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23-527: Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes. According to author Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and influenced

46-633: A 1977 Rolling Stone magazine article, "The CIA and the Media," reporter Carl Bernstein expanded upon the Church Committee's report and wrote that more than 400 US press members had secretly carried out assignments for the CIA, including New York Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger , columnist and political analyst Stewart Alsop and Time magazine. Bernstein documented the way in which overseas branches of major US news agencies had for many years served as

69-464: A congressional inquiry that became known as the Church Committee . Published in 1976, the committee's report confirmed some earlier stories that charged that the CIA had cultivated relationships with private institutions, including the press. Without identifying individuals by name, the Church Committee stated that it found fifty journalists who had official, but secret, relationships with the CIA. In

92-499: A number of individuals implicated by his father including Meyer, as well as Lyndon B. Johnson , David Sánchez Morales , David Phillips , Frank Sturgis , an assassin, he termed "French gunman grassy knoll" who many presume was Lucien Sarti , and William Harvey . The two sons alleged that their father cut the information from his memoirs, "American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond" , to avoid possible perjury charges. According to Hunt's widow and other children,

115-456: A reference to a different operation named " Project Mockingbird ", which was the name of an operation in 1963 which wiretapped two syndicated columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott, "from March 12 to June 15, 1963". They had published articles based on classified material. The document does not contain references to "Operation Mockingbird". In the early years of the Cold War, efforts were made by

138-639: The Pacific War ; he took part in the Battle of Eniwetok , and in the Battle of Guam as platoon leader, losing his left eye in a grenade attack. He became a first lieutenant and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal . He shared his war experiences, writing for The Atlantic Monthly . Meyer's twin brother, Quentin, was killed at Okinawa . He was an aide of Harold Stassen to the 1945 San Francisco United Nations Conference on International Organization . In 1947, he

161-718: The United States Government to use mass media to influence public opinion internationally. After the United States Senate Watergate Committee in 1973 uncovered domestic surveillance abuses directed by the Executive branch of the United States government and The New York Times in 1974 published an article by Seymour Hersh claiming the CIA had violated its charter by spying on anti-war activists, former CIA officials and some lawmakers called for

184-715: The "eyes and ears" of Operation Mockingbird, which functioned to disseminate CIA propaganda through domestic US media. Davis wrote in Katharine the Great , her 1979 unauthorized biography of Katharine Graham , owner of The Washington Post , that the CIA ran an "Operation Mockingbird" during this time, writing that the Prague -based International Organization of Journalists (IOJ) "received money from Moscow and controlled reporters on every major newspaper in Europe, disseminating stories that promoted

207-562: The CIA in 1951, he became Operation Mockingbird's "principal operative." In The Rising Clamor: The American Press, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Cold War , David P. Hadley wrote that the "continued lack of specific details [provided by the Church Committee and Bernstein's exposé] proved a breeding ground for some outlandish claims regarding CIA and the press". He mentioned that Davis provided no information on her sources for her 1979 biography of Katharine Graham and that

230-578: The CIA's counter-intelligence chief. From 1954 until 1962, Meyer led the agency's International Organizations Division . Meyer headed the Covert Action Staff of the Directorate of Plans from 1962. From 1967 to 1973, Meyer was assistant deputy director of plans under Thomas Karamessines , and from 1973 to 1976 was CIA station chief in London . Some insiders incorrectly suspected that Cord Meyer

253-435: The Church Committee and other investigations that followed it did not reveal an operation as described by Davis. According to Hadley, "Mockingbird, as described by Davis, has remained a stubbornly persistent theory"; and added, "The Davis/Mockingbird theory, that the CIA operated a deliberate and systematic program of widespread manipulation of the U.S. media, does not appear to be grounded in reality, but that should not disguise

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276-763: The Communist cause", and that Frank Wisner , director of the Office of Policy Coordination (a covert operations unit created in 1948 by the United States National Security Council ) had created Operation Mockingbird in response to the IOJ, recruiting Phil Graham from The Washington Post to run the project within the industry. According to Davis, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times , Newsweek , CBS and other communications vehicles." Davis wrote that after Cord Meyer joined

