COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN: SPECIAL ISSUE: CIA AND THE MEDIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100190006-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 36
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: January 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Number 7 ? December 1979-January 1980 52.00
Special Issue:
CIA and the MEDIA
J
INFORMATION BULLETIN
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Editorial
We owe our readers an apology. In our last editorial we
suggested that the legislation being urged by Deputy CIA
Director Frank Carlucci to criminalize our "Naming
Namc;s"column was so obviously unconstitutional that the
Agency would have to get one of its hacks to introduce it.
To oczr surprise, on October 17, the entire House Select
Comtittee on Intelligence introduced H.R. 5615, the "In-
telligence Identities Protection Act."The bill combines an
anti-f~gee bill with an anti-CovertAction bill.
Thr, first part makes it a crime for anyone who has access
to confidential information identifying undercover intelli-
gence officers, employees, agents, informants, or "sources
of operational assistance," to disclose such information.
The second part makes it also a crime for anyone else to
disclose such information "with the intent to impair or
impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United
State~~." When introducing the bill, Rep. Boland, the
Chairman of the Select Committee, admitted, "I fully real-
ize th;~t this latter provision will be controversial. It could
subjec;t a private citizen to criminal prosecution for disclos-
ing u classified information obtained from unclassified
sources."
Precisely. This is the first time that a genuine Official
Secrers .Act has been on the floor of Congress in some time.
This bill, by the CIA's own admission, was drafted and
spoon-fed to the Committee by them. Though it is not
aimed solely at us, that is what the Agency would like
people to believe. The primary victims of such legislation
would be both whistleblowers inside the government and
investigative journalists outside. That it is limited to infor-
mationwhich identifies officers or agents is of ]ittle signifi-
cance, because it is virtually impossible to expose illegal or
immoral activity within government without disclosing
who is responsible for, or involved with, the crimes. As we
have said from the outset, you cannot separate the opera-
tions from the operators.
We will have more to say on this bill as a campaign
against it takes shape. We are concerned that people will
take the apathetic view that the bill is so extreme that there
is no chance of its becoming law. That sort of complacency,
particularly in an election year, could be disastrous. Jour-
nalistsmust bemade aware of the ramifications of this bill.
It would totally outlaw much of the investigative journal-
ismwhich has led to the exposure of Watergate, of My Lai,
of such mundane matters as the massive CIA payments to
the King of Jordan. (Talk about identifying a "source of
operational assistance"!)
The other danger to be guarded against is an overcon-
cernwith the second part of the bill-clearly in violation of
the First Amendment-to the detriment of the first part of
the bill-which still denies freedom of speech to govern-
ment workers. Journalists may rally to their own defense,
but they must fight as well for the whistleblowers within
government, without whom they would never have many
of the stories they publish. What chance for any intelli-
gence reform at all would there be if the books of Marchet-
ti, Marks, Agee, Stockwell, Snepp, Smith and Corson were
illegal?
Richard Welch and the Ayatollah Khomeini
What do they have in common, you say? Well, just this.
For years we have taken the position that although we
CONTENTS
Editorial
Sources and Methods: Pigeon Power
Media Destabilization:
Jl~maica, A Case Study
Two Views of Robert Moss
The Incredible CIA Media Budget
How the Agency Woos Journalists
Jonas Savimbi Comes Begging
Book Review:
Kermit Roosevelt and the Shah
Naming Names
Publications of Interest
CovertAction /nformation Bul/etin, Number 7, December 1979-January 1980, published by Covert Action Publications, Inc., a District of Columbia
Nonprofit Corporation, P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004. Telephone: [phone]. All rights reserved; copyright ?1979, by Covert Action
Publiauions, Inc. Typography by Art jor People, Washington, DC. Washington Staff: Ellen Ray, William Schaap, Louis Wolf. Board of Advisors:
Philip .Agee, Ken Lawrence, Karl Van Meter, Elsie Wilcott, Jim Wilcott. The CovertAction Information Bulletin is available at many bookstores around
the world. Write or call for the store nearest you. Inquiries from distributors and subscription services welcome.
2 CovertAction Number 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980)
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name names and expose CIA officers and operations out'
of our distaste for what the CIA has become-we have
never felt that doing, so placed them in physical danger.
This is because their value as undercover subverters and
corrupters is lost when they are exposed. Still, whenever we
point out that we are not in favor of assassination as a
political method, the Richard Welch red-herring is
resurrected.
This issue we present a number of outside contributors.
Andy Weir and Jonathan Bloch, two correspondents for
Peoples News Service in London, and experienced free-
lancewriters aswell, have contributed an in-depth analysis
of Robert Moss, one of the intelligence complex's most
literate, if not necessarily most accurate, sympathizers.
Philip Agee has added his ewn personal Robert Moss
story.
Thus it was with considerable trepidation that we fol-
Iowed the news of the capture of the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran. We hoped that no harm would come to the hos-
tages. (As this is written the hostages are still in custody,
and still unharmed.) It was clear, though, that the U.S.
government had no business staffing such a large Embassy
in such a hostile environment. It was as if they had learned
no lesson at all from the fall of the Shah. Be that as it may, it
was clear to us that if we had any names of CIA personnel
assigned to the Tehran Embassy, we would not print them
under the existing circumstances.
Imagine our consternation when, within days of the
takeover of the Embassy, we were swamped with calls from
reporters with the networks, the wire services, and many
major national newspapers and magazines, asking, almost
pleading, for the names of CIA personnel in Tehran. "Off
the record,"they begged, "I promise I won't tell anyone." It
was an object lesson all right. Some of the same people who
cluck their tongues when we publish our magazine were
thirsting for blood, for an international incident, for a page
one by-line.
For some time we have been preparing a special issue
concentrating on the CIA and the media. We hope that our
readers find much of this issue valuable, not only the new
information, but also the reference material.
A major focus of this issue is the Caribbean, particularly
Jamaica-a consequence of the massive CIA-inspired me-
dia campaign being waged on that island. In addition to
our overview of the situation, we are pleased to include
additional analyses by Fred Landis, the foremost expert on
the use by the CIA of El Mercurio in the overthrow of
Allende, and by Cecilio Morales, Jr., the Washington cor-
respondent for the respected Latin AIY1PYlCQ We~c>klr
Report.
We also include an examination of the newly refurbished
Jonas Savimbi campaign and a letter about him by former
Angola Task Force Chief, ,lohn Stockwell; an analysis of
the CIA media budget by well-known economist and au-
thor Sean Gervasi, and an astonishing review of Kermit
Roosevelt's new book by an insider who knows as much
about the subject as Roosevelt himself, and is a good deal
more honest.
Finally, we continue our regular features, Naming
Names and Sources and Methods. About the latter, our
readers should know that last issue's Ken Lawrence col-
umn, on the CIA's use of cockroaches to trail people, was
covered by several wire services and led to half a dozen
radio interviews and news articles. Never underestimate
the power of bugs. This issue Lawrence gets into pigeons.
Sources and. Method8
By Ken Lawrence
Pigeon Intelligence?
A few months ago several articles appeared in the papers
about how the Coast Guard is spending $146,000 to train a
rescue squad of pigeons to find people lost at sea.
mentioned using the pigeons to find the boat people, an
obvious thing to do if the birds are really so adept at their
duty.
The reports indicated that the pigeon patrol was a stun-
ning success scoring 90 percent as opposed to a poor 38
percent scored by a human air crew searching for the same
lost souls.
