The CIA's 3-Decade Effort to Mold the World's Views (1977)

This is a six-part series on CIA media influence and propaganda by veteran NY Times intelligence reporter John M. Crewdson which ran from December 25--30, 1977, in the New York Times. The initial article sets the scene:

For most of the three decades of its existence, the Central Intelligence Agency has been engaged in an unremitting, though largely unrecognized, effort to shape foreign opinion in support of American policy abroad.

Although until recently the C.I.A. counted a number of American journalists among its paid agents, with a few notable exceptions they do not appear to have been part of its extensive propaganda campaign.

Instead, the agency has channeled information and misinformation through once‐substantial network of newspapers, news agencies and other communications entities, most of them based overseas, that it owned, subsidized or otherwise influenced over the years.

The C.I.A.'s propagandizing appears to have contributed to at least some distortion of the news at home as well as abroad, although the amount and nature of misinformation picked up by the American press from overseas is impossible to determine.

The full series:

1. "The CIA's 3-Decade Effort to Mold the World's Views" (1977-12-25) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/25/archives/the-cias-3decade-effort-to-mold-the-worlds-views-agency-network.html

2. "Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A." (1977-12-26)
   https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html

3. "C.I.A. Established Many Links To Journalists in U.S. and Abroad" (1977-12-27) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/27/archives/cia-established-many-links-to-journalists-in-us-and-abroad-cias.html

4. "Colby Acknowledges U.S. Press Picked Up Bogus C.I.A. Accounts" (1977-12-28) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/28/archives/colby-acknowledges-us-press-picked-up-bogus-cia-accounts-tells.html

5. "U.S. Correspondents Give Views on C.I.A." (1977-12-29) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/29/archives/us-correspondents-give-views-on-cia-4-at-a-house-hearing-say-any.html

6. "Ex‐Envoy Says Risk of Exposure Negated C.I.A. Propaganda Value" (1977-12-30) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/30/archives/exenvoy-says-risk-of-exposure-negated-cia-propaganda-value.html

The author wrote extensively on CIA and FBI matters for the Times in the 1970s and 1980s. A DDG search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Anytimes.com+%22John+M.+Crewdson%22+%22c.i.a.%22&ia=web

Crewdson's bio is interesting, see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Crewdson

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27933989 (specifically the 1st article)

#JohnMCrewdson #CIA #propaganda #media #MediaManipulation #MediaInfluence #NYTimes