Project Mockingbird

Last updated

Project Mockingbird was a wiretapping operation initiated by United States President John F. Kennedy to identify the sources of government leaks by eavesdropping on the communications of journalists. [1] [2]

Contents

History

In October 2001, the Miller Center of Public Affairs published transcripts of secretly recorded conversations in the Oval Office during the summer of 1962 in which Kennedy took steps, using the CIA, to spy on Hanson Baldwin, the national security reporter for The New York Times . [3] [4] Baldwin had angered the President with an article in the July 26, 1962, issue of The New York Times that divulged classified information from a recent National Intelligence Estimate, including a comparison of the United States and Soviet Union's nuclear arsenals and the Soviets' efforts to protect their intercontinental ballistic missile sites. [3] [5]

Knowledge of Project Mockingbird was made public in June 2007 when the CIA declassified a 702-page document widely referred to as the Family Jewels. [6] [7] [8] The document was compiled in response to a May 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking CIA employees to report any past or present activities they thought might be inconsistent with the agency's charter. [6] [7] [8] According to a memo from director of security Howard J. Osborn to the executive secretary of the CIA Management Committee (i.e. future DCI William Colby [lower-alpha 1] ) that summarized the Family Jewels: [10]

Project Mockingbird, a telephone intercept activity, was conducted between 12 March 1963 and 15 June 1963, and targeted two Washington based newsmen who, at the time, had been publishing news articles based on, and frequently quoting, classified materials of this Agency and others, including Top Secret and Special Intelligence. [11]

According to the declassified documents, the order for warrantless wiretaps came from Director of Central Intelligence John McCone [12] who coordinated with United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Joseph Carroll. [11] The program was run by the Office of Security, headed by Sheffield Edwards, who received their orders from McCone. [7] Other Agency personnel included Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Marshall Carter, executive director-comptroller Lyman Kirkpatrick, general counsel Lawrence Houston, and McCone's executive assistant Walter Elder. [7] An internal CIA biography of McCone by CIA Chief Historian David Robarge, made public under a FOIA request, identified the two reporters as Robert S. Allen and Paul Scott. [7] Their syndicated column, "The Allen-Scott Report," appeared in as many as three hundred papers at the height of its popularity. [13]

In 1975, the Rockefeller Commission's inquiry examined investigations by the CIA's Office of Security that included electronic surveillance and found two cases in which the telephones of three newsman were tapped in order to determine their sources of leaked classified information. The Commission wrote: "The CIA's investigations of newsmen to determine their sources of classified information stemmed from pressures from the White House and were partly a result of the FBI's unwillingness to undertake such investigations. The FBI refused to proceed without an advance opinion that the Justice Department would prosecute if a case were developed." They concluded: "The CIA has no authority to investigate newsmen simply because they have published leaked classified information." [14] [15] [16] [lower-alpha 2]

In 2009, Daniel L. Pines, the Assistant General Counsel of the Office of General Counsel within the CIA, wrote a law review published in the Indiana Law Journal challenging the assertion that most of the activities described within the Family Jewels were illegal. [18] Pines wrote that the CIA was permitted to engage in warrantless electronic surveillance within the United States with the Attorney General's approval if the purpose was to collect foreign intelligence, but concluded that Project Mockingbird was likely not legal because the apparent purpose of the surveillance was to determine the source of leaks rather than to obtain foreign intelligence. [19] Pines noted that the Rockefeller Commission agreed with this conclusion. [19]

See also

Notes

  1. William Colby was Executive Secretary of the CIA Management Committee at the time of the memo. [9]
  2. The Commission on CIA Activities within the United States (Rockefeller Commission) received material regarding Project Mockingbird (see memo from E. Henry Knoche to David W. Belin [17] ), but did not mention it by name in their report.

Related Research Articles

CIA cryptonyms are code names or code words used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to refer to projects, operations, persons, agencies, etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren Commission</span> U.S. commission established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the Kennedy assassination

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy that had taken place on November 22, 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Director of Central Intelligence</span> Head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (1946–2004)

The director of central intelligence (DCI) was the head of the American Central Intelligence Agency from 1946 to 2004, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Security Council, as well as the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various US intelligence agencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Intelligence Community</span> Collective term for US federal intelligence and security agencies

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a group of separate United States government intelligence agencies and subordinate organizations that work both separately and collectively to conduct intelligence activities which support the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agencies, military intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments.

