Jill Abramson: CONDI RICE Personally Asked Me to KILL CIA STORIES

[Segami]

Last edited Tue Oct 14, 2014, 10:02 AM - Edit history (1)

In an interview with 60 Minutes that ended up online, former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson revealed that Condoleezza Rice had personally asked her to kill a story about the CIA from reporter James Risen. As she recounted to Stahl, Rice, then National Security Advisor, was rather awkward about the entire thing, asking her to personally visit her in an undisclosed location.

“She had a legal yellow notebook on her lap with lots of notes on it, and once I had taken a seat across from her, she barely looked up,” Abramson recalled.” She basically read in a very stern manner from her notes on this legal pad, which were just point after point about why this story would be damaging to the national security. I don’t think I uttered much more than ‘hello,’ and ‘I will think of what you said.’”

Rice’s bottom line “was to make sure that Jim ceases all reporting on this story, which was really an extraordinary request.”

Abramson added that she regretted not publishing Risen’s story, which ended up revealing the CIA’s failed attempt to hinder Iran’s nuclear program, and which landed him in a massive legal battle against the Department of Justice for not revealing his source. “It seemed, in the calculus of all of the major stories we were dealing with at that point, not worth it to me and I regret that decision now,” she said.




watch video


http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jill-abramson-condi-rice-personally-asked-me-to-kill-cia-stories/

[Octafish]

1. Seems the New York Times has done a lot of ''favors'' for CIA.

Like ignoring war criminals and traitors and stuff:

Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA

Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 August 2012 14.58 EDT

EXCERPT...

But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emails between Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times's national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA's role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama's re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd's column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: "Any word??", suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd's impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.

SNIP...

Even more amazing is the reaction of the newspaper's managing editor, Dean Baquet, to these revelations, as reported by Politico's Dylan Byers:

"New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet called POLITICO to explain the situation, but provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter.

CONTINUED with LINKS...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/correspondence-collusion-new-york-times-cia

These really are cursed interesting times when one has to guess at the news because the government has corrupted the paper of record.

I wonder what other important stories New York Times spiked as a "favor" to CIA and its controllers?

[Segami]

2. Inquiring minded journalists should be asking that very same question!

[Octafish]

60. The corrupt nature of the press is revealed because the People know squat.

Corporate McPravda owns the airwaves.



And Corporate Tee Vee is still where most Americans get most of their information, including their ideas about these two statues. Wonder what people would think were they to learn from the tee vee what pater and fils have really done with their power?

The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making

Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis

Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.

From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.

SNIP...

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.

CONTINUED...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making

Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:

Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy

The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html

If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.

http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3

It's important for there to be more than a handful of companies providing "news." Democracy depends on it.

PS: Thank you for your great OP and thread, Segami. It needs to be read by everyone who has an interest in the future of democracy. Without good information, the people not only are ignorant, they are misled.

[BetsysGhost]

64. propaganda?

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda - George W Bush - Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

[blm]

10. CIA remains under control of BushInc. No president can crack the inner power circle

Poppy developed over the last 5 decades. Not Carter, not Reagan, not Clinton, not Obama.

[MontyPow]

54. Just stop it. Stop giving a free pass to the Presidents that should know better.

[blm]

55. Sorry, but, I know far too much to follow your preferred narrative.

.

[MontyPow]

56. So you don't vote for President, I presume.

I mean, why would you with all that unshared knowledge that no matter who's President the PTB control the President's agenda.

[Octafish]

57. Glad you asked. Unless you've got Top Secret clearance and a numbered Swiss bank account...

...this is news you haven't heard on television or radio or seen in print:

Know your BFEE: CARLYLE Group 'bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits'



Behind the Curtain: Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group

Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American; June 13, 2013

According to writers Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer at the Washington Post, The Carlyle Group and its errant child, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), have a public relations problem, thanks to NSA leaker and former BAH employee Edward Snowden. By the time top management at BAH learned that one of their top level agents had gone rogue, and terminated his employment, it was too late.

For years Carlyle had, according to the Post, “nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries”; but now the light from the Snowden revelations has revealed nothing more than two companies, parent and child, “bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.”

And have they ever. When The Carlyle Group bought BAH back in 2008, it was totally dependent upon government contracts in the fields of information technology (IT) and systems engineering for its bread and butter. But there wasn't much butter: After two years the company’s gross revenues were $5.1 billion but net profits were a minuscule $25 million, close to a rounding error on the company’s financial statement. In 2012, however, BAH grossed $5.8 billion and showed earnings of $219 million, nearly a nine-fold increase in net revenues and a nice gain in value for Carlyle.

Unwittingly, the Post authors exposed the real reason for the jump in profitability: close ties and interconnected relationships between top people at Carlyle and BAH, and the agencies with which they are working. The authors quoted George Price, an equity analyst at BB&T Capital: "[Booz Allen has] got a great brand, they've focused over time on hiring top people, including bringing on people who have a lot of senior government experience."

