If the guardian of democracy is a free press, then we have been more vulnerable to totalitarianism than we ever imagined. Open, honest, and critical investigative journalism has not existed in this country since before World War II...at least if you believe the people I've quoted below:
"The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon...what folly is the notion of an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of rich men...our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
--John Swinton, New York Times Chief of Staff
"More than 400 American journalists have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency. Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time/Life, Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham of the Louisville Courier-Journal, and James Copley of Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald, and the old Saturday Evening Post."
--Carl Bernstein, in 1977 Rolling Stone article
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is a lie."
--William Casey, CIA Director, 1981-87
"Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the State."
--James Angleton, head of CIA Counterintelligence
"I never would have agreed to the formulation of the CIA if I had known it would have become the American Gestapo."
--Harry Truman
"If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lampposts."
--George H.W. Bush
"I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind."
--John F. Kennedy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment