C-J REPORTING JOB MAY 'COVER' TO A CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100670003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 10, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 25, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11 : CIA-RDP90-
__ LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
COURIER-JOURNAL}
bl - 230,956
S - 363,917
MAR 2 5 1976
cover - to' a
By JAMES P. HERZOG years he apparently has served as an
courier Journal Staff Writer intelligence agent is not known.
0 1976 The Courier-Journal ?- . The Courier-Journal was unable to
WASHINGTON - When 28-year-old determine if he used his newspaper
Robert, H. Campbell was hired as a background for a cover during overseas
Courier-Journal reporter in December aSslgnments. -
1964, he couldn't type and knew little 'It' is likely that in the early 1960s
about news writing. Campbell was involved in translation
Campbell was a mystery, w rcc,..t
He lived in the YMCA and was paid own? a townhouse in McLean, Va., five
$125 a week. But he could afford to fly minutes from CIA headquarters, were
home to St. Louis every other weekend unsuccessful. His wife rebuffed a re
to see his wife and children. ..porter's.repeated.. requests to talk with
He never seemed interested in being her htusban
a reporter and drifted off as 'quietly as Asked if her husband is a CIA agent,
came. illrs. Campbell said: ,
Now, evidence developed during a "If he was, I wouldn't blab it to you."
newspaper investigation strongly indi- QIA spokesman Angus Thuermer
cates' that Campbell was an undercover refused to confirm or deny that Campbell-!
agent for the Central Intelligence works for the CIA.
Agency. - "We just can't say anything about
"
he said.
_who was a Courier-Journal reporter from or the other,
December 1964 until March 1965, appar- He also said the CIA is "pretty bloody
ently has been an 'intelligence agent goosey" about the unmasking of CIA
since September 1959: . agents because the assassination of agent
Two former newspaper executives Richard Welch in Greece came after his
have. made conflicting statements about CIA connection was reported. .
whether The Courier-Journal cooperated "We just had his star carved on the
-wail here (next to 31 other stars for CIA
rith the CIA in putting Campbell on the I agents killed inY the line of duty)," he
payroll. said.
ginger editor, said that Norman E. Isaacs,
ournal and The Louisville Times, told
im that Campbell was hired as a result
f a CIA request to Isaacs.
Isaacs, the only person involved in the
iring of ' Campbell, . denied Reeves'
tatement.
Isaacs, however, did not follow normal
ersonnel procedures in hiring Campbell
s a beginning reporter. -Among other
things, no check was made of Campbell's
in lcs recent ettuaL w Ac"Iai .-
Campbell, the newspaper found that two
phony foundations and two phony
h
e
ompanies apparently were used by t
'1'A to provide Campbell and perhaps
others with cover for their activities.
The newspaper also found that Camp-
bell apparently used the Atlas Corp., a
publicly owned American firm, as a
cover for activities in Japan during the
early 1970s.
by working as a reporter in -Louisville
is not clear.
"Cover has been our sole concern" in
placing agents on newspapers, said
Thuermer.
Sen Walter (Dee) Huddleston, D-Ky., I
whose Senate intelligence subcommittee
is investigating CIA links to the press,
said he knows nothing about the Camp-
bell case.
But he theorized that Campbell "wasn't
there to learn anything about the paper
or even to propagandize through his
writings. He was there for the purpose
of cover or establishing a career that
could be used as cover at a later time."
Under pressure from Congress and the
news media, CIA Director George Bush
recently said the CIA no longer would
"enter into any paid or contractual
relationship" with full-time or part-time
reporters working' for any U.S. news
agency.
pa:
all
for
ov(
me
act
wo
rev
age
wh
I
run
Journal and The Louisville Times, asked
that the rumor be checked out.
After an internal report concluded that
Campbell could have been in the CIA,
Bingham asked the CIA for confirma-
tion. The CIA refused to provide it.
Recently, Bingham, who said he would
not. knowingly permit the newspaper to
be used to provide cover for a CIA
agent, brought the Campbell affair to
the attention of Huddleston's subcom-.
mittee.
Barry Bingham Sr., who was editor.
and publisher of both Louisville news-
papers in 196, said he knows nothing
about Campbell. He said the question
of whether the newspaper should cooper-
ate with the CIA "never arose."
Ostensibly, it was a letter from a
Dallas, Texas, firm to Isaacs that resulted
in Campbell's being hired as a reporter.'
In the letter of Oct. 23, 1964, Herman
Bulford of the Economic News Distribu-
tors said:
"We are desirous of broadening the.
experience of one of our junior feature
writers and are interested specifically in
giving him the opportunity to work for'
some months on a large well-known
newspaner___
"The individual we have in mind is Mr.
Robert E. (sic) Campbell, who was born
April 10, 1936, in Jackson, -Michigan. He
received an MA in history from the Uni-
versity of Chicago in 1959; in' March
1960, he went to Kenya on a research
grant from the African Research Foun.
dation and spent the next three years
studying the language and the history of
the country.
hell Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100670003-1
reporting