Strangely enough, at the same time these stories were
appearing, the Navy was ordered to search the waters off
Southeast Asia for the so-called "boat people"adrift at sea
after leaving Vietnam. But none of the news accounts
Number 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980)
This is so obvious, in fact, that it makes one pause to
wonder whether the press reports about the pigeons were
part of an elaborate cover story for something altogether
different. If so, it would not be the first time. A few years
ago the Navy told several fascinating stories about psycho-
logical and communications research to hide the fact that
dolphins were being trained and used as underwater assas-
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7,HE CUBAN AMBASSADOR TO JAMAICA:
A CASE STUDY IN MEDIA
11-JANIPULATION AND DESTABILIZATION
By Ellen Ray
In ~`uly, 1979 Ulises Estrada Lescaille, the new Cuban
Ambassador, was due to arrive in Kingston, Jamaica. For
the entire month preceding his arrival the conservative
Dailt~ Gleaner newspaper, in conjunction with the opposi-
tion Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) and its leader Edward
Seaga, relentlessly pursued a campaign of disinformation
the likes of which hacl not been seen on that Caribbean
island since the notorious CIA destabilization effort of
1976. And since last summer an international barrage of
attacks--lies, distortions, outright threats-has beset the
Cubac Ambassador and his host, Prime Minister Michael
Manley. Fanning the flames have been such well-known
toadiea of Western intelligence as Robert Moss [see the
articles in this issue by Andy Weir and Jonathan Bloch,
and by Philip Agee], reactionary and CIA-connected
newspapers and wire services, dubious awards ceremonies
bestowing false honors [see the article in this issue by Fred
Landis], even the U.S. State Department. Observers can
only marvel at the sophistication of the campaign, its di-
mensions, and, of course, its probable cost. Who is paying
for it remains a major question.
Manley has become. in the past few years, one of the
most respected leaders of the entire Third World, a major
force in the Non-Aligned Movement. The socialist tenor of
his government, and particularly its close relations with
Cuba, have State Department and other hard-liners fran-
tic. The U.S. government's "shock"when Manley support-
ed the Puerto Rican independence movement was proba-
bly, in one sense, real. Far more dangerous to U.S.
interests, however, is Manley's role, as described by the
Washington Posh, in outlining "a new economic accord
under which oil-producing states would give special con-
sideration to their energy-scarce brothers within the
movement." Manley, almost single-handedly, drew from
the OPEC members of the Non-Aligned Movement a
commitment to lower prices or credits or terms of payment
for the: r customers within the group-a commitment
which must, of course, in the end cost the West.
Ambassador Ulises Estrada
Right Wing's "Target of Opportunity"
As elections in Jamaica draw closer, the media-manufac-
tured crisis has escalated dramatically, with Ambassador
Estrada a "target of opportunity" for the right wing. As
Fred Landis points out elsewhere in this issue, the analo-
gies between the CIA's destabilization of the Allende
government in Chile and the current turmoil in Jamaica are
considerable. The two most common methods, he notes,
were a supposed defense of freedom of the press and an
emphasis on ties with Cuba. Both methods are at the fore of
the Estrada affair. The JLP! Dailr Gleaner attacks on the
Ambassador are really cover for their attack on the
government which recognizes him. Once again a coalition
of forces, mainly outside Jamaica, have united in an at-
tempt to unseat the Manley government by whatever
means necessary.
The orchestrated campaign against Estrada began with a
bluster of rhetoric, but has recently turned violent, remi-
niscent again of 1976. On June 30, before the Ambassador
arrived, the Gleaner announced that Seaga and the JLP
were checking into the Ambassador-designate's back-
ground, particularly his ties with various African liberation
movements and with Palestinian organizations. If such
linkages turned out to be "as reported" (by whom, or to
what effect, is unclear), the J LP would "launch demonstra-
tions and pursue him to every corner until he departs."
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Also in June, Seaga was interviewed by the Miami
Herald, always a willing outlet for anti-Cuban fervor, given
the nature of its readership. He railed against Manley for
"covertly establishing aCuban-style apparatus that will
supplant democratic forms." He then went on to contradict
himself by claiming that Manley's party, the Peoples
National Party (PNP) is taking "the third route to commu-
nism,"not the elected route, not the route of violent over-
throw, but the route of gaining power under false preten-
ses-"the Euro-communist model." In October, inci-
dentally, Seaga reversed himself again, stating that Manley
was preparing for "the military solution."
In the same Miami Herald article, Clifton Nieta, the
managing editor of the Gleaner, expressed very partisan
support for the JLP and contempt for Manley. Yet two
days later the Herald reprinted a piece Nieta wrote for the
Wall .Street Journal in which he claimed that the Gleaner
"grinds no axes except public ones and supports no politi-
cal party." This is quite a revelation, since Hector Wynter,
the editor, is a former Chairman of the JLP, and has
recently fired a number of the Cleaner's more experienced
journalists because of their objections to the increasingly
outrageous and unprincipled attacks on the Prime Minis-
ter. The real message of Nieta's piece was to introduce the
charge that Manley was planning to shut down the
Gleaner-the "freedom of the press" campaign which
would be used with more and more frequency, against both
the government and the Cuban Ambassador. The foolish-
ness of the charge was pointed out in Harper'r Magazine,
which wryly observed that "hardly a day goes by that the
newspapers do not prove their own editorials wrong, by
freely publishing lurid accounts of the death of freedom of
the press."
Another peculiar piece of the Gleaner puzzle was alluded
to by Nieta, who related how, in 1978, the Gleaner was
forced to go public with a still private stock offering to pay
off its debts, and how the poor people of Jamaica rushed
out to buy up millions of dollars of shares in sums of $50 or
$100, on the premise that "in order to save Jamaica you had
to save the Gleaner." He does not explain how a paper in
such straits can afford to publish a weekly North American
edition, with the high cost of publishing in the U.S., the
devalued Jamaican dollar, and the limited readership of
such a paper. Nor does he really clarify who put just how
much into the Gleaner, under admittedly "unattractive"
terms.
International Campaign Inaugurated
Shortly thereafter, still prior to Estrada's arrival in
Jamaica, the world-wide, coordinated attack against him
began. From papers as far away as Hong Kong and as near
as Mexico and Venezuela came stories of the new Cuban
Ambassador to Jamaica, alleging that he was an intelli-
gence officer. All of the articles can be traced to a single,
unsigned piece by Robert Moss in "Foreign Report," cal-
ling Estrada part of "the Palestinian Mafia ....the former
head of Cuban intelligence in Cairo, and the new tool for
subversion in the Caribbean."Seaga repeated these allega-
tions at his Washington press conference. Estrada, it
should be noted, denies that he has ever spent any time in
Egypt.
Seaga's U.S. Trip
Seaga was exceptionally active during this period. On
July 4th bespoke at afund-raising dinner at the University
of Miami to the newly-formed Freedom League of Greater
Miami, described by one journalist as a small reactionary
group primarily made up of Cuban exiles with some right-
wing Jamaicans rind Barbadians. "A burst of documented
evidence," Seaga claimed, has proved that the Cuban and
Soviet governments have infiltrated Jamaica. He didn't say
where the burst of documents came from, or what thev
were, but a few rnonths later Washington journalists and
State Department officials were treated to endless copies of
the "Seaga Papers." [see the article in this issue by Cecilio
Morales, Jr.]
