Who Controls the CIA Controls the Media

It's a long established but little-known fact that the CIA has a particularly cozy relationship with the media in this country. If you've never seen the full version of Carl Bernstein's amazing article, titled "The CIA and the Media," published in Rolling Stone 10/20/77, you owe it to yourself to find a copy. To date, the full article is not online, although you can read snippets here. Ask your local library to help you find a copy. The relationship is openly admitted to in a CIA document made public about ten years ago. Scroll to section 9.A. for the relevant part. And as Robert Lederman wrote, "The media is not influenced by the CIA - the media is the CIA."

Why am I bringing this up now? Because Porter Goss is wreaking havoc in the Agency right now. Rather than going in and listening to the employees to figure out what is working and what isn't, he's smashed his way in like a bull in a china shop, demanding loyalty first and foremost not to the truth, but to George Bush. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal described, while reform is desperately needed within the Agency,

Less appealing are leaks that suggest Goss and his aides are punishing people at the CIA who denied a meaningful connection between Hussein and al-Qaida, and especially people who leaked these denials to the media. Goss, in an internal memorandum leaked this week, warned CIA employees that their job is to “support the administration and its policies in our work ” and warned them not to “identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies.”

The scary and accurate George Orwell wrote, who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. I would add, who controls the media controls the present, and who controls the CIA controls the media. I shudder to think of the propaganda barrage to come.