Posted on 12/19/2005 8:51:45 AM PST by Fedora
Traitors of Record: The Record of the New York Times
By Fedora
“. . .the most untrustworthy paper in the United States. . .”
--President Dwight Eisenhower, referring to the New York Times
Introduction
Last week Senator John Cornyn criticized the New York Times for endangering national security with a James Risen story on NSA surveillance timed to coincide with a vote on the Patriot Act and, incidentally, with the release of a book by Risen. A review of the record illustrates that endangering national security through irresponsible leaks is nothing new for the New York Times. Some particularly outrageous examples are worth recalling here to underscore why action against the New York Times is long overdue.
Background: A Failed Housecleaning
It is well known that the Times has been criticized for failing to whole-heartedly repudiate the reporting of Walter Duranty, who has been dubbed “Stalin’s Apologist” for echoing Soviet propaganda throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Less often discussed is the fact that Duranty’s reporting was not an isolated case at the Times.
At the turn of the 20th century publisher Adolph Ochs had gained his controlling interest in the Times with financial assistance from Jacob Schiff of the banking firm Kuhn Loeb. Schiff was a key financier of pre-Soviet Marxism in the US as well as the Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia. Schiff and Ochs cofounded the Henry Street Settlement, which became an early center of Marxist and Soviet activity in the US.
Ochs was succeeded as Times publisher in 1935 by Arthur Hays Sulzberger. Sulzberger had sympathized with the Communist cause as a youth, but gradually drifted towards anti-Communism as the Cold War approached. In the process he became concerned about the Communist Party’s efforts to infiltrate the Times through the American Newspaper Guild, whose New York local was dominated by Communists.
The American Newspaper Guild attempted to purge Communist elements in 1948, but this effort was only partially successful. After the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) began an investigation of Communist infiltration of the newspaper industry, the exposure of a cell that included Times reporter Clayton Knowles prompted the Times to begin conducting an internal probe in 1954. The probe and SISS investigation resulted in the firing of Times copyeditor Melvin Barnet. SISS ended up calling 30 witnesses from the Times to testify in December 1955 hearings.
To what extent these attempts to purge Communist elements from the Times were successful is unknown. But what may be documented is that the Times has had a continuous record of compromising national security by leaking classified information from the late 1950s on.
Exhibit A: Compromising the U-2
Reporter Joseph Alsop started out the Cold War anti-Soviet. But he was careless with his sex life--to put it delicately--and while he was travelling to Moscow to cover a story, the KGB photographed him in a compromising position to try to blackmail him into working as a spy. Seeking a way out of the trap he had been lured into, Alsop went for help to his State Department friend Charles Bohlen, who was suspected by the FBI and Senate investigators of being similarly compromised. Some researchers have reported sources claiming that Bohlen was able to get friends in the CIA to help Alsop out of the situation. But other information suggests there was more to the story.
In early 1960 Alsop wrote a story for the New York Times hinting at US knowledge of secret Soviet missile developments. This story came in the midst of an election-year debate over whether the Eisenhower administration’s fiscally-conservative defense policies had allowed a “missile gap” to open by letting Soviet technology outpace US progress. President Eisenhower knew from U-2 surveillance that in fact the US remained well ahead of the Soviets and there was no missile gap, but he could not publicly reveal this without compromising the top-secret U-2 program. Alsop was friends with the CIA agent in charge of the U-2 program, Richard Bissell, and the information in Alsop’s story on Soviet missile developments was based on information generated by U-2 surveillance. Eisenhower could not refute Alsop’s intimation of a missile gap without exposing the U-2 program in the process. The resulting “missile gap” stigma played a significant role in swinging the 1960 election to John Kennedy.
Eisenhower was normally noted for his calm temperament and slowness to anger, and it took a great deal to make him lose his temper. But when he saw Alsop’s article, he reportedly “exploded”. As Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose records, one of Eisenhower’s associates noted that “the President is extremely angry and has talked at length about the lack of loyalty to the U.S. of these people. In his estimation Joseph Alsop is about the lowest form of animal life on earth. . .” On another occasion Eisenhower called the Times “the most untrustworthy paper in the United States”.
