NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820026-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 12, 2010
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: November 1, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/12 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820026-1
AIM REPORT
(ACCURACY IN MEDIA , INCA
NOVEMBER 1982
E.OTES E=RaF-4 THE EDITOR'S
IT IS TIME TO TURN OUR ATTENTION AGAIN TO THAT MOST INFLUENTIAL NEWSPAPER, THE
Wall Street Journal. There are several things of interest to AIM members that have
appeared in the Journal recently. Most of this issue is devoted to one of them, a
story by Jonathan Kwitny about the failure of a minor merchant banking firm down in
Australia. As we point out, this story was given great prominence in the Journal for
three days running last August even though the failed firm was of no great importance
in the financial world and the story was over two years old. The Communist Party in
Australia had tried and succeeded in spreading the story that the firm was a CIA front
that had engaged in all manner of nefarious deeds, including drug trafficking. The
story was picked up in this country by an irresponsible, far-left magazine called
CounterSpy. CounterSpy has served as a source for the Journal's Jonathan Kwitny in
the past, according to Frederick Taylor, the Journal's executive editor. We took a
careful look at the charges made first by the Australian Communist Party paper, The Tri-
bune, then by CounterSpy, and lastly by The Wall Street Journal. Our conclusion was
that this is another excellent example of disinformation.
IT IS TRUE THAT THE CHARGES EXCITED, THE INTEREST OF NON-CONLI-MIST PAPERS IN AUS-
tralia, and just as we were ready to go to press with this issue a story from Australia
reported that the Australian government had submitted a report on the matter to Parlia-
ment. The story was not clear as to just what the report said, but we delayed going
to press for two days in order to doublecheck our own information and to see if we could
get the text of the report. We received assurances from sources that we consider both
authoritative and reliable that the charges of CIA involvement in this case are false.
With that, we decided to go to press even though we had not succeeded in getting the
text of the Australian report. We will stay on top of this story, and if you want to
check with us again before writing to the Journal, call Jim Tyson or Bernie Yoh at the
AI*: office. Our number is 202-783-4406.
E TWO-DAY DELAY ENABLES ME TO MENTION A COUPLE OF INTERESTING THE TERESTING ITEMS IN THE WALL
Street Journal of November 11. The same Jonathan Kwitny had a long page-one story about
an American intelligence operation run by the Navy called Task Force 157. This was
disbanded five years ago, making this story even more ancient history than the Nugan
Hand, Ltd. failure. But the Journal devoted 47 column inches of its precious space to
this account of what "U. S. spies" had been doing from 1968 to 1977. They were reporting
on Communist-bloc ship movements. I thought it interesting that in this article Kwitny
used some form of the word "spy" 13 times. That gets a bit repetitive, and so for varia-
tion he occasionally used "intelligence"-seven times. It used to be that spying was
what your enemies did, while your own side carried out intelligence operations. People
like CIA defector Philip Agee and his friends at CounterSpy who are trying to undermine
American intelligence operations love to see American intelligence operatives labeled
"spies." They want to destroy our. agents' morale. But why does the Journal do it?
RIGHT ALONGSIDE THIS ANCIENT STORY ABOUT A DEFUNCT AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE OPEERATIO\;
the Journal carried a six-line item about the sentencing of Geoffrey Prime on espionage
charges in England. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post had long stories
about Prime, beginning on page one. Both papers reported that intelligence officials
i- and the United States consider this' case to be "one of the most potentially
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