The CIA's Operation Mockingbird was a supposed clandestine program meant to manipulate the American media — and some believe it's still active today.
Contributor:Keystone Press/Alamy Stock PhotoFormer CIA Director William E. Colby and his lawyer testifying before Congress.
In 1977, journalist Carl Bernstein published an article in Rolling Stone with a serious allegation: that hundreds of American journalists worked cheek by jowl with the Central Intelligence Agency. This operation purportedly operated for decades and involved some of the most prominent news organizations in the U.S., including The New York Times, CBS, and Time Inc.
Bernstein’s reporting mostly focused on journalists who worked abroad, but ominous rumors soon emerged that the CIA was also using reporters to spread propaganda across America and manipulate public opinion at home. By 1979, that alleged program had a name: Operation Mockingbird.
Facts about Operation Mockingbird remain murky — including whether it ever ended — but the idea of news organizations working with intelligence agencies struck many citizens as deeply alarming. Operation Mockingbird was even invoked as recently as mid-2024 when then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that the program is still being used.
So what is Operation Mockingbird? How did this alleged program begin and who was involved? And is it really still being used to brainwash Americans?
What Is Operation Mockingbird?
The term “Operation Mockingbird” seems to have originated from Deborah Davis’ unauthorized — and controversial — biography of Washington Post owner Katharine Graham, Katharine the Great. The term is not often used in reporting about journalists working with the CIA from the 1970s, and it shouldn’t be confused with “Project Mockingbird” — a confirmed CIA operation that tapped the phones of two journalists in the 1960s.
For clarity’s sake, however, “Operation Mockingbird” will be used here.
So, how was Operation Mockingbird first unveiled? According to a December 1977 New York Times article — which was published after Bernstein’s Rolling Stone report — the closer-than-expected relationship between the CIA and the press was first made public in 1973. Then, CIA Director William E. Colby shared some details of the practice with reporters, and the issue was publicized by the Washington Star. This led to Congressional investigations.
Gado Images/Alamy Stock PhotoCarl Bernstein, a former Washington Post reporter who broke the famous Watergate story alongside fellow reporter Bob Woodward, later wrote about the close relationship between the CIA and the media in 1977.
Four years later, Bernstein expanded on the relationship between the CIA and American journalists in an article for Rolling Stone, “The CIA And The Media.” He claimed that for 25 years, some 400 American journalists had “secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
How Did Operation Mockingbird Emerge?
Bernstein claimed that the relationship between the press and the CIA first began during World War II, when journalists formed close relationships with members of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA. “When the war ended and many OSS officials went into the CIA, it was only natural that these relationships would continue,” Bernstein explained.
In the 1950s and 1960s, during the early part of the Cold War, the program was mostly focused in Western Europe. “[W]e had journalists all over Berlin and Vienna just to keep track of who the hell was coming in from the East and what they were up to,” one CIA official told Bernstein.
Public DomainThe CIA has been accused of carrying out a number of nefarious projects, including Operation Mockingbird.
The program expanded to South America in the 1960s, but the CIA rarely placed journalistic assets in Eastern Europe. There, journalists would be in danger of being accused of being spies, so it often wasn’t worth the risk.
“The tasks they performed sometimes consisted of little more than serving as ‘eyes and ears’ for the CIA,” Bernstein wrote, “reporting on what they had seen or overheard in an Eastern European factory, at a diplomatic reception in Bonn, on the perimeter of a military base in Portugal.”
On other occasions, he noted, their tasks were more complex, ranging from planting misinformation to hosting parties that would attract foreign spies to sending instructions to CIA-controlled members of foreign governments.
So who was involved? Bernstein wrote that the program was composed of accredited staff members of news organizations, freelancers, editors, publishers, columnists, and commentators who worked for organizations like The New York Times, CBS, Time Inc., and Newsweek. The CIA also “bankrolled numerous foreign press services” to provide cover for operatives.
But — even though the whole truth is difficult to discern — many also said that the operation wasn’t widespread or well-organized.