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 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">President's Daily Brief</span> Daily intelligence briefing for the U.S. President

The President's Daily Brief, sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced and given each morning to the president of the United States; it is also distributed to a small number of top-level US officials who are approved by the president. It includes highly classified intelligence analysis, information about covert operations, and reports from the most sensitive US sources or those shared by allied intelligence agencies. At the discretion of the president, the PDB may also be provided to the president-elect of the United States, between election day and inauguration, and to former presidents on request.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John A. McCone</span> American businessman and politician (1902–1991)

John Alexander McCone was an American businessman and politician who served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1961 to 1965, during the height of the Cold War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church Committee</span> Committee investigating governmental abuses in the US intelligence community

The Church Committee was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church (D-ID), the committee was part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses in 1975, dubbed the "Year of Intelligence", including its House counterpart, the Pike Committee, and the presidential Rockefeller Commission. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of the permanent US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Anderson (columnist)</span> American newspaper columnist (1922–2005)

Jack Northman Anderson was an American newspaper columnist, syndicated by United Features Syndicate, considered one of the founders of modern investigative journalism. Anderson won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his investigation on secret U.S. policy decision-making between the United States and Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. In addition to his newspaper career, Anderson also had a national radio show on the Mutual Broadcasting System, acted as Washington bureau chief of Parade magazine, and was a commentator on ABC-TV's Good Morning America for nine years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States</span> Panel investigating intelligence activities within the U.S.

The United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States was ordained by President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States. The Presidential Commission was led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, from whom it gained the nickname the Rockefeller Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence</span> Congressional committee

The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), also known as the House Intelligence Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Mike Turner. It is the primary committee in the U.S. House of Representatives charged with the oversight of the United States Intelligence Community, though it does share some jurisdiction with other committees in the House, including the Armed Services Committee for some matters dealing with the Department of Defense and the various branches of the U.S. military.

Operation CHAOS or Operation MHCHAOS was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) domestic espionage project targeting American citizens operating from 1967 to 1974, established by President Lyndon B. Johnson and expanded under President Richard Nixon, whose mission was to uncover possible foreign influence on domestic race, anti-war, and other protest movements. The operation was launched under Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms by chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton, and headed by Richard Ober. The "MH" designation is to signify the program had a global area of operations.

HTLINGUAL, a secret project of the United States of America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to intercept mail destined for the Soviet Union and China, operated from 1952 until 1973. Originally known under the codename SRPOINTER, the project authority was changed in 1955 and renamed. Early on, the CIA collected only the names and addresses appearing on the exterior of mailed items, but they were later opened at CIA facilities in Los Angeles and in New York.

Special access programs (SAPs) in the U.S. Federal Government are security protocols that provide highly classified information with safeguards and access restrictions that exceed those for regular (collateral) classified information. SAPs can range from black projects to routine but especially-sensitive operations, such as COMSEC maintenance or presidential transportation support. In addition to collateral controls, a SAP may impose more stringent investigative or adjudicative requirements, specialized nondisclosure agreements, special terminology or markings, exclusion from standard contract investigations (carve-outs), and centralized billet systems. Within the Department of Defense, SAP is better known as "SAR" by the mandatory Special Access Required (SAR) markings.