CONTINUED w Links n Privatized INTEL...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15696-behind-the-curtain-booz-allen-hamilton-and-its-owner-the-carlyle-group

Wouldn't it be great to live in a democracy, a republic built on equal justice for all? That way, traitors, warmongers and banksters would be in jail instead of printing money. Which is why Secret Government is so un-American, and the Bush Family Evil Empire have been at its heart for so long that George W Bush can utter, "Money trumps peace" at a press conference and not one reporter has the guts to ask, "Why?"

PS: blm is an original DUer, giving Bush and Cheney the what's for BEFORE it was cool.

[MontyPow]

59. I'm familiar with this information.

So I ask you, do you still vote?

[Octafish]

61. Me, yes, even if much of the Secret Government is beyond apparent control of the president.

For those new to the subject:

Nixon approved hiring a Secret Service man who said he'd 'kill on command' to guard Ted Kennedy. You can hear Nixon and Haldeman discuss it, about 40 minutes into the HBO documentary "Nixon by Nixon." While I had read the part of the transcript available years ago, and wrote about it on DU, almost no one I know has heard anything about it.

Ted Kennedy survived Richard Nixon's Plots

By Don Fulsom

In September 1972, Nixon’s continued political fear, personal loathing, and jealously of Kennedy led him to plant a spy in Kennedy’s Secret Service detail.

The mole Nixon selected for the Kennedy camp was already being groomed. He was a former agent from his Nixon’s vice presidential detail, Robert Newbrand—a man so loyal he once pledged he would do anything—even kill—for Nixon.

The President was most interested in learning about the Sen. Kennedy’s sex life. He wanted, more than anything, stated Haldeman in The Ends of Power, to “catch (Kennedy) in the sack with one of his babes.”

In a recently transcribed tape of a September 8, 1972 talk among the President and aides Bob Haldeman and Alexander Butterfield, Nixon asks whether Secret Service chief James Rowley would appoint Newbrand to head Kennedy’s detail:

Haldeman: He's to assign Newbrand.

President Nixon: Does he understand that he's to do that?

Butterfield: He's effectively already done it. And we have a full force assigned, 40 men.

Haldeman: I told them to put a big detail on him (unclear).

President Nixon: A big detail is correct. One that can cover him around the clock, every place he goes. (Laughter obscures mixed voices.)

President Nixon: Right. No, that's really true. He has got to have the same coverage that we give the others, because we're concerned about security and we will not assume the responsibility unless we're with him all the time.

Haldeman: And Amanda Burden (one of Kennedy’s alleged girlfriends) can't be trusted. (Unclear.) You never know what she might do. (Unclear.)

Haldeman then assures the President that Newbrand “will do anything that I tell him to … He really will. And he has come to me twice and absolutely, sincerely said, "With what you've done for me and what the President's done for me, I just want you to know, if you want someone killed, if you want anything else done, any way, any direction …"

President Nixon: The thing that I (unclear) is this: We just might get lucky and catch this son-of-a-bitch and ruin him for '76.

Haldeman: That's right.

President Nixon: He doesn't know what he's really getting into. We're going to cover him, and we are not going to take "no" for an answer. He can't say "no." The Kennedys are arrogant as hell with these Secret Service. He says, "Fine," and (Newbrand) should pick the detail, too.

Toward the end of this conversation, Nixon exclaims that Newbrand’s spying “(is) going to be fun,” and Haldeman responds: “Newbrand will just love it.”

Nixon also had a surveillance tip for Haldeman for his spy-to-be: “I want you to tell Newbrand if you will that (unclear) because he's a Catholic, sort of play it, he was for Jack Kennedy all the time. Play up to Kennedy, that "I'm a great admirer of Jack Kennedy." He's a member of the Holy Name Society. He wears a St. Christopher (unclear).” Haldeman laughs heartily at the President’s curious advice.

Despite the enthusiasm of Nixon and Haldeman, Newbrand apparently never produced anything of great value. When this particular round of Nixon’s spying on Kennedy was uncovered in 1997, The Washington Post quoted Butterfield as saying periodic reports on Kennedy's activities were delivered to Haldeman, but that Butterfield did not think any potentially damaging information was ever dug up.

SOURCE:

http://surftofind.com/tedkennedy

I'm glad you're familiar with this, MontyPow. For everyone else interested in "Why does that matter?" The Warren Commission, and the nation's mass media, never heard about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro until the Church Committee in 1975. You'd think that would be a matter of concern to all Americans, especially considering how then-vice president Nixon was head of the "White House Action Team" that contacted the Mafia for murder. They might be the same traitors or clowns who investigated Sen. Church himself, merely for serving the People. We don't know for sure as the names are apparently beyond the reach of Congress and the Executive.

