By Mark Dice
Mark Dice shares information on the Congressional hearing that exposed the fact that the CIA controlled the media under a covert program named Operation Mockingbird.
“About a third of the whole CIA budget went to media propaganda operations. …We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars a year just for that…..close to a billion dollars are being spent every year by the United States on secret propaganda.” – Testimony of William Schapp in 1999, referencing revelations from the Church Committee in 1975
Details of Operation Mockingbird were revealed as a result of the Senator Frank Church investigations (Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) in 1975. According to the Congress report published in 1976:
- “The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.”
Church argued that misinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year. The primary documents for the Church Committee can be found here.
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