Seaga also made the startling-but subsequently easily
disproved-statement that there were over 5000 Cubans in
Jamaica. "Manley and Castro are in the same bed," he
exhorted his mainly Cuban audience. He also pointed out
that one of Manley's ministers was seen at the home of a
Cuban diplomat whom Seaga said was the head of intelli-
gence. Some timf~ later, it was discovered that the diplomat
was the counsel to the new Ambassador, and the meeting
was a perfectly ordinary one. In Miami, Seaga also insisted
that he was under constant government surveillance, fol-
lowed and wiretapped, with a police surveillance unit next
to his home. He never made such allegations in Jamaica,
though, where no one would believe them.
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At a meeting of the Twentieth Congress of the Peoples
Progressive Party of Guyana, a Cuban diplomat re-
sponded to some of the Cleaner's charges, referring to a
"hysrerical campaign of slander and lies." He described the
Gleaner as "reactionary,"and referred to documented CIA
connections. The Gleaner, hardly known for temperate
lang~rage, professed outrage and demanded that the
Jam~iican Foreign Ministry lodge a formal protest. The
comments in Guyana, they said, were "a dangerous act of
inter,~erence with the free press of Jamaica." They de-
manded that Ambassador Estrada, who had just arrived in
Jam~.ica, apologize for his country. The Foreign Ministry
refused to take orders from the Gleaner, the Ambassador
did not apologize for his colleague, and the rival Jamaica
Dailr~ News noted that the description of the Gleaner as
"reactionary" was nothing if not accurate.
Ambassador Answers Smear Campaign
After unceasing demands that he respond, the Ambas-
sadorfinally called a press conference, and reiterated the
poin~: made in Guyana, that there was a campaign of lies
beinl; circulated against him by the G/eaner and the JLP.
The campaign against Cuba, he said, "has been personal-
ized 1 o become even a campaign against the new Ambassa-
dor ,vho publicly was threatened with demonstrations
against him." His government had the right to protest
against these lies; the more the lies were repeated, the more
likely that people might believe them. As Ambassador, he
said, it was not proper for him to respond personally to
irreslonsible attacks:; but "we have means to answer all
over the world and to begin to say our truths." He con-
cluded that, "if war is declared by anyone, the Cuban
Revolution has always been characterized by accepting the
challenge, and as Comrade Fidel has said, `when the
Cubans say we fight, we fight seriously."'
Mitch to the Ambassador's amazement, the Gleaner,
with ~ ncredible self-righteousness, chose to interpret these
remarks as threatening physical violence to anyone who
disagreed with him. In a page one editorial the next day
they called upon the government "to denounce Mr. Estra-
da's irresponsible behavior and to declare him persona non
grata so that he may be recalled."The G/eanerclaimed that
Estrada was threatening freedom of the press, threatening
Jamaicans and interfering in internal politics. Although
the Ambassador issued a statement clarifying the remarks,
insisting that he was clearly referring to verbal struggle, to
"communication," every conservative organization in
Jamaica protested his "threats"-the Jamaica Chamber of
Commerce, the Private Sector Organization, the Jamaica
Manufacturers Association.
Thy; Gleaner printed all of these attacks. The same day,
the Biter American Press Association jumped into the
picture [see the Fred Landis article for the ties between the
CIA .and IAPA]. Declaring Estrada's remarks "abusive
attacks on the Gleaner," they said, "this intolerable and
threatening statement. by a representative of totalitarian
government, which does not allow freedom of expression,
will s.rrely come before the IAPA's annual meeting next
month in Toronto." Not remarkably, the next month the
Prime Minister Michael Manley
CIA-riddled IAPA duly condemned the attempts of "for-
eign diplomats" to "intimidate the free and independent
press of Jamaica."
As the memory of Estrada's exact words dimmed, the
Gleaner became more and more strident, insisting that the
Ambassador was threatening "reprisals" against Jamai-
cans, and "war" against the country. Prime Minister
Manley was forced to call his own press conference, at
which he pointed out that the Ambassador had stressed the
long-standing friendship between the people of Jamaica
and Cuba indeed, Jamaica, under a JLP government in
the 1960s, had refused to comply with the U.S. blockade of
Cuba. He noted that the Ambassador had continually
referred to a "war of words." Yet, the Prime Minister said,
the G/eaner had chosen, "in a malicious and deliberate act
...with malice aforethought, to pretend that those words
mean that Cuba was threatening Jamaica." The Prime
Minister noted that the Gleaner was now assiduously lying
on a daily basis.
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As the Prime Minister rallied his responding forces, the
battle was not all one sided. The Federation of Progressive
Forces was launched and named a working committee to
request the Press Association of Jamaica to conduct a
"public inquiry into the Cleaner's abuses of press freedom,
to organize a public meeting to expose the Cleaner's
abuses, report to the International Organization of Jour-
nalists, and UNESCO the Cleaner's unethical practices."
The PAJ did set up the public inquiry, a respected panel of
civic leaders was selected, and the investigation of the
Gleaner is expected to last many months.
The international campaign alleging Cuban and Soviet
dominance of Jamaica picked up in the meantime. In Sep-
tember, an issue of Business Week noted that "Seaga has
charged repeatedly-with considerable documentation-
that Cuban intelligence agents as well as Soviet secret
police have infiltrated the Manley administration." The
"documentation,"asnnted elsewhere in this issue, is totally
fabricated. Ominously, Business Week said, referring to
the upcoming elections, "The question posed by many
observers is whether those elections will ever take place."
The only "observer" making that observation, however,
was Seaga himself.
Other magazines, such as Barrons, echoed the same line,
but most outrageous of all was the series of articles by
Robert Moss in the Daily Telegraph which culminated, on
October 8, with a piece in which he claimed that "it has
been a long standing ambition of President Castro and his
Soviet mentors to convert Jamaica into `an Anglophone
Cuba,"' according to a "defector from Cuban intelligence."
On September 25 the JLP carried out the threat it had
made even before Estrada arrived, by calling fora demon-
stration to protest his presence and the presence of Cuban
volunteers in Jamaica-doctors, construction workers,
etc.-and the government's acquiescence in this. Chanting
slogans against Cuba and carrying placards reading
"Communist Pigs Go Back to Cuba," the JLP marched
against the Cuban Embassy and Government House. The
crowd accosted several government officials who were shot
at. A counterdemonstration appeared and the two groups
clashed. Government supporters then marched to the
Gleaner offices with pro-Cuban placards. Outside the
building, speakers, including the Prime Minister, pro-
claimed their message: "Freedom of the press, yes. But no
more lies." The demonstration then moved to the Cuban
Embassy to express solidarity with the Ambassador.
Foreign Media Descends
JLP began to call for all-island demonstrations leading
to a general strike. They invited foreign journalists to
Jamaica, "to cover any political developments which may
arise." Nineteen came, including Time, Nex?sK?eek, the
Chicago Tribune, the NeH? York Times, the Miami Herald,
and the London Dai/r Te/egraph, from September 28 till
October 6.
Casting modesty to the winds, Seaga announced at a
rally that the Cubans and the PNP had joined together "to
attack me, the JLP, the Gleaner Company, and the United
States of Ame*ica." He said that Estrada was "Manley's
boss," and that "war" was beginning. Deputy JLP Leader
Pearnell Charles, who had been jailed during the 1976
emergency for planning the overthrow of the govern-
ment with outside forces [see CounterSpr magazine,
December 1976], made frequent allegations of PNP plots
to shoot up their own meetings and blame it on the JLP.