[blm]

66. No, no - Monty is certain that every president controls every part of the CIA.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that Kennedy was briefed by Poppy Bush about their plans in Dallas. And Carter was briefed about the arrangements to keep hostages in Iran until after the 1980 election. And Clinton was briefed about the bombing of China's embassy. And Obama was briefed about the tapping of Merkel's private phone.

There is no BushInc inner circle at CIA - Monty sez so.

[blm]

62. Not what I said. Interesting that you felt the need to pretend I

said that PTB control everything....I am pretty sure I said Poppy Bush developed an inner power circle at the CIA that most presidents can't crack. For example....Obama didn't know that Merkel's private phone was tapped. I'd bet that BushInc knew.

Still - it's interesting to me that you're so 'concerned' that you felt obliged to massage the message.

[MontyPow]

63. The implication is clear.

[blm]

65. Inner power circle at CIA...no...couldn't possibly be...would

BushInc be capable of something like that?

I clearly said CIA - as in its deepest circles....and did NOT say the PTB control the president's ENTIRE AGENDA, as you need to pretend so you could feel like a masturdebater.

You're ridiculous. You apparently haven't a clue how IranContra, BCCI and CIA drug running happened.

Surely you could find posts other than mine to play your game of pretend, couldn't you?

[MontyPow]

67. I read your post. I concluded that with such powers there is no point in voting.

I asked you if your post means you don't vote.

Do you vote for presidents?

[blm]

68. YOUR 'conclusion' is BS- argue with yourself.

Mine was specific to an inner circle at the CIA. Yours was EXTRAPOLATION....just so you can have the argument you WANT to have. Go have it, mastur debater.

[MontyPow]

77. Tin foil hats are dangerous to ones health.

[blm]

91. Yeah - I hear that's what Gary Webb died from -

Last edited Wed Oct 15, 2014, 01:41 PM - Edit history (1)

he died wearing a tin foil hat according to the 'coincidence' theorists.

Except.....turns out that he didn't, did he?

[MontyPow]

95. But what about Jack Webb?

[blm]

96. Dick Cheney's 'just conspiracy theory nuts' club is

accepting new members. They'll welcome you with open arms.

[MontyPow]

99. I have no idea what you are talking about.

But if it makes you feel better to explain your disappointments through conspiracies, I won't stand in your way.

As for me, I hold my elected officials responsible for their behavior, and I vote accordingly.

[blm]

100. LOLOL - of COURSE you wouldn't know what I am referencing

Congressman Dick Cheney told the press corps that the early revelations in IranContra were just 'conspiracy theory' from that conspiracy theory nut John Kerry. They used the same 'conspiracy theory' dodge on their BCCI treasons.

You really never read Iran Contra investigative report, did ya? Or BCCI Report? Heck - no way you'd believe CIA drug running documentation then, eh?

No way would Poppy Bush be involved in such deeply covert operations, eh Monty? It's ALL 'conspiracy theory' to you, eh Monty?

[Major Hogwash]

79. You are correct, sir.

Absolutely correct.

[blm]

90. Good to see other alert citizens chime in.

I don't pity the fools who, apparently, never heard of BCCI - just wish there were less of them.

[calimary]

23. AND for bush/cheney.

Bent over again, 'eh? Here, too? With that miserable, pathetic contradicta? I wonder how many times she shook her bobble head while reading this. I'll bet every negative had her bobbing her head up and down as in a "yes" and every assertion was accompanied by a furtive shaking from side to side, suggesting a "no." It was fascinating to watch that back in the days when she played the president's "wife." "As I was telling my husb-- oops, I mean 'The President'..." BTW, that little reported anecdote from the fancy New York cocktail party was SEVERELY indicative to me. Rang a whole bunch of alarm bells. Convinced me that this was a line of joking that evidently ran through the National Security offices. I bet there was a LOT of snickering and joking from the very beginning, within the staff of bush/cheney, about how contradicta was his other wife. She sure hung around close to him all the time. Sometimes WITH laura bush on hand - at his other side. I bet that made his thighs tremble with delight - in those photo ops where "Wife A" was on one side of him and "Wife B" was on his other side.

[The Wizard]

29. Astute observations. (NT)

[navarth]

37. Thanks for reminding me!

I REMEMBER here shaking her head in the opposite direction of what she was saying numerous times. My poor tonsils, raw from shouting at the tv: 'don't any of you fake journalists see that????'

Pisses me off just to remember.

[mopinko]

47. the bush debate wire.

cheating in a presidential debate. maybe they didnt send the cia to take care of that, but....

as my 1st husband used to say- they all sleep in the same bed.