The Murky CIA Connections With Journalists
After the publication of Bernstein’s article, CIA officials told The New York Times that the number of journalists on the CIA’s payroll was smaller — between 40 and 100 over 25 years. (However, they also claimed that a definitive number would be hard to establish since files about such topics were often scattered, incomplete, and sometimes even nonexistent.)
Alterego/Wikimedia CommonsThe New York Times was one of many news organizations alleged to be involved in Operation Mockingbird.
But many of these journalists weren’t spying for the CIA, per se. The New York Times reported that it was long “common practice for American correspondents returning home or preparing to go abroad to spend time with the C.I.A.’s experts on their region of the world.” These reporters were often purportedly asked to write the CIA “longer, more detailed versions of the dispatches” that they were assigned, “spiced with unprintable gossip and innuendo that might be helpful” to the agency.
Indeed, one reporter took issue with being called an asset and told Bernstein that his dealings with the CIA were the normal “give and take.”
“I might call them up and say something like, ‘Papa Doc [Haitian politician François Duvalier] has the clap, did you know that?’ and they’d put it in the file,” the journalist explained. “I don’t consider that reporting for them… it’s useful to be friendly to them and, generally, I felt friendly to them. But I think they were more helpful to me than I was to them.”
According to Bernstein, a CIA officer likewise downplayed the program. Many reporters, he said, “were recruited for finite [specific] undertakings and would be appalled to find that they were listed [in Agency files] as CIA operatives.”
Another officer told The New York Times that such journalists were often used as “support assets,” not necessarily as spies.
In any case, the CIA claimed that the organization started cutting back on using journalists in 1973, and officially declared in 1976 that it would not engage in “any paid or contractual relationship with any full‑time or part‑time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station.”
So where does the alleged Operation Mockingbird stand today?
The Mysteries About Operation Mockingbird
Some believe that Operation Mockingbird — if it existed — consisted mostly of what was reported about the CIA’s relationship with the press in the 1970s. But others think it was used to push propaganda and brainwash Americans, an idea that gained traction after the publication of Deborah Davis’ book Katharine the Great. Though the book focused on Washington Post owner Katharine Graham, it also gave a name to the alleged Operation Mockingbird.
Those who believe in the large-scale program often say that the operation started during the Cold War and aimed to infiltrate the domestic news media and manipulate public opinion. Disturbingly, some even claim that Operation Mockingbird is still being used by the CIA right now.
While Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was running for president in 2024 — he dropped out that August — he alleged that Operation Mockingbird was “alive and well today.” Kennedy stated that the covert operation had never gone away, and that it was being used to brainwash Americans through some of the nation’s top news organizations, and even some history and science publications.
Maxlovestoswim/Wikimedia CommonsRobert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2017.
While fact-checking his claims, ABC News found that there was “no information to support Kennedy’s claims that journalists were used to deliberately propagandize Americans or that a propaganda-pushing program called ‘Operation Mockingbird’ even existed.”
Indeed, even Bernstein’s reporting from the 1970s did not allege that such an operation was targeting Americans — its purpose was to gather or influence information abroad. (However, the CIA acknowledged that “fallout” from these efforts could make its way into news stories reported in the U.S.)
“We have taken particular caution to ensure that our operations are focused abroad and not at the United States,” former CIA Director William Colby (who held his position from 1973 to 1976) stated.
Naturally, however, much of what’s become known as Operation Mockingbird likely took place behind closed doors. The shortcomings of the Congressional investigations frustrated many in the 1970s, and the extent of the program — if it can be called that — may never be known for sure.
Likewise, it’s unknown if Operation Mockingbird continued in one form or another. Today, the CIA is prohibited from recruiting American journalists.
That said, a CIA officer told The New York Times in 1977 that they expected the “pendulum” would swing back toward recruiting journalists at some point in the future — and that “they’re ripe for the plucking.”
After reading about Operation Mockingbird, learn about the CIA’s infamous Project MK-Ultra. Then, go inside more secret government operations.