Exhibit B: Sabotaging the Bay of Pigs
A year after Alsop’s article, the Times published an article by Tad Szulc exposing the CIA’s plan for an upcoming attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro by inserting an invasion force into Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
During Castro’s rise to power in the 1950s he had been supported by Times reporter Herbert Matthews, who had previously given sympathetic coverage to the Communist side during the Spanish Civil War. Castro’s ascent was also supported by a left-wing faction in the State Department, which continually interfered with the CIA’s planning for the Bay of Pigs operation, advising Kennedy to make various tactically-stupid changes including calling off air strikes that were crucial to the success of the operation. One of Castro’s State Department sympathizers, Chester Bowles, decided to sabotage the Bay of Pigs operation by leaking the invasion plan to the press.
Through contacts in the Cuban exile community, the invasion plan came to the attention of Szulc. Szulc had been suspected by US intelligence of being a foreign agent since 1948, when an FBI file identified him as a Communist. In 1959 the CIA also became suspicious of him when he falsely claimed clearance in an attempt to obtain classified information. Later in the 1970s the FBI would observe him in contact with a KGB agent, and the CIA would link his daughter to Cuban spy Philip Agee.
Szulc’s article on the Bay of Pigs operation was published in the New York Times on April 7, 1961, less than two weeks before the planned invasion. Although Szulc’s supervisors forced him to delete some information on national security grounds at the request of CIA Director Allen Dulles, they allowed him to publish the story over the objections of both Dulles and the Times’ own Washington bureau chief James Reston, and they allowed the final draft of the article to include a reference to a CBS News report which mentioned the deleted information.
To keep things in perspective, it should be noted that the failure of the Bay of Pigs was ultimately more due to the State Department’s interference with the air strikes than to Szulc’s article. But Szulc and the Times certainly did their share to help keep Castro in power.
Exhibit C: Helping the Vietcong
In December 1966 Times reporter Harrison Salisbury became the first American journalist allowed in North Vietnam. Salisbury has previously been the Times’ Soviet correspondent. His entry to North Vietnam was arranged by Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist who worked for the KGB and for the pro-Vietcong news outlet Dispatch News Service.
Dispatch News Service had been founded by the Marxist think tank the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), linked to Soviet and Cuban intelligence. IPS financier Philip Stern also funded the Fund for Investigative Journalism, which paid for upcoming reporter Seymour Hersh to research allegations of atrocities committed by US soldiers at My Lai. Hersh’s My Lai story was provided by Dispatch News to the New York Times.
The Times’ coverage of My Lai inspired the European-based Soviet front group the International War Crimes Tribunal, whose conferences Burchett had attended, to launch an American arm of its investigation. The Tribunal’s call for an American investigation led to what became the Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s Winter Soldier investigation, which prompted the Senate hearings that propelled John Kerry to fame. (Later as Senator Kerry would hire former Dispatch News Service bureau chief Gareth Porter to be his legislative aide.)
After running Hersh’s My Lai story and covering Kerry’s war crimes allegations, the Times and IPS helped Pentagon consultant Daniel Ellsberg leak The Pentagon Papers, a selectively-edited account of US policy in Vietnam calculated to discredit the US war effort. In addition to damaging the US war effort, The Pentagon Papers also had a double effect, for in an effort to counter Ellsberg’s propaganda efforts, the White House staff authorized a series of illegal surveillance actions that ultimately led to the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s resignation.
Exhibit D: Undermining American Counterintelligence Capability
In the wake of Watergate, the Times and liberal elements in the CIA capitalized on the scandal by using it as a pretext to push for a reorganization of the intelligence community along liberal lines. This push was triggered by a leak from CIA Director William Colby to Seymour Hersh, which resulted in a December 22, 1974 New York Times article titled “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Anti-War Forces”. Although there was a real story of actual abuses to be told here, Hersh’s article and follow-up allegations later proved exaggerated. But Hersh’s article served Colby’s purpose. Colby used the leak to force the resignation of counterintelligence veteran James Angleton, the bastion of hard-line anti-Communism in the CIA. Meanwhile Congressional contacts of the antiwar movement called for investigations into Hersh’s allegations. These investigations culminated in the recommendation of sweeping reforms of the intelligence community.
The implementation of these “reforms” over 1976 and 1977 took the form of a systematic stripping of US counterintelligence capability. This included abolishing Congressional and Department of Justice bodies assigned to monitor subversive activity, eliminating the internal security branch of the FBI's intelligence division, and dismissing several hundred of the CIA’s experts on Communism. Antiwar leaders such as Ramsey Clark tried to push this even further by promoting legislation which would have virtually eliminated the FBI, but this effort failed.