[Octafish]

80. The Emperor's New Hump

The New York Times killed a story that could have changed the election—because it could have changed the election

By Dave Lindorff
Project FAIR, Jan.1, 2005

EXCERPT...

The so-called Bulgegate story had been getting tremendous attention on the Internet. Stories about it had also run in many mainstream papers, including the New York Times (10/9/04, 10/18/04) and Washington Post (10/9/04), but most of these had been light-hearted. Indeed, the issue had even made it into the comedy circuit, including the monologues of Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jon Stewart and a set of strips by cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

That the story hadn’t gotten more serious treatment in the mainstream press was largely thanks to a well-organized media effort by the Bush White House and the Bush/Cheney campaign to label those who attempted to investigate the bulge as "conspiracy buffs" (Washington Post, 10/9/04). In an era of pinched budgets and an equally pinched notion of the role of the Fourth Estate, the fact that the Kerry camp was offering no comment on the matter—perhaps for fear of earning a "conspiracy buff" label for the candidate himself—may also have made reporters skittish. Jeffrey Klein, a founding editor of Mother Jones magazine, told Mother Jones (online edition, 10/30/04) he had called a number of contacts at leading news organizations across the country, and was told that unless the Kerry campaign raised the issue, they couldn’t pursue it.

"Totally off base"

The Times’ effort to get to the bottom of the matter through a serious investigation seemed to be a striking exception. That investigation, however, despite extensive reporting over several weeks by three Times reporters, never ran. Now, like the mythic weapons of mass destruction that were the raison d’etre for the Iraq War, the Times is thus far claiming that the Bush Bulgegate story never existed in the first place.

Referring to a FAIR press release (11/5/04) about the spiked story, Village Voice press critic Jarrett Murphy wrote (11/16/04), "A Times reporter alleged to have worked on such a piece says FAIR was totally off base: The paper never pursued the story."
Murphy told Extra! that his source at the nation’s self-proclaimed paper of record—whom he would not identify—told him the information about the bulge seen under Bush’s jacket during the debates, provided by a senior astronomer and photo imaging specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, had been tossed onto the "nutpile," and was never researched further.

In fact, several sources, including a journalist at the Times, have told Extra! that the paper put a good deal of effort into this important story about presidential competence and integrity; they claim that a story was written, edited and scheduled to run on several different days, before senior editors finally axed it at the last minute on Wednesday evening, October 27. A Times journalist, who said that Times staffers were "pretty upset" about the killing of the story, claims the senior editors felt Thursday was "too close" to the election to run such a piece. Emails from the Times to the NASA scientist corroborate these sources’ accounts.

SNIP...

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-emperors-new-hump/

Photos depicting the bulge and speculating on just what it might be (a medical device, a radio receiver?) began circulating widely around the Internet, and several special blog sites were established to discuss them. The suspicion that Bush had been getting cues or answers in his ear was bolstered by his strange behavior in that first debate, which included several uncomfortably long pauses before and during his answers. On one occasion, he burst out angrily with "Now let me finish!" at a time when nobody was interrupting him and his warning light was not flashing. Images of visibly bulging backs from earlier Bush appearances began circulating, along with reports of prior incidents that suggested Bush might have been receiving hidden cues (London Guardian, 10/8/04).

CONTINUED...



The New York Times put a fork in that election, as the story of the Bush as being too stupid to debate fair-and-square might have been tough for even Rove and Diebold to overcome. As long as there's two of left, Democracy still has a chance, mopinko!

[mopinko]

82. a cheater is a cheater.

there is no lower form of life.

[exboyfil]

3. When is it appropriate for reporters/editors to engage in prior restraint?

One example - having the U.S.S. Yorktown at Midway made a big difference. What if reporters had disclosed that the Yorktown had been repaired and was seen leaving Pearl Harbor?

[7962]

74. These days that info would lead the nightly news. Its sad.

CNN told Bin Laden and the rest of the world that we were monitoring satellite phones and they instantly stopped using them.
Before the Gulf War I remember seeing nightly reports on where and how the troops would focus the attack on the Iraqis.
Its really gotten ridiculous.

[Supersedeas]

92. Bingo--that's the real rub

[CJCRANE]

4. Remember how in the movies

when there was a conspiracy the hero/whistleblower would rush to get the information to the New York Times confident in the knowledge that it would get the story out to the public?

I don't think you could make that kind of movie anymore.

[Eleanors38]

48. Did you have "Condor" in mind?

[KansDem]

52. You mean this?

4'00"

[Eleanors38]

93. That's the one. "You're about to become a very lonely man."

[WinkyDink]

50. Or, in reality, the Washington Post?

[malaise]

5. Off to the greatest page for you

Very important.