The PNP protested these statements, saying that they
were laying the groundwork for a new onslaught of politi-
calviolence such as that of 1976. Sure enough, a week later
the JLP instigated a disturbance where Jamaican and
Cuban construction workers were shot at, and a few days
later, shots rang out and interrupted the final ceremony of
National Heroes Day. It was just a few days later that
Seaga made his most recent U.S. tour, including the pro-
vocative speech in Washington, where he accused the
government of planning a "military solution."
It seems obvious that the situation in Jamaica is critical.
The parallels to the last years of the Allende government in
Chile are too obvious and too frequent to ignore. The
Gleaner is fulfilling, with relish, the role of EI Mercurio;
but there is no reason to believe that the role of the U.S.
intelligence complex has changed hands at all. ~eaga'~
meetings with State Department officials and National
Security Council personnel are known. The entire interna-
tional campaign against the Cuban presence in Jamaica,
and against the Ambassador in particular, are part of a
sophisticated counter-intelligence plan related to U.S. in-
tervention in the Caribbean in general, and in Jamaica in
particular:
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SEAGA'S SLEIGHT OF HAND
TRIPS UP JACK ANDERSON
One of Edward Seaga's worst kept secrets is a sheaf of
"doc;uments"which purportedly link Jamaican Prime Min-
ister Michael Manley to Soviet and Cuban intelligence
officers. Seaga, leader of the opposition Jamaica Labour
Party, is known to have passed the papers on to Carter
Administration officials, among them the National Securi-
ty C'ouncil's Robert Pastor, during atwo-day visit to
Washington in October.
Shortly after the visit, the Seaga Papers, allegedly a
sam,~ling of files from Manley's Peoples National Party,
began to be selectively leaked to the press by U.S. govern-
ment officials. Initially State Department officials them-
selves had circulated the merchandise at high echelons,
setting off a chain of second generation Seaga Papers, with
the :itate Department imprimatur, and, in the case of at
least one set, with the signature of the soon to be replaced
Assistant Secretary of State, Viron P. Vaky. At his press
conference at the National Press Club, Seaga admitted that
he had met with Vaky, but refused to disclose what they
had discussed.
Subsequently Jack Anderson's staff obtained the Vaky
memo, but not the "documents," and ran a story which
credited Vaky, a former Inter-American Bureau Chief (in-
II~;Dranch
Downtown
is being
bypassed.
Sons officers
work out of
Ja. House.
Gri.fEitha has
chickened out
DGl .~ Valdimir RliMntov
KGB
correctly billed as Undersecretary) with the "knowledge"
that Manley was close to the KGB. Had they bothered to
contact either Seaga or his White House friends, they
might have stumbled on to a set of papers, which, as
documentary evidence, are softer than the raw clams in the
Caribbean.
The papers comprise a crude chart, two spurious memos
and a strange list of names. The highly inflammatory
chart-it is unclear whether this is supposed to be a PNP
document or merely Seaga's Guide for the Perplexed-
outlines an alleged political liaison network, with, at the
top, "58 Jamaicans" at Jamaica House, the Prime Minis-
ter's offices, linked to the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. Manley and Claude Robinson, his former Press
Secretary, are linked via Arnold Bertram, the Minister of
Mobilization, Information and Culture, to KGB agents,
DGI agents, other ministers also connected to KGB and
DGI, and to the Workers Party of Jamaica. Indeed, the
mesh of lines, which resemble in their complexity a map of
the British Railway, all cross through the WPJ Secretary
General, Trevor Munroe, incorrectly identified as the
"leader of the Communist Party of Jamaica." There is a
JA. 8oU8a
se Ja ~ icane
$tructurs on Political Liaison with CPSV (oleo planning of political
Ja. House ?'MichaeltManlay/Claude~>~son~l'r~s' S~c.,~ tA.r ,~aotivitiea~
. .
~-? Trevor Munroe~~-~"~'4c~'
OG7~ Michael Kowtovski ~_j Hugh Small ' ~ ~ `'''?"'
\~
(First Secty) KCH
yy Overt Operetiona
Du~tcan t. ?. ?'+ ?? 1'~"?~~``~ ~;~ Commun.Councils
` ~"'? ~'? Sports etc. based on
clandestine organieat~ons~~?.t~\`~~`~~?)community system
farming Security bnaes ~
i1a reika etc.
Juan Cabonel
DGI
Field Organiser
Yuri Loginov
Dudley Thompson ~~~^~s~s'-c c' ~ ~"'~ ~?'''
s
Ministerial/Councillor
.
Kept at arms length as SC"' c. r~ 1
he is not trusted totally by
Russians who say he is crooked
Loves money too much
R.V.
1-laot A.S.P/losd at Ja. NousA is Manley~pChief of Security at Ja. House who
theoretically should take orders tro~a Sp. Branch but who takes orders
lrom Michael himself. Likely head o! total Security Structure eventually.
Seaga's "Chart"
Number 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980)
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small Jamaican Communist Party, distinct from the WPJ;
moreover, at his press conference, Seaga referred to Mun-
roe as a secret member of the PNP.
Also linked by arrows to Bertram, and to Hugh Small,
Minister of Youth and Sports, is "Juan Cabonel, DGI
Field Organiser." This perpetuates one of Seaga's major
,roux pas. In June of this year, he exposed the "newly
arrived" head of DGI in Jamaica, Juan Cabonel, who, he
announced, had arrived clandestinely in Jamaica the
preceding night, to take over the reins of DGI in Jamaica.
The story was touted on the front page of the Daih~
Gleaner, picked up by the Miami Herald and other papers,
and reprinted in the Congressional Record by Seaga's
acquaintance, arch right wing Congressman Larry
McDonald of Georgia. What Seaga did not know was that
Juan Carbonel (he had the name wrong) had been awell-
known consular official at the Cuban Embassy in Jamaica
for three years, and was returning, the previous day, from
his annual vacation. The diplomatic community in King-
ston, all of whom knew Carbonel, were bemused by Sea-
ga's mistake.
Seaga's chart also shows Minister of Security, Dudley
Thompson, linked to a KGB officer, but with the annota-
tion "not trusted totally by the Russians."
The memos accompanying the chart seem obvious for-
geries. One discussed Small's role in supervising the "in-
doctrination" of a construction brigade sent to Cuba; but
that brigade was no secret, funded openly and publicly by
the Housing Ministry, not Small's portfolio. The docu-
ments refer to Robinson's role as "documenting," with a
link to the KBG; yet "documenting" is an ominous label
applied to the pedestrian activities of a press secretary.
The final document purports to be a list of police officers
slated "to get Special Branch training and death squad
work." If a government had a death squad, which in the
case of Jamaica appears ludicrous, it strains the imagina-
tion to believe that it would publish lists of the members
and refer to them by such a name.
Remarkably, this sloppy "documentation" does not
seem to have affected Seaga's credibility with the National
Security Council, even though the latest piece of "intelli-
gence"contains no authenticating evidence of any kind, no
letterhead, no signatures, indeed nothing that could be
traced back other than to an overactive imagination. Yet
State Department officials continue to admit that Seaga is
a major source of U.S. intelligence on Jamaica.
