So Much For Our Independent, Watchdog Press

This article by Carl Bernstein on the CIA and the Press (excerpted in the previous post) is simply blowing my mind. I think that I would have to assume that such things started up again since the 80s and are still going on.

The New York Times. The Agency’s relationship with the Times was by far its
most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966,
about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by
the newspaper’s late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements
were part of a general Times policy—set by Sulzberger—to provide assistance to
the CIA whenever possible.

Sulzberger was especially close to Allen
Dulles. “At that level of contact it was the mighty talking to the mighty,” said
a high‑level CIA official who was present at some of the discussions. “There was
an agreement in principle that, yes indeed, we would help each other. The
question of cover came up on several occasions. It was agreed that the
actual arrangements would be handled by subordinates.... The mighty didn’t want
to know the specifics; they wanted plausible deniability.

The Columbia Broadcasting System. CBS was unquestionably the CIAs most
valuable broadcasting asset. CBS President William Paley and Allen Dulles
enjoyed an easy working and social relationship. Over the years, the network
provided cover for CIA employees, including at least one well‑known foreign
correspondent and several stringers; it supplied outtakes of newsfilm to the
CIA3; established a formal channel of communication between the Washington
bureau chief and the Agency; gave the Agency access to the CBS newsfilm library;
and allowed reports by CBS correspondents to the Washington and New York
newsrooms to be routinely monitored by the CIA. Once a year during the 1950s and
early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and
briefings.

Time and Newsweek magazines. According to CIA and Senate sources, Agency
files contain written agreements with former foreign correspondents and
stringers for both the weekly news magazines. The same sources refused to
say whether the CIA has ended all its associations with individuals who work for
the two publications. Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the
late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain
members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and
credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic
experience.

For many years, Luce's personal emissary to the CIA was
C.D. Jackson, a Time Inc., vice‑president who was publisher of Life magazine
from 1960 until his death in 1964.While a Time executive, Jackson coauthored a
CIA‑sponsored study recommending the reorganization of the American intelligence
services in the early 1950s. Jackson, whose Time‑Life service was interrupted by
a one‑year White House tour as an assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower,
approved specific arrangements for providing CIA employees with Time‑Life cover.
Some of these arrangements were made with the knowledge of Luce's wife, Clare
Boothe. Other arrangements for Time cover, according to CIA officials including
those who dealt with Luce), were made with the knowledge of Hedley Donovan, now
editor‑in‑chief of Time Inc. Donovan, who took over editorial direction of all
Time Inc. publications in 1959, denied in a telephone interview that he knew of
any such arrangements. "I was never approached and I'd be amazed if Luce
approved such arrangements," Donovan said. "Luce had a very scrupulous regard
for the difference between journalism and government."

In the 1950s
and early 1960s, Time magazine's foreign correspondents attended CIA "briefing"
dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS. And Luce, according to CIA
officials, made it a regular practice to brief Dulles or other high Agency
officials when he returned from his frequent trips abroad. Luce and the men who
ran his magazines in the 1950s and 1960s encouraged their foreign correspondents
to provide help to the CIA, particularly information that might be useful to the
Agency for intelligence purposes or recruiting foreigners.

The American Broadcasting Company and the National Broadcasting Company.
According to CIA officials, ABC continued to provide cover for some CIA
operatives through the 1960s. One was Sam Jaffe who CIA officials said performed
clandestine tasks for the Agency. Jaffe has acknowledged only providing the CIA
with information. In addition, another well‑known network correspondent
performed covert tasks for the Agency, said CIA sources. At the time of the
Senate bearings, Agency officials serving at the highest levels refused to say
whether the CIA was still maintaining active relationships with members of the
ABC‑News organization. All cover arrangements were made with the knowledge off
ABC executives, the sources said.

These same sources professed to
know few specifies about the Agency’s relationships with NBC, except that
several foreign correspondents of the network undertook some assignments for the
Agency in the 1950s and 1960s. “It was a thing people did then,” said Richard
Wald, president of NBC News since 1973. “I wouldn’t be surprised if people
here—including some of the correspondents in those days—had connections with the Agency.”