[bananas]

6. "revealing the CIA’s failed attempt to hinder Iran’s nuclear program"

This is the story they wanted to kill:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Risen

Risen is the author of the book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (January 2006). The book makes numerous statements about Central Intelligence Agency activities. It states that the CIA carried out an operation in 2000 (Operation Merlin) intended to delay Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program by feeding it flawed blueprints for key missing components—which backfired and may actually have aided Iran, as the flaw was likely detected and corrected by a former Soviet nuclear scientist the operation used to make the delivery.

[erronis]

76. Good interview on Terry Gross today

Of course the spooks just make pupple like me want to find out more. Why are you trying to close this journalist down? Must be something there...

Having spent too much time sucking at the beltway teats I do know that there is no honor in these thieves. There are no $1+MM mega mansions build along the Potomac that were paid for by honest wages. Patriotism is just a cheap set of red/white/blue flags to cover up greed and willingness to sell the American people to the highest bidders.

Oh well, graft has existed ever since one ape ruled the roost. Now it's just better organized with banks/lobbyists/off-shores.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. The Intercept :James Risen’s new book on war-on-terror abuses comes out tomorrow

James Risen’s new book on war-on-terror abuses comes out tomorrow, and if you want to find a copy it shouldn’t be hard to obtain. As natural as that seems, it almost wasn’t the case with the Risen’s last book, “State of War,” published in 2006. Not only did U.S. government officials object to the publication of the book on national security grounds, it turns out they pressured Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS, to have it killed.

The campaign to stifle Risen’s national security reporting at the Times is already well-documented, but a 60 Minutes story last night provided a glimpse into how deeply these efforts extended into the publishing world, as well. After being blocked from reporting on the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program for the paper of record, Risen looked into getting these revelations out through a book he was already under contract to write for Simon & Schuster, a book that would look at a wide range of intelligence missteps in the war on terror.

In response, it seems, the government once again went straight to the top in order to thwart him. As 60 Minutes reports:

“The administration [reached] out to Leslie Moonves, head of CBS, whose Simon & Schuster division was the publisher of Risen’s book, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop its publication.”

In an interview with The Intercept, Risen said he had been told the same story by Simon & Schuster a day or two before his book was published. He added he remembers feeling “very happy” that Moonves stood up for him.

It has been previously reported that the government considered asking the publisher or one of its parent companies to kill Risen’s book because it disclosed information on one or more secret and purportedly sensitive intelligence operations, including a botched attempt to feed secretly flawed blueprints for a nuclear bomb trigger to the Iranians. But in those accounts the request is never made because Risen’s book was already in stores or on delivery trucks by the time the White House became aware of its contents. The 60 Minutes report appears to mark the first disclosure such a request did, in fact, occur.

Another author, former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Anthony Shaffer, did not fare as well as Risen. In September 2010, the Defense Department bought the entire 10,000-copy first printing of his Afghan war memoir “Operation Dark Heart,” which publisher St. Martin’s Press, a Macmillan imprint, had already distributed to reviewers and at least some retailers. Three U.S. intelligence agencies said the book contained secrets, and a subsequent censored edition contained redactions on 250 of the book’s 320 pages.

When Risen’s “State of War” was released against the White House’s wishes in January 2006, it came to represent a watershed moment in the campaign to bring transparency to America’s post-9/11 national security state. It also became the flashpoint for an ongoing court battle in which the government has sought to identify and prosecute a Risen source. Despite the failure of government suppression efforts, it is nonetheless disturbing that White House officials would intervene not just to muzzle the Times‘s reporting, but also to pressure the publishing industry to kill the story as well. In its zeal to stifle critical journalism in the name of protecting national secrets, the campaign against Risen’s work appeared to border dangerously close to outright censorship.

Risen is now facing potential jail time for refusing to divulge his sources for classified information. Nonetheless, he is standing firm. As he told 60 Minutes:

“It was the best story in my life, and I wasn’t going to let anybody else write it…The whole global war on terror has been classified. If we today had only had information that was officially authorized from the U.S. government, we would know virtually nothing about the war on terror.”


https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/13/american-government-tried-kill-james-risens-last-book/

[Segami]

8. Thanks!

[Orsino]

9. The Times was busy publishing Libby exclusives. n/t

[Segami]

13. And NYT's reporter Judith Miller helped shovel their dung.

[Frustratedlady]

11. Smells like Cheney to me.

Condi never liked him, but knew better than to cross him. That's probably why she made a point of reading the message than having it come from her.

Hopefully, before he gets around to hanging up his machine, a lot of info will come out. Anything from that administration has to have the stamp of or approval of The Dick. We just know that.

[Enthusiast]

12. Kicked and recommended!

Thank you, Segami.

