CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Intelligence Relations with the Media

Generally, 1970s, and 1980s

Although located under the broad CIA category, this file includes material on the relationship between the media and the intelligence community generally.

 

Topics included here:

1. Generally

2. 1970s

3. 1980s

a. Generally

b. Daniloff Affair

1. Media Relations Generally

Alsop, Joseph W., with Adam Platt. "I've Seen the Best of It": Memoirs. New York: Norton, 1992.

According to Surveillant 2.4, the author "knew what CIA was up to in many places ... and had close ties to many senior figures in CIA in its early days.... The book's principal weakness lies in the author's too golden view of the Kennedy administration." Alsop includes a section on "CIA relations with press."

See also, Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., Joe Alsop's Cold War: A Study of Journalistic Influence and Intrigue (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

Heidenry, John. Theirs was the Kingdom: Lila and Dewitee Wallace and the Story of the Reader's Digest. New York: Norton, 1994.

McGehee, CIABASE, January 1995 Update Report says that this book "portrays the close relationship between the CIA and the Reader's Digest." It "names individuals, publications and books authored as part of the CIA's propaganda."

Mapother, John R. "Espionage versus Journalism." World Intelligence Review 15, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1996): 1.

The author notes that journalists are assumed by security agencies to be seeking classified information; and, therefore, are not terribly effective cover for intelligence operations. In any event, the use of journalists by the CIA was rare during the Cold War.

 

2. 1970s

Atlas World Press Review. Editors. "The CIA and the Press." 25 (Mar. 1978): 22-25. [Petersen]

Barbosa, Roberto. "The CIA and the Press: Foreign Reaction to Disclosures of Media Manipulation." Atlas World Press Review 25 (Mar. 1978): 22-25. [Petersen]

Carvalho, Bernardo A. The CIA and the Press. Freedom of Information Report No. 382. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri School of Journalism, 1977. [Petersen]

Columbia Journalism Review. Editors. "CIA, FBI, and the Media: Excerpts from the Senate Report on Intelligence Activities." 15 (Jul. 1976): 37- 42. [Petersen]

Crile, George, 3d. "The Fourth Estate: A Good Word for the CIA." Harper's, Jan. 1976, 28-30ff. [Petersen]

Cuneo, Ernest. "What's the Story Behind the CIA and Newsmen Abroad." Human Events 33 (22 Dec. 1973): 8 ff.

Petersen: "Former intelligence officer."

U.S. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Subcommittee on Oversight. "The CIA & the Media." Hearings. Washington, DC: GPO, 1979.

The Aspin Hearings.

 

3. 1980s

a. 1980s/Generally

American Intelligence Journal. Editors. "A Journalist's Perspective on Public Disclosures: Interview of Bob Woodward." 9, no. 1 (1988): 9-14.

Johnson, Loch K. "The CIA and the Media." Intelligence and National Security 1, no. 2 (May 1986): 143-169.

Webster, William H. "Intelligence and the Media." Periscope 14, no. 1 (1989): 17-18.

b. Daniloff Affair

American Bar Association. Standing Committee on Law and National Security. "The Daniloff Affair: New Rules for American Correspondents?" Intelligence Report 8, no. 10 (1986): 7-8. [Petersen]

Daniloff, Nicholas. "How We Spy on the Russians." Washington Post Magazine, 9 Dec. 1979, 24 ff. [Petersen]

Daniloff, Nicholas. Two Lives, One Russia: The True Story of One American's Harrowing and Illuminating Experience as a Pawn of the KGB. New York: Avon Books, 1990.

Petersen identifies Daniloff as a "U.S. correspondent detained in the USSR." Surveillant 1.1 calls the book a "good account of the squealing that results when a smug and fragile journalist gets his toe caught in the door of cold-war espionage."

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