incriminating evidence from Nazi dossiers. Arthur Rudolph, for example, was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps where 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings, and starvation. However, the JIOA's final report said, "[N]othing in his records indicate[s] that he was a war criminal or ardent Nazi or otherwise objectionable." Rudolph became a U.S. citizen and designed the Saturn 5 rocket, which was essential to the Apollo moon landings.

Wernher von Braun, technical director of the Peenemunde rocket research center from 1937 to 1945, developed the notorious V-2 rocket. An ardent Nazi, his dossier was "corrected" and he was enlisted by the U.S. Army to develop guided missiles. In 1960, he became director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and, by 1970, NASA's associate administrator.

And the early 1960s: On March 13, 1962 the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, chaired by Lyman Lemnitzer, presented a memorandum to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The document, "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba," was the key component of Operation NORTHWOODS, a top secret project and public relations ploy developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The now declassified report begins:
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered the attached Memorandum for the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, which responds to a request of that office for brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.”

“Further, it is assumed that a single agency will be given the primary responsibility for developing military and para-military aspects of the basic plan.”
No doubt the CIA is that "single agency" mentioned. The report goes on to suggest specific acts of deception against both Cuban and American citizens:
“A ‘Remember the Maine’ incident could be arranged in several forms:
a. We could blow up a US ship in
Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
b. We could blow up a drone
(unmanned) vessel anywhere in the
Cuban waters.”
“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States.”

Also suggested are mock riots and sabotages to be blamed on Cuban forces, the manipulation of astronaut John Glenn's potential death during his launch into space as a fictitious reason to enter war, and the destruction of a fake commercial aircraft supposedly full of "college students off on a holiday."
President John F. Kennedy's fortunate rejection of the proposal landed Lemnitzer without a job, a decision complimenting Kennedy's earlier removals of Deputy Director of Intelligence Allen W. Dulles, Deputy Director of Operations Richard Bissell, and Air Force General Charles Cabell, all CIA officials largely responsible for the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle.

To conclude, a quote from President Dwight Eisenhower, two-term Republican president and five-star Army General:
“In the councils of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.”

Nothing, especially information.