[heaven05]

14. she regrets it now???

freedom of the press has for years now been co-opted by the people we used to depend on to give us the unbiased truth. Condi Rice again. That whole crew should be in the docket at the Hague answering for their horrendous war crimes from invasion, to abu ghraib, to ISIS, to a million dead Iraqis, to 500,000 wounded coalition soldiers, to at least 5000 dead and committing suicide everyday american soldiers.

[aikoaiko]

15. That's embarrassing.

[djean111]

16. And, to this very fucking day, anyone who disagrees with the Official Government Handout about

ANYTHING is labeled a Woo Conspiracy Theorist. Here at DU, immediately, and with heaps of (laughably ineffective) scorn.
Go figure.

[KG]

19. word.

[truebrit71]

21. Yup.

Mighty 'progressive' of some...

[djean111]

32. Careful, there - I don't think being a Progressive is desired in the New Democratic Party any more.

So the woo-accusation-flingers are, IMO, actually trying to weed out any liberals/Progressives. Or at least marginalize them but keep them around for voting purposes.

[jtuck004]

87. Or at least marginalize them but keep them around for voting purposes. < They may have screwed

the pooch on that one, inept as they are.

[valerief]

40. +1

[deutsey]

17. Risen was on Democracy Now! this morning

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/14/james_risen_prepared_to_pay_any?autostart=true

We spend the hour with veteran New York Times investigative reporter James Risen, the journalist at the center of one of the most significant press freedom cases in decades. In 2006, Risen won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the National Security Agency.

He has since been pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations in a six-year leak investigation into that book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." Risen now faces years in prison if he refuses to testify at the trial of a former CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused of giving him classified information about the agency’s role in disrupting Iran’s nuclear program, which he argues effectively gave Iran a blueprint for designing a bomb. The Obama administration must now decide if it will try to force Risen’s testimony, despite new guidelines issued earlier this year that make it harder to subpoena journalists for their records.

Risen’s answer to this saga has been to write another book, released today, titled "Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War." "You cannot have aggressive investigative reporting in America without confidential sources — and without aggressive investigative reporting, we can’t really have a democracy," Risen says. "I think that is what the government really fears more than anything else." Risen also details revelations he makes in his new book about what he calls the "homeland security-industrial complex."

[Eleanors38]

42. The last line in "Three Days of the Condor" (1975):

Redford is about to enter the NYT's office with the scoop, and CIA boss Cliff Robertson says:

"Go ahead. See if they print it."

NYT's rep was already well-established by then; the Gary Webb smear was merely an update.

[Supersedeas]

94. merely ya say

[mountain grammy]

18. K & R

Wow, I feel so much better now that Abramson regrets her decision.

[gratuitous]

35. I'm sure the Times regrets a lot of decisions

Like when they had the goods on the illegal domestic spying by the NSA before the 2004 election, but they didn't report it because they didn't want to make the Bush administration look bad. So they sat on the story (another James Risen piece) until December 2005. Bill Keller did the administration's bidding for that one.

[navarth]

38. + several thousand. nt

[KingCharlemagne]

85. + Fucking infinity! (no text)

[ReRe]

20. K&R

Amy Goodman's only guest today was James Risen. http://www.DemocracyNow.org

I don't know what it is about power that robs people of their moral fiber. Condi HAD no moral fiber to begin with. But Jill Abramson? Not "worth it" to her? Jill is deadpan (just her personality,) which I think rubbed many the wrong way and may have been part of the reason she got canned. Glad she's coming out now about this. She actually should write her own book and spill the beans on all of the stories she averted for the USG while she was the NYT's Exec Editor. You know... just get it off of her chest now.

[truebrit71]

22. I bet THAT would make one helluva book!

n/t

[ReRe]

26. I'd buy it, too!

Come on, Jill: Is that what you have been keeping yourself busy with? If not, why not?

[Supersedeas]

24. oh the white privilege of complaining after the fact...shouldn't this meeting have been part of the

story THEN and not years after the fact

[7962]

75. Jesus H Christ, you manage to put "white privilege" into THIS story?

Its everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Baitball Blogger]

25. Now you know why I was shocked to hear that the White House had a direct link to

Tim Russert. I didn't know that the connection to the media was so direct and it shocked me when I found out because I KNEW it would take massive principle from a media representative to say no. And I just wasn't convinced that Russert was that guy.

[The Wizard]

31. Russert's sell out was obvious

in the way he gave Republicans a megaphone and never challenged any of their false assertions while at the same time asking Democrats loaded questions and hammering them at every turn. He also wore a Bush lapel pin during the 04 campaign. He was promised a life of leisure by Jack Welch (GE CEO) if he could help make Bush President. Unfortunately he died before he had the chance to clear his conscious and tell the truth.

[Major Hogwash]

81. When did you find that out?

Before or after Russert was invited to a Christmas party by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a party at which Russert was quietly told that they had just captured Saddam Hussein?

