How Americas Most Powerful  News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why  the Church Committee Covered It Up

BY CARL BERNSTEIN

In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of  America’s leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an  election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did  not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column.  He went at the request of the CIA.

Alsop is one of  more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty‑five years have  secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according  to documents on file at CIA headquarters. Some of these journalists’  relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was  cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of  clandestine services—from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go‑betweens  with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the  CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize  winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors  without‑portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents  who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers  and freelancers who were as interested in the derring‑do of the spy business as  in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees  masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show,  journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the  managements of America’s leading news organizations.

The history of the CIA’s involvement with  the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of  obfuscation and deception for the following principal reasons:

■ The use of journalists has been among the most productive  means of intelligence‑gathering employed by the CIA. Although the Agency has  cut back sharply on the use of reporters since 1973 primarily as a result of  pressure from the media), some journalist‑operatives are still posted abroad.

■ Further investigation into the matter, CIA officials say,  would inevitably reveal a series of embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and  1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and  individuals in American journalism.

Among the executives who lent their  cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times,  Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which  cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National  Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International,  Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the  Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday  Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune.

By far the most valuable of these  associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.

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