Of course, some skeptics believe that Jamaica, and the
Seaga Papers, are merely chess pieces in Zbigniew
Brzezinski's game of cold war in the Caribbean. The prize,
it is said, would be Cyrus Vance's post, Secretary of State.
By Cecilio Morales, Jr.
Cecilio Morales, Jr., is a correspondent for the London-based Latin
Amerrra H'eekh' Report.
continued from page 3
sins. Probably the most famous such lie was the CIA's tale
that the Glomar Explorer spy ship was supposedly adeep-
sea mining vessel owned by Howard Hughes.
If the pigeons aren't out searching for lost boat people,
what are they doing? One possibility is they may be spying
on Soviet submarines. This, too, would not be unprece-
dented; during World War II the British used sea gulls to
patrol the coast for German U-boats. Robert Lubow des-
cribed the technique in The War Anima/s (Doubleday &
Co., 1977, $7.95):
"A truly novel approach, and one that is exquisite-
ly simple, was said to have been employed by the
British. As anyone who lives near the seashore
knows, flocks of sea gulls will congregate around
refuse dumps, fishing boats unloading their catch, or
any other easy source of food. It is a common sight,
for instance, to see several gulls trailing a ship waiting
for the garbage to be dumped overboard, or for some
passenger to amuse himself by throwing crusts of
bread into the air which the agile gulls will then catch
in their beaks.
"It is reported that British submarines submerged
off the English coast released large amounts of bread.
The bread, floating to the surface, would be spotted
by local gulls, and soon an entire flock would be
circling and diving in the area of the bread and the
submarine. There is no information available as to
how many times this association of events, bread and
submarine, had to be repeated before the sea gulls
began to appear at the sight of the submarine alone.
However, it is told that when the gulls spotted a long,
dark shadow moving beneath the surface of the wa-
ters, they would proceed to flock to that place.
Wheeling and screeching, they were observed by hu-
manspotters onthe shore. The location of the swarm-
ing gulls was reported, and if that location did not
coincide with the known position of a friendly sub-
marine, the appropriate military countermeasures
were initiated. It is not known how many German
U-boats became victims of the scavenger gull's insati-
able search for food."
Unlike the wheeling, screeching gulls, the pigeons signal
they've found their quarry by pecking a switch. Instead of a
whole flock, it takes only a crew of three. Three pigeons
and some bird seed-that's something to think about when
the Senate's hawks scream that U.S. intelligence can't
"verify" Soviet military presence.
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TIE CIA AND THE MEDIA:
I~~PA AND THE JAMAICA
RAIL Y GLEANER
By :Fred Landis
Fred Landis is the author of Psychological Warfare and
Media Operations in Chile, 1970-1973, and a former re-
searcher for the Senate Select Committee to Studv
Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence
Activities (the Church Committee). He is at present a jour-
nalist in Santa Barbara, California.
In its efforts to influence, and perhaps topple, the
government of Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica,
the CIA has used proprietary wire services, agents, assets, a
major international press organization, and stock propa-
ganda themes. These efforts have been on a hemisphere-
wide basis, but are currently most evident in the local
anti-Manley newspaper, the Dai/t' Gleaner. The close
partnership between the Gleaner and the Inter American
Press Association, described herein, is a case study of
present day CIA covert propaganda. Indeed, the metho-
dology employed is strikingly similar to the CIA's use of
El Mercurio against Chilean President Salvador Allende.
The story is complicated, and intertwined, but revolves
around IAPA and its General Manager, James & Canel. In
what follows, we try to unravel the many threads of this
story.
In October 1979 the Daily Gleaner received the Maria
Moor: Cabot citation in recognition of its services in de-
fense of "press freedom in Latin America." Serving on the
Board which awards the Cabot citations is James B. Canel,
General Manager of the Miami-based IAPA. Although the
prize i;s administered by the Columbia University School of
Journalism in New York City. the Board is totally inde-
pende nt of the University, and is, reportedly, a creature of
IAPA. Canel, in fact, is part of a select group which has
been giving awards to each other for some time. In 1960,
Canel himself received the Cabot award. In 1972, Canel
gave the IAPA "Freedom of the Press" award to Arturo
Fontaine of EI Mercurio. Simultaneously the American
Legion gave its "Freedom of the Press" award to
EI Mercurio owner, Agustin Edwards, amulti-millionaire
who awned vast resources in Chile. At the ceremony ho-
noring; Edwards were the past four IAPA presidents.
It was no+ until December 1975 that the Senate Select
Committee report "Covert Action in Chile: 1964-1974"
revealed that the day after a September 14, 1970 meeting
between Edwards and CIA Director Richard Helms, the
now famous meeting between Richard Nixon, Henry Kis-
singer and Helms occurred in the Oval Office, at which
time they sanctioned the destabilization of the Allende
government, and in February 1979 with the use of classi-
fied documents, Inquiry magazine revealed that both
Fontaine and Edwards were CIA agents. In fact, Edwards
is known to have been a CIA agent since 1958, running
other agents, laundering CIA money, and the like.
Edwards, along-time crony of Nixon, and whose cousin is
married to David Rockefeller, is at present well placed as
the vice-president of Pepsi-Cola's international division.
Edwards was president of IAPA in 1969, and both he and
another CIA operative from El Mercurio, Rene Silva
Espejo, are still on the IAPA board. In 1968 Edwards had
been chairman of IAPA's Freedom of the Press Commit-
tee, which during the past decade has given its awards to
the wire services discussed below, who, of course,
reciprocate.
Wire Services
The major CIA-connected wire services reaching Latin
America and the Caribbean are Agencia Orbe Latino-
americano, Copley News Service, Forum World
Features, and LATIN. (Two other wire services reaching
the Caribbean, Reuters-CANA and World Features Ser-
vices, are reputed to have ties to British intelligence-but
that is not within the scope of this article.) The Daily
Gleaner has subscribed to, and run stories from, both
English-language services. In addition, since the exposures
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of many of the services, the Gleaner has taken to running
wire service articles, often datelined Washington, with no
source attribution at all.
Agencia Orbe Latinoamericano was identified by Philip
Agee in "Inside the Company: CIA Diary" as a feature
news service serving most of Latin America, financed and
controlled by the CIA through the Santiago, Chile station.
Copley News Service was identified in the August 1977
Penthouse in an article by investigative reporters Joe
Trento and Dave Roman as "the only [media] organization
that the CIA had 'full cooperation with' for nearly three
decades," and was later confirmed by the Neia? York Times
as "the CIA's eyes and ears in Latin America."
Forum World Features, incorporated in Delaware but
based in London, produced six articles a week plus photo-
graphsfor 150 newspapers in some 50 countries around the
world, including the United States. It was exposed as a CIA
proprietary in the summer of 1975 by the London maga-
zine Time Out, and later in the London Guardian, the Irish
Times, the Washington Post, and More magazine. In the
Mav 1978 More, freelance author Russell Warren Howe,
who worked for a number of years for the FW F unaware
of its Agency relationship- described it as "the principal
CIA media effort in the world."