[spanone]

27. complicit media. our democracy is in real trouble.

no accountability

[SoapBox]

30. + a bazillion

[navarth]

39. + and another.

[name not needed]

28. And she's free to ask all she wants.

Your job as an editor, however, is to tell her to take a fuckin' walk when she asks.

[rhett o rick]

34. So why would she capitulate? Either her patriotism got the best of her or she felt threatened.

I doubt she is that patriotic. Just sayin'.

[valerief]

41. Anthrax anyone? nt

[closeupready]

45. And Abramson is effectively conceding here that she failed at her job.

I'm sure she was very well paid for 'failing' at her job, though, and do you think for one minute she gave any of it back? LOL

Just like that guy who wrote, "Liar's Poker" - he made a fortune colluding in these hijinks, and yet, he kept every last dime, making even more (later one) on betraying his colleagues.

[name not needed]

46. And not too long ago the Times faced a major shitstorm for firing her.

Now it seems they were more than justified.

[Rex]

33. Corporate news cries crocodile tears, Rex not moved or convinced.

The NYT might as well work for the CIA.

[Maedhros]

69. They have indeed established a pattern of collusion with the Agency:

http://www.salon.com/2011/02/21/nyt_16/

NPR as well:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/12/nprs-dina-temple-raston-passed-cia-funded-nsa-contractor-independent-fear-monger-snowden-reporting/

[JEB]

36. K&R for the original post and subsequent informative posts and links.

[Octafish]

53. JFK assassination: CIA and New York Times are still lying to us

Fifty years later, a complicit media still covers up for the security state. We need to reclaim our history

DAVID TALBOT
Salon.com, Nov. 6, 2013

We’ll never know, we’ll never know, we’ll never know. That’s the mocking-bird media refrain this season as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of America’s greatest mystery – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson hijacked a large chunk of her paper’s Sunday Book Review to ponder the Kennedy mystery. And after deliberating for page after page on the subject, she could only conclude that there was some “kind of void” at the center of the Kennedy story. Adam Gopnik was even more vaporous in the Nov. 4 issue of the New Yorker, turning the JFK milestone into an occasion for a windy cogitation on regicide as cultural phenomenon. Of course, constantly proclaiming “we’ll never know” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy for the American press. It lets the watchdogs off the hook, and excuses their unforgivable failure to actually, you know, investigate the epic crime. When it comes to this deeply troubling American trauma, the highly refined writers of the New Yorker and the elite press would rather muse about the meta-issues than get at the meat.

All this artful dodging about the murder of President Kennedy began, of course, nearly 50 years ago with the Warren Commission, the blue-ribbon panel that was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson — not to get at the truth, but to “lay the dust” (in the words of one commissioner) on all the disturbing rumors that were swirling around the bloody events in Dallas. Two new books take us inside the Warren Commission sausage factory, and show in often shocking detail how the august panel got it so terribly wrong. Soon after the Warren Report was released in September 1964, polls began showing that the American people rejected its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of the president – and nearly a half century later, the report remains a notorious symbol of official coverup. (This does not prevent Abramson from blithely declaring that “the historical consensus seems to have settled on” the lone gunman theory – there is no such consensus, only a deeply fractious ongoing debate.)

SNIP...

“A Cruel and Shocking Act” by former New York Times investigative reporter Philip Shenon has been soaking up most of the media spotlight in recent days. The book proclaims itself to be a “secret history of the Kennedy assassination.” Based largely on interviews with Warren Commission staff lawyers, the book reveals how the investigation was immediately taken over by the very government agencies — the CIA, FBI and Secret Service — that had the most to hide when it came to the assassination. The other new book, “History Will Prove Us Right,” was written by Howard Willens, a Warren Commission lawyer who refused to speak with Shenon. As suggested by the title — which is taken from a defiant statement by the commission chairman, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren – Willens’ book is a stubborn defense of the report that he helped produce. But ironically, after grinding one’s way through Willens’ serviceably written but highly revealing story, a reader can only come to the same conclusion that Shenon’s sexier expose’ demands – namely, that the Warren Report was the result of massive political cunning and investigative fraud.

Both books contain juicy and informative details that shed new light on the JFK investigation. (Shenon’s book also contains a few breathlessly advertised “scoops” that turn out to be rehashed stories or false leads.) But the two books also suffer from a strange cognitive dissonance. After elaborating on the many ways that the Warren Commission’s work was sabotaged by President Johnson, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (who immediately took charge of the investigation), former CIA director Allen Dulles (who conveniently got himself appointed to the commission), Treasury chief C. Douglas Dillon (who oversaw the Secret Service) and other Washington power players, the books seem to arrive at the same baffling conclusion as the deeply compromised Warren Report – i.e., that Oswald did it.