Operation Midnight Climax was an operation carried out by the CIA as a sub-project of Project MKUltra, the mind-control research program that began in the 1950s. It was initially established in 1954 by Sidney Gottlieb and placed under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in Boston, Massachusetts with the "Federal Narcotics Agent and CIA consultant" George Hunter White under the pseudonym of Morgan Hall. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb was a chemist who was chief of the Chemical Division of the Office of Technical Service of the CIA. Gottlieb based his plan for Project MKUltra and Operation Midnight Climax off of interrogation method research under Project Artichoke. Unlike Project Artichoke, Operation Midnight Climax gave Gottlieb permission to test drugs on unknowing citizens, which made way for the legacy of this operation. Hundreds of federal agents, field operatives, and scientists worked on these programs before they were shut down in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)</span> 1973 report of illegal activities by the United States Central Intelligence Agency

The "Family Jewels" is the name of a set of reports detailing illegal, inappropriate and otherwise sensitive activities conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency from 1959 to 1973. William Colby, the CIA director who received the reports, dubbed them the "skeletons in the CIA's closet". Most of the documents were released on June 25, 2007, after more than three decades of secrecy. The non-governmental National Security Archive filed a request for the documents under the Freedom of Information Act fifteen years before their release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucien Conein</span> French-American soldier, spy, businessman and DEA operative

Lucien Emile "Lou" Conein was a French-American citizen, noted U.S. Army officer and OSS/CIA operative. Conein is best known for his instrumental role in the November 1963 coup against Ngô Đình Diệm and Diệm's assassination by serving as Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.'s liaison officer with the coup plotters and delivering $42,000 of the known cash disbursements.

At various times since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal government of the United States has produced comprehensive reports on CIA actions that marked historical watersheds in how CIA went about trying to fulfill its vague charter purposes from 1947. These reports were the result of internal or presidential studies, external investigations by congressional committees or other arms of the Federal government of the United States, or even the simple releases and declassification of large quantities of documents by the CIA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">President's Surveillance Program</span> Intelligence activities in the US

The President's Surveillance Program (PSP) is a collection of secret intelligence activities authorized by the President of the United States George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as part of the War on Terrorism. Information collected under this program was protected within a Sensitive Compartmented Information security compartment codenamed STELLARWIND.

<i>State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration</i>

State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration is documentary review written by Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist for The New York Times James Risen. The book was released on January 3, 2006.

References

  1. Mitchell, Greg (October 18, 2016). "Before Nixon: When JFK tapped the phone of a New York Times reporter". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved June 1, 2020.
  2. Baranetsky, D. Victoria (September 19, 2018). "Data Journalism and the Law". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
  3. 1 2 Weiner, Tim (July 1, 2007). "J.F.K. Turns to the C.I.A. to Plug a Leak". The New York Times . Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  4. Coleman, David (2012). "Mockingbird Don't Sing". The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton. p. 68. ISBN   9780393084412 . Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  5. Coleman 2012, pp. 69–70.
  6. 1 2 Pines, Daniel L. (2009). "The Central Intelligence Agency's "Family Jewels": Legal Then? Legal Now?". Indiana Law Journal . 84 (2): 638. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Robarge, David (2005). "McCone and the Secret Wars: Counterintelligence and Security". John McCone as Director of Central Intelligence, 1961–1965 (Part 2). Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence. pp. 328–329. Archived from the original on September 18, 2016. Retrieved June 2, 2020.
  8. 1 2 "Family Jewels". FOIA Electronic Reading Room. Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on September 18, 2016. Retrieved December 14, 2016. A searchable pdf of the report is available at the website of George Washington University's National Security Archive.
  9. "William Egan Colby". www.cia.gov. Central Intelligence Agency. March 19, 2007. Archived from the original on June 13, 2007. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  10. Corn, David (June 26, 2007). "Where's the CIA's Missing Jewel?". The Nation. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  11. 1 2 "Family Jewels" Report, p. 22
  12. Coleman 2012, pp. 64–77.
  13. Shapira, Ian (March 2, 2013). "Long-ago wiretap inspires a battle with the CIA for more information". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  14. Commission on CIA Activities within the United States (June 1975). Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 28–29. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  15. Commission on CIA Activities within the United States 1975, p. 164-166.
  16. "Summary of Rockefeller Panel's C.I.A. Report". The New York Times. June 11, 1975. p. 18. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  17. "O-R (IV-FF), Project MOCKINGBIRD - Telephone Tap of Newspaper Columnists - 75573204" (PDF). fordlibrarymuseum.gov. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  18. Pines 2009, pp. 637–639.
  19. 1 2 Pines 2009, p. 665.