LATIN was identified in 1975 by the Ne~~ York Times as
a CIA wire service, eliciting a sharp rebuttal from former
CIA Director Richard Helms. 1-ATIN was not, technical-
ly, aproprietary, but CIA agents and CIA funds played a
crucial role in its development. Fraudulently proclaiming
itself as the first Third World news service, LATIN was
started and owned by two former IAPA presidents to offset
the influence of Cuba's Prensa Latina. According to a
former LATIN executive, it developed out of the practice
of Agustin Edwards calling Julio de Mesquita Neto, pub-
lisher of the Brazilian newspaper O E.vado de Sao Pau/o,
and yet another IAPA president, every Thursday after-
noon to exchange information. By July 1971 LATIN had
been consolidated into ahemisphere-wide wire service
owned by E/ Mercurio and four Brazilian newspapers. In
1974 the governments of Mexico, Venezuela and Costa
Rica attempted, through indirect means, to purchase
LATIN. These efforts were thwarted by Edwards who
personally laid out a cool $400,000 to do so. Despite de-
nials by both Helms and Edwards, the January 16, 1976
Washington Posy identified LATIN as a CIA wire service.
Edwards' CIA operatives from EI Mercurio is also on the
present IAPA board. IAPA, in short is the intersection of
the CIA's propaganda operations in Latin America.
In the Senate report discussed earlier it states that, as
part of its war against Allende, "the CIA, through its covert
action resources, orchestrated a protest statement from an
international press association and world press coverage of
the association's protest." In its classified version the report
identified the association as IAPA. The individual whom
the CIA contacted in September 1970, and who issued the
protest, was James B. Canel.
The History of IAPA
The IAPA began in 1926 as the first Pan American
Congress of Journalists, at the instigation of the U.S. State
Department acting through the American Society of
Newspaper Editors. During World War I1, it devoted itself
to counteracting pro-Axis propaganda in Latin America.
After the war, though, the Pan American Congress of
Journalists was not as willing to follow the lead of the State
Department as it had been. Instead of viewing this as a
natural consequence of the lack of a common enemy to
rally against, the State Department attributed the change
in mood to national chauvinism and communist sympa-
thies among the Latin American delegates.
Thus, in 1950, the CIA orchestrated a coup. The annual
congress was to be held in the United States that year, and
the CIA had the State Department refuse a visa for any
member which the CIA considered suspect. The approved
delegates then met and voted to reorganize the association
in such a manner that only publishers, proprietors, and
editors could vote. Some journalists could remain, but only
with associate, non-voting status. This CIA coup was fol-
lowed in 1953 by the expulsion from IAPA of members
with "pro-communist" tendencies. One of the chief inquisi-
tors was James B. Canel.
IAPA's stock theme is to warn that "freedom of the
press" is threatened in whichever corner of the world U.S.
influence is on the decline. Concurrently, IAPA elevates to
its board of directors the publisher of whatever CIA media
outlets exist in any "threatened" country. James B. Canel
began his journalism career as editor of the Hai?ana Posh.
In his view, there was plenty of freedom of the press in
Cuba under the Machado and Batista dictatorships. But in
1959 Canel was already an IAPA executive and spent the
following year telling the world that Fidel Castro was a
threat to freedom of the press.
The Inter American Press Association, with its own wire
service reaching some 1000 newspapers, is the hub of the
entire Latin American media operation. Its past presidents
and board members read almost like a roster of key CIA
agents in the Latin American media. The late James S.
Copley, founder of Copley News Service, whose CIA ties
date back to before 1953, was president of IAPA in 1970.
Two other CIA agents still at Copley are current IAPA
board members. Agustin Edwards was president of IAPA
in 1969, as noted, and Neto was president in 1972. One of
Number 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980)
Similarly, as the crisis over Chile loomed, four E/ Mer-
curio executives were elevated to the IAPA board
Agustin Edwards, Hernan Cubillos, Rene Silva Espejo,
and Fernando Leniz. Edwards, as noted above, had been a
CIA agent since 1958. Cubillos was identified in the Octob-
er 23, 1978 Los Angeles Times as "one of the CIA's princi-
pal agents."Cubillos, who was F,dwards'attorney aswell as
assistant, is now Foreign Minister of Chile; after the coup,
many El Mercurio executives entered the junta govern-
ment. This information had been leaked from the trial of
former ITT official Robert Berrellez, who, with Harold
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Hendrix, another ITT official, was being prosecuted for
perjury before the Church Committee during its investiga-
tion of the role of ITT and the CIA in Chile. (The govern-
ment's indictment admitted that Berrellez and Hendrix
were in frequent contact with CIA officer Jonathan Hanke
in attempts to thwart the Senate hearings; and according to
an October 23, 1978 Washington Post article, there were
hints that. numerous other CIA officers, career men like
William Broe, Henry Hecksher, Ted Shackley, Tom
Polgar ~tnd Jacob Esterline, may also have been involved in
those attempts.)
After the trial commenced, both Berrellez and Hendrix
then appeared on the staff of the Miami Herald. The CIA
apparently justifies its domestic media activities such as
those a1 the Miami Hera/d and with the Copley papers in
San Diego, California, because both cities are used as bases
for Agency operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
staff people for study in the U.S., many at Columbia
University School of Journalism, which also administers
the Cabot prize. Consistent with the pattern of CIA-
inspired destabilization efforts against the Jamaican gov-
ernment, especially beginning in late 1975, Oliver Clarke,
Dai/r Gleaner chairman and managing director, was duly
promoted in 1976 to IAPA Executive Committee member-
ship. The scale ofanti-Manley propaganda in the Cleaner's
pages escalated sharply.
In September 1970 the CIA, in the person of Agustin
Edwards, prepared a 24-page background brief for Time
magazine to use in its coverage on Allende's election vic-
tory and, according to the CIA, "the basic thrust and
timing [of the Time story] were changed as a result of the
briefing." (Church Committee report, "Covert Action,"
April 1976, p. 14.) The main themes were repeated in the IAPA
newsletter over the next four vears!
After the death of James Copley in 1973, CIA represen-
tation inthe Copley organization and in his IAPA slot was
maintained by William B. Giandoni and Victor H. Krulak.
Giandoni was identified as a CIA media asset in the Trento
and Roman expose mentioned above. He was Copley's
Latin America editor, and is now the general manager. He
received the IAPA "Freedom of the Press" award in 1975,
while a member of the IAPA Freedom of the Press Com-
mitteeand its board of directors. "Butch" Krulak was until
1976 vice-president and director of Copley and an IAPA
board member. Previously he had served as a Marine
Lieutenant-General in Vietnam. Other Copley staff who
have worked directly for the CIA or under the direction of
CIA m~:dia executives include Ed Christopherson and
John Philip Sousa.
Christopherson was identified as a CIA operative
by the /Vex? York Times on December 27, 1977, and
was intimately connected with the Agency's operations
in Chile after the fascist coup. Sousa, grandson of the
composer of military marches, writes whatever patriotic
themes Giandoni tells him to. In 1976 Congressmen
Harkins, Miller and Moffett went to Chile to investigate
human rights conditions. In anticipation of a critical re-
port, Copley News Service sent Sousa to Santiago to pro-
duce pro junta articles. His first piece was reprinted in the
February 4, 1976 Times of the Americas, in the February
American-Chilean Council Bulletin, and was introduced
into th? March 31 Congressional Record by Larry
McDonald, right-wing activist and Congressman from
Georgia.
Other CIA agents at El Mercurio with IAPA connec-
tions include Tomas P. McHale, a member of the IAPA
Freedom of the Press Committee, and Enrique Campos
Menendez, a former IAPA board member. Both are
Chilean.