When it comes to the million-dollar question, Shenon is much more equivocal than Willens. He seems to think that Oswald might have had accomplices – but Oswald nonetheless remains at the center of Shenon’s story, rather than the intelligence officials, for instance, whom Sen. Richard Schweiker once remarked had their “fingerprints” all over the young alleged assassin. In following the conspiracy trail, Shenon quickly takes a wrong turn down the “Castro-as-mastermind” path. Perhaps because as a writer he found this story of deep espionage more intriguing than the Warren Commission’s twisted bureaucratic tale, the author lights off for Mexico City, where Oswald apparently visited (or was impersonated visiting) the Soviet and Cuban embassies in the days before Dallas. Shenon has Oswald dallying with a sexy clerk in the Cuban embassy, and perhaps getting entangled in a sinister Fidelista plot against JFK.

CONTINUED...

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/06/the_jfk_assassination_we_still_dont_know_what_happened/

I heard Mr. Talbot speak at the Duquesne Conference. He names Allen Dulles "the Chairman of the Board" behind the assassination plot.

[bigwillq]

43. I am sure that is not the first time that happened

in the history of our great nation.


That being said, Condi is still scum.

[closeupready]

44. What kind of people still look to the Times as truth-tellers?

That's kind of a joke, IMO. Over and over, they have compromised their integrity. And I mean, this goes even way back to the Reagan administration.

The Guardian and Al-Jazeera are the only two news sources that seem to be the gold standard in terms of dedication to muckraking. I suppose domestically, the Times is as reliable as any other news source.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist (I don't think), but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the handful of US media moguls had been called to a kind of summit with US officials who gave them parameters within which they would be 'allowed' to 'go crazy', but step beyond those boundaries, and 'we will crush you.'

We see today how the tech industry is trying to fashion a new image, attempting to distance themselves from the facts of their collusion with Bush administration officials in the years after 9/11, with regard to domestic espionage.

Stories like Abramson's portend ugly revelations from those who behaved similarly, IMO.

[Calista241]

49. I thought the more shocking piece of the report

was when Bush told the then executive director that if they published the article, and the US was attacked again, then the Administration would be blaming the NY Times for the attack. Bush also said that the NY Times would be right there with the Administration testifying before Congress should that come to pass.

[liberal N proud]

51. And now Kindasleazy is picking football teams to play for national championship.

[woo me with science]

58. To the Greatest Page

Journalism is the enemy of totalitarian oligarchy, the enemy of fascism.

That's why it is deliberately being targeted and destroyed by our corporate owners, and a propaganda machine put in its place.

[Rose Siding]

70. "in the calculus of all of the major stories we were dealing with"

Not enough room! Especially with all the front page real estate absorbed Judith Miller's tales.

[scarletwoman]

71. Kick for an extraordinary thread! Bookmarked for all the excellent information here.

Thank you, all.

[whereisjustice]

72. lol - if Risen had published an expose of our current administration's fuckups, you can just

imagine the outrage from the security concern spin meister team, charged with keeping the Democratic Party safe from objectivity and dissent.

[7962]

73. I have no problem with that at ALL.

We have too many people already who cant keep a damn secret. Something does need to be done about Iran. The CIA is there for a reason. COVERT operations.

[Blue_Tires]

78. Greenwald and Timm should be all over this...

But they won't care since there's no way to pin this to Obama...

[Ichingcarpenter]

89. Wrong.... His website also broke this story

but as usual you fail to connect the dots and read the links in this thread and instead make it about Obama/Greenwald and not the story of the deep state which this story exposes.

[Blue_Tires]

98. I only go by what I see Greenwald talking about on twitter

I refuse to give his "news site" any traffic...Oh, and Greenwald by his own admission has self-censored his own stories by government request...He also was quick to smear Abramson's successor...

I've talked about the "deep state" in other threads/posts...Most of them fall right off the front of GD without a response...

If Greenwald considers himself the watchdog of all media accountability, then I'm the watchdog of Greenwald's accountability...I will not be silent about it...

[SleeplessinSoCal]

83. So, this didn't air on Sunday night and can only be found online.

which means very few people (by intent) saw this.

Our "Fourth Estate" is well and truly dead, along with our democracy.

[JDPriestly]

84. K&R.

[KingCharlemagne]

86. Translation: I regret that I was and am a tool. As the Church Lady might say,

"Well, isn't that con-veeeeeen-ient?"

[merrily]

88. This kind of thing probably happens much more than we would prefer to believe.

[MinM]

97. In an interview with 60 Minutes that Ended Up Online?

It's interesting that 60 Minutes has been airing these puff pieces about the FBI and CIA on air but relegate this story to the internet.

[blm]

101. Yep - Corpmedia. BushInc sez JUMP! and corpmedia sez HOW HIGH?

.