299-536: The active role the CIA played in influencing the domestic press's output." United States Central Intelligence Agency Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 83766035 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 08:38:55 GMT Cord Meyer From 1945 to 1958, Meyer

322-626: The coal business. His grandfather, also called Cord Meyer II , was a property developer and a chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee . He was educated at St. Paul's School , New Hampshire, and attended Yale University , where he was a member of the Scroll and Key society, and as a senior was awarded the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize . After graduating in 1942, he joined the 22nd Marine Regiment and fought in

345-476: The operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed when an April 1967 Ramparts article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA. In 1975, Church Committee Congressional investigations revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups. In 1973, a document referred to as the " Family Jewels " was published by the CIA containing

368-403: The same podium of a "notorious leftist", and refused to give him a security clearance. An internal CIA inquiry summarily dismissed the claims. According to Deborah Davis in her 1979 book Katharine the Great , Meyer became the "principal operative" of Operation Mockingbird , an alleged plan to secretly influence domestic and foreign media. Meyer befriended James Angleton , who in 1954 became

391-547: The two sons took advantage of Hunt's loss of lucidity by coaching and exploiting him for financial gain. The Los Angeles Times said they examined the materials offered by the sons to support the story and found them to be "inconclusive". On April 19, 1945, Meyer married Mary Eno Pinchot , the second daughter of Amos Pinchot and Ruth Pickering Pinchot , in her mother's Park Avenue home in New York City . On 18 December 1956, Meyer's nine-year-old son, Michael (born 1947),

414-561: Was Deep Throat , a key informant in the Watergate Scandal whose identity was a mystery for more than 30 years. After the death of former CIA agent and Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt in 2007, Saint John Hunt and David Hunt revealed that their father had recorded several claims about himself and others being involved in a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy . In the April 5, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone , Saint John Hunt detailed

437-523: Was elected president of the United World Federalists (UWF) , the organization he helped to fund. In year 1948, Cord was invited to attend the meeting of Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists (ECAS) and he met Albert Einstein , Leo Szilard and many of the other leading nuclear physicists . It was when Albert Einstein joined UWF and showed his support and also assisted UEF in fundraising on numerous occasions. In 1949, Cord resigned and

460-573: Was hit by a car and killed. Meyer had two surviving sons, Quentin, born in November 1945, and Mark, born in 1950. Meyer and his wife Mary divorced in 1958. On 12 October 1964, his former wife Mary was shot dead by an unknown assailant alongside the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal . Her sister and brother-in-law Benjamin C. Bradlee , later the executive editor of The Washington Post , caught James Angleton breaking into Pinchot's residence. Angleton apparently

483-491: Was looking for Mary Meyer's diary that allegedly contained details of her love affair with John F. Kennedy , the recently assassinated U.S. President . In 1966, Meyer married Starke Patteson Anderson. He retired from the CIA in 1977. Following retirement, Meyer became a syndicated columnist and wrote several books, including an autobiography. Meyer died of lymphoma on March 13, 2001. A photo of his meeting with Albert Einstein in 1948 has been widely circulated on

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506-399: Was married to Mary Pinchot , who was later romantically linked to President John F. Kennedy . Her murder in 1964, eleven months after Kennedy's assassination , remains unresolved. Meyer was the son of a wealthy New York family. His father, Cord Meyer III, was a diplomat and real estate developer; his mother, Katherine Blair Thaw, belonged to a Pennsylvania family that earned its wealth in

529-548: Was succeeded by Alan Cranstone . Around 1949, Meyer started working for the Central Intelligence Agency , joining the organization in 1951 at the invitation of Allen Dulles . At first he worked at the Office of Policy Coordination under former OSS man, Frank Wisner . In 1953, Meyer came under attack by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which claimed he was a security risk for having once stood at

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