Historians of the intelligence community have traced a direct line from these so-called reforms to the intelligence community’s failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. And it is not hard to see how Hersh’s allegation of the CIA’s domestic spying operations stands as a prototype for James Risen’s allegation of NSA domestic spying operations. The Times is up to its old tricks again.
Conclusion
An exhaustive list of instances when the New York Times has endangered national security over the past half century would take many more pages, but the point has been made. Enough is enough. The Times’ blatant subversion of the United States under the guise of a twisted interpretation of the Constitutional right to free speech needs to end. The Constitutional guarantee to freedom of speech depends first and foremost on the existence of the United States, and that existence is now being jeopardized by an Orwellian rag run by morally warped propagandists who think betraying their country is a badge of honor and who will stoop to any depth of deceit in order to sidestep whatever laws or constitutional processes stand in the way of their unelected agenda. Our Constitution makes room for three branches of government. It delegates no authority whatsoever to a fourth estate, much less a fifth column. It’s time for our elected officials and the American people to tell the Times that time is up.
Select Bibliography
Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier and President. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Lynch, Grayston L. Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs. Washington: Brassey’s, 1998.
Newsworkers: Toward a History of the Rank and File. Edited by Hanno Hardt and Bonnie Brennen. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
Powell, S. Steven. Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute for Policy Studies. Introduction by David Horowitz. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc., 1987.
Riebling, Mark. Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
Stepan-Norris, Judith and Zeitlin, Maurice. Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Tifft, Susan E. and Jones, Alex S. The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1999.
Wannall, W. Raymond. “Undermining Counterintelligence Capability”. CI Centre. http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Wannall_Undermining_Intel.htm
Wells, Tom. Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
You bet it has, still is too.
Guess I find that part the most disheartening of all, FGS.
Considering the old adage of what constitutes a mental illness, the "track record" of swallowing the same shtick for all those years doesn't speak well of the human species.
"With few notable recent exceptions their attack have gone unchallanged."
Well the fight has been one of David v.s. Goliath, so the results aren't so unusual.
Thing is the brainstems behind the Slimes have been taking more & more pebbles to their empty leftist noggins from the slings of li'l people (like us) for so long they're getting *punchy*, starting to wobble & could drop at any time.
Really.
Just take that *one* to fall 'em like an old oak tree, alright. ;^)
"One just HAS to wonder what part the internet generally and FR in particular has played in their downward spiral."
No idea about the Internet's impact, per se; although, I'd say there's been some even if unmeasurable.
As for this joint in particular though?
I've a notion it's at best been negligible, FGS.
Great place to come share thought(s) with those supposedly embracing common ideals, granted.
Even so there's also a fair amount of "egos" penultimately creating cliques which in turn ultimately causes "balkanization".
So how much "constructive" action comes of "destructive" behavior(s) I'll leave up to you to say.
We must recognize that although the American citizen has fallen (enmasse at times) for the -- albeit usually well disguised -- Liberal-Socilaist-Communist line for so very long?
More & more they've been awakened to the truth, too.
Always has a close balance then been maintained, always.
We all see the *result* of that awakening every day, in some way.
That's why throughout the darkest hours personally ( :o) ) I may have bitched up a storm about the suckers. But just the same never lost my faith it'd work out in the end, either.
And I know you haven't wavered yourself, my friend.
"BTW, does "The Beast" still want to control/license/censor the internet and forums like FR? Says a bunch all by itself don't it???"
Sure it does, volumes.
But then a thirst for freedom will *pop-up* in some other form, "new" venue or technology, too.
Can't be stopped, y'know.
>Nothing else will work for ending the flow of Liberal-Socialist-Communist crap in a free market society, like ours...quite like bankruptcy.
"Heh. It would put 'em in a, uh, pinch wouldn't it?"
Yea, it would. {g}
"May their demise at the hands of 'We the People' happen while market forces still (more or less)work."
It will, it is. ;^)
I've been thinking about NYSlimes stock, the downward trend its taken over the past several years.
Wondered about the effect all those awakening people have had on the NYSlimes as a corporate entity, and, how those running the outfit are such hard-wired liars?
Methinks a full-blown *&* covert investigation into the real circulation numbers of the NYSlimes could very well reveal the kind of scandal that's be the proverbial stake through the heart of this monster, FGS.
