CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Intelligence Relations with the Media

Generally, 1970s, 1980s, & 1990s

Although located under the broad CIA category, this file includes material on the relationship between the media and the intelligence community generally.

Topics included here:

1. Generally

2. 1970s

3. 1980s

a. Generally

b. Daniloff Affair

4. 1990s

1. Media Relations Generally

Alsop, Joseph W., with Adam Platt. "I've Seen the Best of It": Memoirs. New York: Norton, 1992.

According to Surveillant 2.4, the author "knew what CIA was up to in many places ... and had close ties to many senior figures in CIA in its early days.... The book's principal weakness lies in the author's too golden view of the Kennedy administration." Alsop includes a section on "CIA relations with press." See also, Yoder, Joe Alsop's Cold War (1995).

Heidenry, John. Theirs was the Kingdom: Lila and Dewitee Wallace and the Story of the Reader's Digest. New York: Norton, 1994.

McGehee, CIABASE, January 1995 Update Report says that this book "portrays the close relationship between the CIA and the Reader's Digest." It "names individuals, publications and books authored as part of the CIA's propaganda."

Mapother, John R. "Espionage versus Journalism." World Intelligence Review 15, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1996): 1.

The author notes that journalists are assumed by security agencies to be seeking classified information; and, therefore, are not terribly effective cover for intelligence operations. In any event, the use of journalists by the CIA was rare during the Cold War.

2. 1970s

Atlas World Press Review. Editors. "The CIA and the Press." 25 (Mar. 1978): 22-25. [Petersen]

Barbosa, Roberto. "The CIA and the Press: Foreign Reaction to Disclosures of Media Manipulation." Atlas World Press Review 25 (Mar. 1978): 22-25. [Petersen]

Carvalho, Bernardo A. The CIA and the Press. Freedom of Information Report No. 382. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri School of Journalism, 1977. [Petersen]

Columbia Journalism Review. Editors. "CIA, FBI, and the Media: Excerpts from the Senate Report on Intelligence Activities." 15 (Jul. 1976): 37- 42. [Petersen]

Crile, George, 3d. "The Fourth Estate: A Good Word for the CIA." Harper's, Jan. 1976, 28-30ff. [Petersen]

Cuneo, Ernest. "What's the Story Behind the CIA and Newsmen Abroad." Human Events 33 (22 Dec. 1973): 8 ff.

Petersen: "Former intelligence officer."

U.S. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Subcommittee on Oversight. "The CIA & the Media." Hearings. Washington, DC: GPO, 1979.

The Aspin Hearings.

3. 1980s

a. 1980s/Generally

American Intelligence Journal. Editors. "A Journalist's Perspective on Public Disclosures: Interview of Bob Woodward." 9, no. 1 (1988): 9-14.

Johnson, Loch K. "The CIA and the Media." Intelligence and National Security 1, no. 2 (May 1986): 143-169.

Webster, William H. "Intelligence and the Media." Periscope 14, no. 1 (1989): 17-18.

b. Daniloff Affair

American Bar Association. Standing Committee on Law and National Security. "The Daniloff Affair: New Rules for American Correspondents?" Intelligence Report 8, no. 10 (1986): 7-8. [Petersen]

Daniloff, Nicholas. "How We Spy on the Russians." Washington Post Magazine, 9 Dec. 1979, 24 ff. [Petersen]

Daniloff, Nicholas. Two Lives, One Russia: The True Story of One American's Harrowing and Illuminating Experience as a Pawn of the KGB. New York: Avon Books, 1990.

Petersen identifies Daniloff as a "U.S. correspondent detained in the USSR." Surveillant 1.1 calls the book a "good account of the squealing that results when a smug and fragile journalist gets his toe caught in the door of cold-war espionage."

4. 1990s

[Deutch, John.] "DCI Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence." Periscope 21, no. 5 (1996): 1-2.

DCI John Deutch's statement of 17 July 1996 to the SSCI "concerning possible use of American journalists, American clergy or the Peace Corps." For text of Deutch's statement, Click HERE.

