The status of the United States of America among the leading nations of the free world is not a far-fetched notion, but a shocking discovery by the CIA of covert activities such as Operation Mockingbird after investigations between 1975 and 1976 casts doubt on that notion.
The operation was found to be in collaboration with the media to influence public opinion and reactions to national issues and events. Operation Mockingbird was launched by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a backlash against what the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.
What exactly is Operation Mocking Bird?
Although the existence of Operation Mockingbird, denied by the CIA, was allegedly an extensive cover-up tool used by the US government to influence popular opinion. It aimed to target the media and let it work for the benefit of the government. The campaign aimed to use both domestic and foreign media as fronts to promote the views of the CIA as early as the early 1950s.
The actual motive of the operation was allegedly aimed at dealing with uncooperative nations, fighting economic wars, overthrowing governments of nations, and intimidating and assassinating people deemed hostile to the free world’s agenda.
Here are five facts you need to know about Operation Mocking Bird
1. Why Operation Mocking Bird?
The main reason for the creation of the operation was not only to sell shams to the populace and mislead them of the real events happening in the government, but also to control what they know and urge them to follow the political one set in motion to agree to what happened. In this way, the reputation of the government is preserved and citizens need only make a slight effort to align themselves.
2. Brief history of covert operations
Covert operations were launched and actively used during WWI, WWII and the Cold War by the Soviet Union. Their cover was dubbed the International Organization of Journalists. It was set up to control the news that reaches the public and to manipulate public opinion.
The United States responded by launching its own front organization in 1948, when the Office of Policy Coordination was established to control the media. The director of the operation was Frank Wisner.
3. Working method
According to Deborah Davis, who researched the activity of Operation Mockingbird, it consisted of training agents in the media houses and recruiting them in different parts of the world to report on events and situations, providing feedback to the CIA, which in turn decides what to do can release for public consumption.
Topping the list of media outlets used to disseminate the CIA’s distorted information are Newsweek, Times, New York Time, Miami Herald, and some radio and television houses such as CBS.
4. Content and personnel in operation
The content that was dabbled is said to have been leaked classified information by CIA officials to domestic and foreign media outlets as they see fit. But first, the content is manipulated to be mostly distorted and misleading with the sole purpose of hiding their real intentions. The content will later be distributed to all agents in various news outlets for immediate release.
The groups have largely helped and benefited from this propaganda on the spot; The foreign correspondents, freelance writers, CIA experts masquerading as international journalists, foreign media agencies like Rome Daily American, an English-language newspaper agency in Rome (reliable sources say 40% of these have been CIA-owned for over 30 years).
5. Discovery of Operation Mockingbird
The first exhibition of Operation Mockingbird was made in 1964 by David Wise and Thomas B. Ross in their publication entitled The Invisible Government which indicated that the CIA was instrumental in influencing government decisions during elections, war, economic policy, peace talks, etc. This was followed by another New York Times exposure in 1967 and the publication by Carl Bernstein entitled The CIA and the Media that was published in Rolling Stone. The publication accused the CIA of funding some outfits such as the National Student Association and other news outlets both at home and abroad. These reports prompted a Senate investigation into the affairs of the CIA.
Also, a declassified copy of the CIA’s Family Jewel document was compiled in the 1970s and released in 2007. It exposed the operation’s mockingbird through wiretapping, inedible surveillance, blacklisting, suspension of work, and confiscating travel documents of journalists and Hollywood stars who did not comply with CIA guidelines, in violation of the agency’s charter.
The credibility of a “free press” in a “free world nation” that the US is known for is called into question in times like these! Do citizens no longer have the right to freedom of expression and freedom of belief? Is it better to feed your people tailor-made lies than the truth? The CIA may have denied it, but the question remains as to how free the citizens of the free world are.