I'm talking about an investigation far and away eclipsing the most recent one which appeared to have dried-up for reason or reason(s) unknown, too.
What I'm thinking about would take New York insiders to pull off though.
Of special help the disgruntled NYSlimes employee(s) who've an ax to grind?
Perhaps recruited from among those who've been terminated as the direct result of *pinche's* bullshit politics? :o)
Of course fundemental to any such effort would be a "conspiracy" of two or more of the NYSlimes' rivals necessary to grease, advise & direct the way.
Making damned sure whatever the "truthS" behind the NYSlimes' plummeting circ numbers be splashed across the front page of everything, printed for however long it took to bring the Gray Harlot to her knees, forevermore.
And you *know* how modern day journalists just *love* "augmenting" stories, too.
What's good for the goose, it's said, is good for the Liberal-Socialist-Communist gander.
~eh? ;^)
Think the NYSlimes has any rivals who'd relish seeing the old bag implode of it's own deceit, FGS/Fedora?
...is the Pope Catholic? ;^)
I was hoping the New York Post might. . .
Regarding your other post, yes, it's evident an agenda has been handed down, and those handing it down have been careful to conceal this from public awareness. Hopefully the Internet will afford the opportunity to do an end-run on this wall of censorship by those media forces who supposedly favor freedom of speech (as long as the speaker has been approved by the MSM--some free speech is more equal than others. . .).
I will add you to the ping list for any follow-up I do on this topic. The present article focused on the period up to about the mid-70s; I'm working on something that would fill in the period from then to today and round out the picture.
Troubling ain't it? The "gist" of the BOR and our Constitution speaks directly to the foibles of Man do they not? Those old white guys knew a little about human nature and the inherent weaknesses and soft spots. Conversely, those that would be our handlers also know exactly what buttons to push and switches to flip. They are also students of the human condition.
As for this joint in particular though? I've a notion it's at best been negligible...
Hard to argue the point either way of course, BUT you gotta admit FR has probably been the single loudest voice on the web re MSM shenanigans. AIM, MRC and others have contributed along with FoxNews, but their contributions have been of a different nature than FR. WE were/are the "street" fighters, if you will. We take what we've read and learned on FR to work, golf course, church, school; you name it. By the hundreds of thousands possibly! It's only a hunch, but I think FR has made a difference. Add to this mix the recent explosion of (mostly conservative?)blogs???
Of special help the disgruntled NYSlimes employee(s) who've an ax to grind?
Good point. We can hope that the allure of big buck$ might yield another Bernie Goldberg clone from the NYT. Surely there are a few that can actually think and write coherently on their own, eh? Any bets there were some "agreements" signed along with severence packages that might preclude any such Goldberg wannabe activities??? "So don't say nasty things about us or we'll sue the pants off you!" sorta thing? Wouldn't put it past 'em.
Think the NYSlimes has any rivals who'd relish seeing the old bag implode of it's own deceit...
I'm betting on it, but until such time as it may become obvious the Old Grey Whore is done for, few will pile on. A cautionary reaction in the unlikely event the NYT were to experience a resurrection. I also suspect there are many nervous nellies out there that see their leader in uncharted waters and are sweating bullets for fear they could lose their mentor. And through all this, how will the crAP fare? I mean, their benefactor(s) are all in heap big trouble. A reduced reach from the crAP would be a nice bonus, no?
FGS
Yup.
But only when I *dwell* on it, my friend. {g}
"The "gist" of the BOR and our Constitution speaks directly to the foibles of Man do they not? Those old [dead :o) ] white guys knew a little about human nature and the inherent weaknesses and soft spots."
The source of my faith lies totally in those old boyz, their forethought.
"Conversely, those that would be our handlers also know exactly what buttons to push and switches to flip. They are also students of the human condition."
Yea, they do.
Been saying for quite some time our side needs to become much more educated in the fields of psychology & marketing.
Then maybe, just maybe we will be in some position to counter the Liberal-Socialist-Communist bilge.
"Reason" sure & the hell hasn't worked, has it.
>As for this joint in particular though? I've a notion it's at best been negligible...
"Hard to argue the point either way of course, BUT you gotta admit FR has probably been the single loudest voice on the web re MSM shenanigans."
Yes FR has, and I didn't mean to sound so harsh.
Just that I *think* Talk Radio has had an impact equal to all others.
FR & like conservative websites, OTOH, have provided the means by which people can more closely examine, articulate & debate the calls TR airs.
