DEBRIEFING THE PRESS: 'EXCLUSIVE TO THE CIA'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100010006-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 24, 2000
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: December 7, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

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CPYRG-nr-
THE VILLAGE VOICE
CPYRGHT ' 7 Dec 1972 FOIA
Appro FOP elease 2000/05/23i CIA-RDF'7q-00.001
riefving press?
n emory: " 'm one step a lead
?
y)1, Bill. President Sukarno and
the Indonesian government know
al about this, and they are partic-
ufarly incensed at having a man
? o" color sent to spy in their
elusive to the CIA'
by William Worthy
, In April 1961, a few days after
the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs in-
..vasion of Cuba, Allen Dulles, at
that time the director of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency, met in
off-the-record session with the
American Society of Newspaper
Editors at their annual conven-
tion.
: Given the Cuba intelligence, by
'then obviously faulty, that had en-
t6red into Washington's rosy ad-
(vance calculations, he inevitably
was pressed to tell: "Just what
are the sources of the CIA's infor-
mation about other countries?"
One source, Dulles replied, was
U. S. foreign correspondents who
;are "debriefed" by the CIA on
their return home. The usual
practice is to hole up in a hotel
:room for several days of intense
interrogation.
Much Of the, debriefing, I've
, learned over the years, is agreed
? to freely and willingly by inclividu-
. al newsmen untroubled by the
world's image of them as Spies. In i newsmen abroad came at the.
j time of the 1955 Afro-Asian
summit conference at Bandung,
Indonesia. Through Washington
sources (including Marquis
Childs of the St; Louis Post
Dispatch), Cliff Mackay, then edi-
tor of the Baliimore Afro-
Atherican, discovered?and told
me?that the government was
planning to send at least one
black correspondent to "cover"
the historic gathering.
The "conduit" for the expense
money and "fee" was the director
gatherer, differed with brother? )untry." ... ?
Foster Dulles, the Calvinist diplo-, Cold-war readiness to "cooper-
mat about the wisdom of the self-! : e" with spy agencies, whether
defeating travel bans. . otivated by quick and easy
Years later, I learned that the -mu ( I've often wondered if
Ti. S. "vice-consul" in Budapest-I nder-the-counter CIA payments
who - twice came to my hotel to . ave to be reported on income tax
demand (unsuccessfully) my turns!) or spurred by a miscon-
passport as I transited Hungary eived patriotism, had its pre-
en route home from China in 1957 edent in World War I and in the
was, - in fact, a CIA agent 1 evolutionary-counterrevolu-
operating under a Foreign Ser- ? 1 onary aftermath. In the summer
vice cover. During a subsequent a 1920 Walter Lippmann, his
lecture tour, I met socially in wife, and Charles Merz published
Kansas City a man who had iiii the New Republic an exhaua-
served his Army tour of duty in live survey of how the New York
mufti, on detached service 'in "imes had reported the first two
North Africa and elsewhere with .ears of the Russian revolution.
the National Security Agency. Out '.'hey found that on 91 occasions?
of curiosity I asked him what an . average of twice a week?
would be the "premium" pri6e for Times dispatches out of Riga,
a newsman's debriefing on out-of- .atvia, buttressed by editorials,
bounds China. He thought for a 'mad "informed" readers that the.
moment and then replied: "Oh, 'evolution had either collapsed or
about $10,000." Out of the CIA's as about to collapse, while at the
petty cash drawer. ;atm time constituting. a "mortal
My first awareness of the CIA's lienace" to non-communist
special use of minority-group- Europe.. Lipptnann and his as-.
30Ci ate? attributed the misleading
at least one case, as admitted to
me by the Latin-American spe-
cialist on one of our 'mass-circula-
tion weekly newsmagazines, the
debriefing took place very reluc-
tantly after his initial refusal to
cooperate was vetoed by his supe-
riors. But depending on the par-
ticular foreign crises or obses-
sions at the moment, some of the
eager sessions with the CIA
debriefers bring handsome re-
muneration. Anyone recently re-
turned from the erupted Philip-
pines can probably name his
price,
Despite its great power and its
general unaccountability, the CIA
dreads' exposes. Perhaps because
of a "prickly rebel" family repu-
tation stretching over three gen-
erations, the CIA has never
approached me about any of the
48 countries I have visited,
including four (China, Hungary,
Cuba, and North Vietnam) that
had been placed off-limits by the
State Department. But the secret
agency showed intense interest in
my travels to those "verboten"
lands. In fact in those dark days,
Eric Sevareid once told me that
Allen Dulles,_ the intelligence
Approved For
of a "moderate" New York-based
national organization, 'Supported
by many big corporations, that
has long worked against employ-
ment discrimination. The CIA
cash was passel to he organiza-
tion's direetor by a highly placed
Eisenhower administration of-
ficial overseeing Latin-American
affairs who later became gover-
nor of a populous Middle Atlantic
state, and whose brothers and
family foundation have long been
heavy contributors to the job op-
portunity organization.