Hernandez, Debra Gersh.

1. "Posing as Journalists." Editor & Publisher, 2 Mar. 1996, 8-9, 22.

The author reviews the (then-)current flap about the CIA's use of journalists for intelligence collection and for operational cover.

2. "Journalists as Spies." Editor & Publisher, 10 Aug. 1996, 16-17, 36.

Hernandez reports on hearings before the SSCI. Quoted as testifying in favor of a total ban on the use of journalists in CIA operations or as cover for CIA officers are Terry Anderson, Ted Koppel, and Mort Zuckerman. Kenneth L. Adelman would leave the existing policy in place. Senators Kerrey (D-NE) and Glenn (D-OH) spoke against a total ban.

Parisi, Albert J. "The CIA and the Media." Editor & Publisher, 17 Nov. 1990, 20, 52.

This is a report on remarks made by the CIA's chief of media relations to the New Jersey press club. The emphasis is on greater CIA openness and on presenting the Agency as nonthreatening to journalists.

Pincus, Walter. "Turner: CIA Nearly Used a Journalist in Tehran." Washington Post, 1 Mar. 1996, A15.

"Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director, [has] described the ... circumstances that led him ... to waive agency regulations that prohibited the use of American journalists ... as cover for clandestine intelligence activities. Shortly after Muslim extremists occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran ... on Nov. 4, 1979, an American journalist in Iran 'who had unique access' met with CIA personnel to discuss how they 'thought he could help to resolve a problem,' Turner said in an interview.

"Because he believed American lives were at stake, Turner said, he approved using a waiver put in place in 1977 by the Carter administration that lifted the 1976 blanket prohibition against using journalists approved by Turner's predecessor, George Bush. 'I didn't hesitate in calling on him [the journalist] and we were on the verge of doing so,' Turner said, 'but circumstances intervened and we didn't do so'.... Two weeks ago, the journalistic community's discomfort with the waiver policy was rekindled when a blue ribbon task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations recommended a new look be taken at all such limits on unofficial cover."

Washington Post. "[Editorial:] Again, the CIA and the Press." 21 Feb. 1996, A18.

[Text] "The latest life-imitates-art entry involves the CIA. A task force assembled by the Council on Foreign Relations had suggested reviewing the agency's 20-year ban on recruitment of American journalists and journals for covert assignment. It was a controversial proposal, drawing the fire of, among others, the president of the council. But meanwhile somebody was telling The Post's Walter Pincus that, unbeknownst even to many intelligence officials, the CIA all along had a 'waiver' permitting use of journalistic cover on 'extraordinarily rare' occasions. To those who believe that generally the CIA should keep hands off but that in certain exceptional circumstances it should have the option of reaching in, the argument was over.

"Except it's not so simple. The use of American journalists to spy and American spies to pose as journalists is an appalling idea. It enables a secret agency of government to exploit an instrument whose claim to trust and constitutional protection lies precisely in its independence from government. Assume what experience teaches us not to assume: That in each 'extraordinarily rare' exception, the CIA had good cause and produced good effect. Those gains must still be measured against the subversion of a primary institution of a free society.

"These things tend to leak. In this instance, rightly or wrongly every journalist and journal operating internationally comes under a darkened cloud. It is a burden difficult to dispel and one that, now given post-Cold War renewal, will for years put at added risk the credibility and personal safety of journalists. These are the consequences of the CIA's evident endowment of itself with a secret waiver capability undercutting its public pledge of respect for the integrity of the press.

"Of course, there are others with an even larger obligation to the integrity of the press -- journalists. At the other end of every official recruitment bid, in a position to say no, sits a journalist or journalistic entity. They should not be crying that they relied on an agency of government to be their moral custodian. Some journalists may feel that ultimately their responsibilities as citizens are on a higher plane than their responsibilities as professionals. In that case, some straight talk will have to take place between individual journalists and their employers. Someone has got to convey that a press determined to do its journalistic duty and to merit its constitutional privilege cannot become an arm of government. It is not dishonorable for others to work for the CIA. But it is treacherous for the press."

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