The Daily Gleaner and IAPA
The marriage between the Daily G/eaner and IAPA
extends back at least to 1968. In the ensuing decade, IAPA
bestowed scholarships upon a large number of Gleaner
In September 1970 the specific theme which the CIA had
James Canel push through IAPA was "the threat to the free
press in Chile."The principal themes, in order of frequen-
cy, were: Allende's threat to El Mercurio; Chile's links to
Cuba; and economic failure and collapse in Chile, as in
Cuba.
It is not difficult for anyone following the G/eaner's
pages over the past few years to see the striking, direct
parallels. The same themes are still being used; the Manley
government's threat to freedom of the press (as personified
by the G/eaner, of course), the links between Manley and
Cuba, and the economic difficulties of the Jamaican econ-
omy. The analogies are sobering, given the brutal fascism
which has held sway in Chile the past six years.
Number 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980)
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ROBERT MOSS
By Andy Weir and Jonathan Bloch
"You Cannot Hope to Bribe or Twist,
Thank God, the British Journalist,
For Seeing What the Man Will Do
Unbribed, There's No Occasion To."
Andt~ Weir and Jonathan Bloch are correspondents or
Peoples Nex~s Service, London. Their articles, individually
and ,jointly, have appeared in many nex~spapers in the
United Kingdom and around the x~orld. Mr. Bloch is also
the co-author of a nex~ book on the British influence in
Africa to be published next year by Pluto Press.
Robert Moss is perhaps one of the most influential right-
winp; commentators in politics today. From Australia like
many successful journalists in Britain, he is the son of an
Australian Military Intelligence officer, something reflect-
ed in his messianic activities on behalf of the "free world."
However, little is known about the man's career in Britain,
and overseas readers of his material know still less.
The talent-spotters of the right in Britain must have seen
promise in him from his writings for the weekly magazine
often thought of as the authoritative voice of British big
business, the Economist. He has edited for many years the
"confidential" supplement to the Economist, the Foreign
Report. In advertisements sent to selected individuals
(prospective subscribers have to provide copious details on
themselves and an undertaking to keep confidential the
conl ents of the Foreign Report) they have said, "Foreign
Report was unique in that it forecast almost to the day the
coup d'etat in Greece in 1967 and the coup in Chile in
1973.... " It does not take too much imagination to realize
where this information most probably originated. It also
"revealed the new postings of top KGB men and widening
web of Soviet block (sic) intelligence." Foreign Report is
interesting reading for fans of unreconstructed conspiracy
theories and reads like a gossip column of the intelligence
world. If one takes a straw poll of Robert Moss's best-
known writings, it is plain to see that intelligence sources
have: provided him with the raw material on which he has
based much of his reputation. A secret department of the
Foreign Office called the Information Research Depart-
ment, whose purpose was to spread cold war propaganda,
published material in various newspapers before closing
down in 1977. A source who worked at IRD told us that
several IRD articles had been contributed to Foreign
Report.
A story of Moss's in October 1975 on the illegitimate use
of computers exported to the East implied intimate
knowledge of Russian office work in their secret police. In
January 1977 his vast series on the South African invasion
of Angola made little secret of consultation with the South
African military and intelligence establishment, as well as
the CIA. In March, the "Club of Ten," asecretly-financed
South African government front organization, published a
full page advertisement in the Guardian reprinting part of
Moss's article and urging all to read the article for its
expose of "Soviet expansionism" in Africa. Earlier, Moss
had been on a visit to the areas controlled by UNITA in the
Angolan war, but on his return failed to mention in his
written material that UNITA was supported primarily by
the South African military.
The South African government publication, South
African Digest, has reprinted several Moss articles. This
year alone, Moss has treated the British public to Russian
designs on Iran (in January), familiarity with the training
of the "East Germany spy seducers" (in March) and most
recently, a "secret CIA report" which "came into his hands"
in August, which he has followed up in September with the
"exposure" of the Cuban ambassador to Jamaica as an
intelligence agent. These are but a sample of the kind of
material which has made Moss so popular with editors all
over the world. These authors have seen his material
reprinted in the USA, West Germany, Holland, France
and Jamaica, little doubting that this is but a small sample
of the coverage the man receives.
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But this should not. be too surprising. After all, Moss is
extremely articulate and writes a lively, committed prose.
What it is committed to, however, is less attractive.
One can gain some perspective on these literary
achie~rements by looking at his output in the early
seventies. Having acted as the Economist correspondent in
Chile, Moss has written a book called Chile's Marxist
Experiment. This was commissioned by the third world
news agency for whiclt he had long written, Forum World
Features. Headed by a long time political associate of
Moss's and fellow Australian Brian Crozier, who was the
previous editor of Foreign Report, Forum was disbanded
in latE; 1975 when knowledge of its forthcoming exposure
was obtained. Forum, it turned out, had been set up and
financed by the CIA and was run with the "knowledge and
co-operation" of British intelligence.
The Chilean military junta bought 9,750 copies of
Moss's book for distribution through its embassies. Some
bemused US citizens received three copies of the book in
one package, at no charge. The book was published in
Spanish by the Chilean state firm Mistral, which was run
by Tomas P. McHale, who also ran the "Institute for
General Studies," once three-quavers financed by the CIA.
Before the .nilitary coup, Moss wrote an article for aCIA-
funded Chilean magazine aimed specifically at army
officers, Sepa. The article was called, "An English Recipe
for Chile-Military Control." Attempts to document
covert involvement of the CIA with the publication of
Chile'. Marxist Experiment have met great obstacles.
When US Representative Don Edwards brought suit under
the Freedom of Information Act on this question, he was
met with an affidavit from the Information Review Officer
for thE; Directorate of Operations which insisted that the
existence or non-existence of any involvement with the
book "must remain secret. Therefore, I must emphasize
that tl?.e Central Intelligence Agency can neither confirm
nor deny that there was, in fact, any CIA involvement with
the bo~~k, Chile's Marxist Experiment."
Never too distant politically from the military in genera;,
Moss has had other contributions to make in Latin
America. Eight months after the rightist coup in Argentina
in 1976 Moss spoke at an Air Force base praising the
Argentine armed forces. He told the officers that they had
the opportunity to construct a "national political model"
that could serve as an example to the rest of Latin America.
Argentina has one of the highest levels of state-sponsored
political murders in the world.
Three years ago Moss stated, "I make no secret of my
views, and I think that the CIA and other Western
intelligence agencies are a vital part of resisting Soviet
expansion and therefore cannot be reviewed in the same
light as the KGB, but that does not mean that I would
accept money from them."Those that have made any such
suggestions have been quickly met with libel actions and in
every case, either damages or apologies have resulted.
These people have forgotten the usefulness of the
quotation at the start of this article. Moss believes quite
genuinely in what he writes and does not do it because
other agencies tell him to.
It is difficult to say whether Moss would resist the epithet
of "ideologue," but in all the organizations with which he
has been associated, he has been in the company of the
most fervent propagandists against the Soviet Union,
against abortion, for more military spending, against trade
union power, against left wingers in academics, in favor of
the death penalty, and so on.
One of his platforms has been the Institute for the Study
of Conflict. Headed by Brian Crozier, it was stacted in 1970
while Crozier was still in charge of Forum, mostly with
funds from companies like Shell and BP, some US
corporations, the US National Strategy Information
Centre and with Forum money. The NSIC is supported by
the Mellon family, heirs of the Gulf Oil fortune, and
continues its connections with the Institute. Richard
Mellon Scaife took over ownership of Forum World
Features from John Hay Whitney, who was once titular
controller of the CIA-run news service.