Symbiotic, for sure.
>Of special help the disgruntled NYSlimes employee(s) who've an ax to grind?
"Good point. We can hope that the allure of big buck$ might yield another Bernie Goldberg clone from the NYT. Surely there are a few that can actually think and write coherently on their own, eh? Any bets there were some "agreements" signed along with severence packages that might preclude any such Goldberg wannabe activities??? "So don't say nasty things about us or we'll sue the pants off you!" sorta thing? Wouldn't put it past 'em."
*Better* point. ;^)
And you're right, I wouldn't put it past the rascals to have done such a thing either.
Still there's always the "Unnamed sources" to neutralize that bullcocka, too. :o)
>Think the NYSlimes has any rivals who'd relish seeing the old bag implode of it's own deceit...
"I'm betting on it, but until such time as it may become obvious the Old Grey Whore is done for, few will pile on."
Sure.
But let's not discount the power of one, eh?
"And through all this, how will the crAP fare? I mean, their benefactor(s) are all in heap big trouble."
Uh-huh, they are in wampum big kimchee.
Will be intersting following this all play out, huh.
Killing one may kill the whole lot.
"A reduced reach from the crAP would be a nice bonus, no?"
Yea.
...a sight for sore eyes. ;^)
Sheesh! Indeed; how could I fergit El Rushbo(and others). He has been something more than a speed bump to the commies fersher.
BTTT so I don't lose track of it.
Tracking re-bump :-)
BTFP(Back To Front Page) bump
So that's what "BTFP" means, LOL.
Amongst other things I'm sure ;' )
LOL! "Bring The Free Pizza" :-)
Free pizza on the way...
If I am not mistaken, then Schiff was connected to Pyotr Kropotkin. Kropotkin was a charming intellectual who also served as Lenin's fundraiser in America. He was a favorite of the fashionable salons in Manhattan, where he described the "class struggle" to the silk stocking class -- and relieved them of their excess cash.
In other words, Kropotkin was "radical chic" before there was a "radical chic". The pejorative "crackpot" is also said to be derivative of his name.
LOL! :-)
Good work, Fedora!
I hadn't heard about Schiff being connected to Kropotkin, but they would've both been linked to Lenin's contacts in New York, so it sounds possible. Kropotkin's US lecture tour in the late 1890s was managed by Emma Goldman, who was part of the Manhattan salon crowd you mention. During his US visit Kropotkin also lived for a time at Hull House, the Chicago counterpart to the Henry Street Settlement.
I suppose we knew that instinctively but to catalog their malfeasance the way you've done produces a glaring picture of their contempt for what is America. Communism dead? I don't think so.
Regards,
Thanks, LOL. I should probably add a note of clarification, though, to make sure I'm not overstating the case I'm trying to make: what my article restricts itself to stating is (to paraphrase) that Schiff funded both the NYT and the Bolsheviks as well as domestic Marxist groups (well, sort of "domestic", though tied to the Second International in Germany), and that the Times' first two publishers were linked either through sponsorship (in the case of Ochs and the Henry Street Settlement) or sympathy (in the case of the young Sulzberger and the Communists) with akin left-wing groups. This isn't precisely saying the Bolsheviks were running the NYT, but it does raise questions about whether the NYT's historic left-wing bias is rooted in this early fellow-travelling and how deep these early left-wing affiliations went. More research into how the NYT covered events such as the Bolshevik Revolution and Spanish Civil War might be an interesting project.
Communism dead? I don't think so.
My take on this would be that Communism did not die with the fall of the Soviet Union, it just moved its base out of Russia and took on new forms and rejuvenated old forms, such as the Socialist International with its Democratic Socialists of America offshoot in the US, the Green Party in the EU and US, the World Social Forum held in Brazil and other places, etc.
I know; I did that ;' ) It has such a nice ring to it though, it could catch on dontchya think?
One of our other Freepers has an interesting take on the "fall" of the Soviet Union. That is, we were maybe better off with the wall standing to remind us of the stark contrast between communism and capitalism. We don't have the Soviet boogie man to kick around any more; he's gone underground. Out of sight, out of mind???
FGS
Ask Francis Gary Powers family what they think of the NY Slimes. They blew much of his cover on their front page.
It's amazing that the Soviets even bothered with paying for intelligence. All they needed to do was ask the Times to check it out, and the bastards would have.
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