Because of the serious implica-
tions for a press supposedly free
of governmental ties, I relayed
this information to the American
Civil Liberties Union. I also tolcil-
Theodore Brown, one of A. Philip
Randolph's union associates in
the AFL-CIO Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters. Ted's re-
-coverage to a number of factors.
Especially cited in the survey
were the transcending win-the-
war and anti-Bolshevik passions
)f Times. personnel, as well as
'undue ?intimacy" .with Western
ntelligence agencies.
After 1959, when Fidel Castro
came to power after having
Dusted the corrupt pro-American
Batista regime, Miami became a
modern-day Riga: a wild rumor
factory from where Castro's
"death" and imminent overthrow
were repeatedly reported for sev-
eral years. Both in that eity.of ex-
patriates and also in Ilavana,
"undue intimacy" with the CIA
caused most North American Te-
poTters'covering the Cuban revo-
lution to echo and to parrot of-
ficial U. S. optimism about the
Bay of Pigs invasion.
In . the summer of 1961, on my
fourth visit to that revolutionary
island, a Ministry of Telecom-
munications official told me of a
not untypical incident shortly
before the invasion. Through mer-
cenaries and through thoroughly
discredited Batistianos, the CIA
was masterminding extensive
sabotage ihside Cuba?a policy
doomed ?to failure not only
because anti-Castro endeavors
lacked a popular base, but also
because kindergartens, depart-
ment stores during shopping
hours, and similar public places
4116V tiii.MMOIMMOW
I mobilize mass..support by killing
...?
ren in heir clasSrooms. and
women where they shop.
On one such occasion a bomb
went off at 9.08 p. m. Five minutes
earlier, at 9.03 p. m., an ambitious
U. S. wire-service correspondent
filed an ;`urgent press" dispatch
from the Western Union , tele-
printer in his bureau . office, re-
porting the explosion that, awk-
wardly for him, came five min-
utes after the CIA's scheduled
time. When that . correspondent
and mOst of his U. S. colleague
were locked up for a week or twc
during the CIA-directed Bay o
Pigs invasion and were then ex.
pelled, many U. S. editorial writ.
ers were predictably indignant.
Except perhaps in Washingtor
itself and in the united Nation.
delegates' lounge, the CIA',
department on - journalism
probably busier abroad than wtt
newsmen at home. In 1961, during
a televised interview, Waite]
Lippmann referred casually tt
the CIA's bribing of foreigi
newsmen (editors as well as th
working press), especially at (hi
time of critical elections. All ove
the world governments and politi
cal leaders, in power and in op
position, can usually name thei
journalistic compatriots who ar
known to be or strongly suspecte:
of being on the CIA's bountifu
payroll. I believe it was Leo]
Trotsky who once observed (ha
anyone who engages in in
telligence work is always \n-
covered sooner or later.
" Even neutralist countri4
learned to become distrustful of
U. S. newsmen. In early 1967,
Prince NOrodom Sihanouk ex-
pelled -a black reporter after jus
24 hours. In ai. official statement
the Ministry of information al-
leged that he "is known to be not
only a journalist but also an agent
of the CIA." In a number of Afro-
Asian countries, entry visas for U.
S. correspondents, particularly i
on a first visit, can be approvec
only by the prime minister o
other high official.
As recently as a generation ago
it would have been unthinkabli
for most U. S. editors, publishers
newscasters, and reporters to ac
quiesce in intelligence de
briefings, not to mention les;
"passive" operations. What E:
Murrow denounced as the cold
war concept of press and universi
ty as instruments of foreign polic:
had not yet spread over the land
In the years before the Secon:
World War, if any governmen
agent had dared to solicit the co
operation ,00f a William Allei
:6 1._6 LA-I) R r,
?
cu
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