The ISC was set up to study urban terrorism, guerrilla
warfare and related subjects. Its Council members include
numerous people with intelligence connections, some more
official than others. Vice-Admiral Louis Le Bailly was
Director-General of Intelligence at the Ministry of
Defe;ice, 1972-5. Richard Clutterbuck, lecturer in politics
and a former Major-General, is regarded as one of these
principally responsible for the British Army's counter-
insurgency tactics in Northern Ireland. Sir Robert
Thompson was once one of President Nixon's favorite
advisers and the author of the "strategic hamlets" concept
of counter-insurgency war which he implemented in
Malaya on behalf of the British Army. Another Council
member is Sir Edward Peck, once head of the Secret
Intelligence Service (British intelligence) clandestine opera-
tions in Berlin. Further examples can easily be drawn from
the ISC's long list of contributors, all the way from cold-
war academics to former SIS employees. Moss has written
five "Conflict Studies" for the ISC, his most recent one
being "The Campaign to Destabilise Iran," a work which
sees the hand of the KGB in the militancy of the
Number 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980)
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Ayatollahs.
So notorious is the ISC, not merely because of the
persistent exposure of its activities by the left, but also
because of caution over its intelligence connections by
members o~ the respectabie academic establishment, that
its credibility is strained. The London Guardian reported
that in just one year, 1973, according to Church Committee
sources, ISC received three-fourths of its funds from the
CIA. Not so the other organization from whose mast Moss
hats chosen to fly his colors, the National Association for
Freedom.
NAFF was certainly a crowning success in Moss's career
and an organization of great importance in British political
lifE~ during the years 1974 to 1977. That period marked the
heyday of its activities when, in fighting legislation
concerning trade unions in the courts, by-passing boycotts
by trade unions and urging greater militancy from the right
wing, it succeeded in rallying to the banner of "freedom"
large sections of the Conservative Party. They managed to
galvanise the previously apathetic right into a level of
political activity it had not been involved in for many years.
Responsible observers believe that it played a significant
rode in stimulating the Conservative Party to elect
Margaret Thatcher as Leader. It may not seem so now, but
in 1974 she represented all the aspirations of the militant
right wing of the Conservatives.
NAFF arose in 1974 out of a resurgence of middle-class
organizations like the National Federation of the Self-
Ernployed (small shopkeepers, independent crafts people
and so on), the Middle Class Association, and others. One
of the' prime movers in NAFF's foundation was Ross
McWhirter who in early 1975 was head of Current Affairs
Press, a printing organization set up in imitation of
Winston Churchill's "British Gazette" which produced
bulletins when newspapers were closed down by the
workers during the General Strike of 1926. CAP was
supposed to be able to produce hundreds of thousands of
copies of a newspaper in the event of a similar industrial
stoppage or newspaper strike in the seventies. It is thought
that the delays in getting NAFF off the ground may have
had something to do with problems in attracting members
of the respectable right into the forum. McWhirter had had
associations with one of Britain's most famous fascists,
Ludy Birdwood, and had jointly produced a publication
with her. But the final impetus which shot NAFF into the
headlines on its foundation and left the neo-fascists well
outside the organization, was the assassination of
McWhirter by the IRA on November 27, 1975. He had
published a pamphlet entitled "How to Stop The Bombers"
(sic) and offered a ?50,000 reward for the capture of IRA
members.
NAFF's inaugural meeting was addressed by
McWhirter's twin, Norris (the two are most famous as
co-publishers of Guinness' Book of Records), on
December 2 and instituted formally with Council members
lib:e Viscount De L'Isle, director of Phoenix Assurance,
orie of the largest insurance companies in Britain, and
former Tory MP and millionaire, John Gouriet of Current
Affairs Press, John Gorst of the Middle Class Association,
seven Tory MPs, Sir Robert Thompson (see above), and
the late Sir Gerald Templer, ; hompson's former chief in
the British campaign to eradicate the communists in
Malaya. There were also representatives of other right-
wing, middle-class organizations like the National Federa-
tion of Building Trades Employers, the Independent Medi-
cal Association, the Income Tax Payers Association, the
Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (anti-abor-
tion group), as well as a few Council members of the ISC.
Robert Moss became its Director. Moss's star was rising
fast, especially as late 1975 also saw the publication of his
Orwellian treatise on the destruction of "liberty" by trade
unions and Labour governments, "The Collapse of
Democracy."
NAFF's campaign against what Moss called the
"Sovietisation of Britain," had already started with John
Gouriet's court action against the National Union of
Seamen (prior to the foundation of NAFF) to release cars
on a car ferry boycotted by the union in an industrial
dispute. NAFF continued to gain notoriety over its defense
of George Ward, the manager-owner of Grunwick, afilm-
processing factory racked by a year-long strike by
immigrant workers for the recognition of their union.
Several court actions by NAFF resisted the unionization of
the plant. With George Ward they prevented, by means of
the courts again, the post office workers' union from
boycotting mail to the factory (since Grunwick is a mail-
order firm, this solidarity action would have been very
serious for the company). NAFF was also active in
preventing the post office workers' union from boycotting
mail and telecommunications with youth Africa in March
1977 as part of the international trade union Week Of
Action Against Apartheid. Moss's leadership of NAFF
was probably one of the greatest contributors to its success
and in its heyday, he was part of Margaret Thatcher's
speech-writing team, and helped write her famous speech
two years ago which led the Russians to dub her the "Iron
Maiden" for wishing the return of the Cold War. With the
consolidation of Thatcher's ieadership, observers felt that
the steam went out of NAFF, basically because the
Conservative Party was so right wing. In November 1977
Moss gave up his position as Director of NAFF, although
he remained on its Council and on the editorial board of
NAFF's organ, "The Free Nation."
These days, Moss seems to be content with his regular
weekly column in the Daily Telegraph and editorship of the
Foreign Report. But his voice can still be heard in other
parts of the world contributing to the cause of "freedom."
Several of his Daily Telegraph pieces have appeared in the
Daili~ Gleaner in Jamaica, a paper now subject to an
enquiry into allegedly "unprofessional and unethical"
practices and accused of conducting a "disinformation"
campaign in its pages to oppose Prime Minister Michael
Manley. Moss's article "exposing" the r.ew ambassador,
Ulises Estrada, as an intelligence agent sparked demon-
strationsand calls for Estrada's expulsion. Recently, many
Jamaicans have been asking, "Who is this mysterious
Robert Moss?" One week after the appearance of Moss's
article, on October 22, the Gleaner published a photograph
and obituary of a Jamaican man. Robert Moss, "an agricul-
turalist." Itseems that a factual account of Moss's career is
feared by the promoters of his material.
Number 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980)
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l~obert Moss' Obsession
By Philip Agee
Something was odd that cold and rainy October day in
London five years ago when, at my first press conference, I
distributed a statement about the CIA's work in Mexico
and a list of CIA personnel there. I'd invited all the London
press corps, and just as the conference was to begin a slight,
you~igish man took one of the chairs at the table from
whi~'7'iN
P.(1. Box 50272
Washington, DC 20004
"As regards camouflage, we will ask the timber
merchants for another type of cloth, as you recom-
mended, but I ask that, if possible, at least two good
uniforms, in genuine camouflage cloth, be sent, one
for me and one for Puna."
"I humbly ask Your Excellencies to accept my
salutations and high esteem."
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