WORLD for the CIA Correspondent Tells of Employment by Secretly Funded Agency News Service Forum World Features Overtly Owned by John Hay Whitney
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\ki cr JG j u1.1 NA; ,T-r+ 20 MORE May 1478 (,_q'—,11-.V I S \J 1Evf ) \&) ASSET UNWITTING: COVERING THE WORLD FOR THE CIA Correspondent Tells Of Employment By Secretly Funded Agency News Service Forum World Features overtly owned by John Hay Whitney. BY RUSSELL WARREN HOWE in Senegal. I was about to relocate my family to Dakar. and In October 1967. a letter arrived at my summer cottage at base out of there For Freelance forays around Africa and the Middle East. Several weeks before. Galipeau had asked me if Godstone. near London. from Georges Galipeau. a Canadian n111 5 friend then running the journalism school at Dakar University I would be available to lecture to his students occasionally, 17 and I had said I would. uvula uvula I WS Is must citivurrahsIng,'• Galipeau now wrote. A "key Aq Aq D.C. He was The Washington Post 's correspondent in Africa member" of the journalism school's board had forbidden him liq for many years. is the author of several books. about Africa. categorically to let me lecture. "because he says he knows n and is co-author of The Power Peddlers: How Lobbyists Mold you work for the CIA." ea) America's Foreign Policy. cv My first reflex was to laugh. The press in French-speaking rlry '75ffig:24na"T.'aika 1746, m .'`" .—16i=4001 . • 4174Mailigagait.::::%.1 May 1978 MORE 21 Africa was far from free. and I could think of obvious reasons CIA rumor was Philippe Gaillard. Senghor's press secretary why some French and Senegalese officials wouldn't want the and reputedly the head of French intelligence in Senegal. former Washington Post correspondent in Africa talking at What I did not learn until several years later was that Gaillard Dakar University, a restless hotbed of opposition to the re- was not just engaged in one of the anti-American capers for gime of Leopold Sedar Senghor. which French intelligence was notorious. Gaillard knew some- My second reflex was to worry. Galipeau's letter, typed by thing which 1 didn't—and that Senghor presumably didn't be- his secretary, was presumably carbon-copied and in an open lieve—about Forum World Features, the syndicate headed by file. To how many people had the "key member" of the board John Hay Whitney which was putting me into over 140 papers spoken of his veto? A Ramparts article that summer on CIA around the world. penetration of the academic and publishing worlds had thrown a mantle of suspicion over Americans abroad, easily exploited Signing On by left-wing forces. What rumors about my alleged double role might be sown in my path, drying up sources cultivated in An article in The New York Times in December 1977 by over a decade of third world reporting? There wasn't much John Crewdscm described Forum—as the service was always time to lose: the Dakar academic year began in November. known to writers and subscribers—as "perhaps the most I wrote to President Senghor. whom I had known as a de- widely circulated of the CIA-owned news services." As the pute in Paris and who had written the preface for the French most prolific writer in Forum's stable, I was apparently what translation of one of my books. I explained about Galipcau's was known as an "unwitting asset." letter. My association with the organization went back to 1958. "There's a new McCarthyism around," I wrote. "A few American press coverage of Africa was thin. AP and UP (not years ago, if we wrote critically of colonial rule, we were all yet UPI) had bureaus in Cairo and Johannesburg. Some Euro- communists. Now, if we write for the American press, we are pean editors of African papers included the American wire all CIA agents." services among their strings. A former Hollywood reporter, Senghor's response came almost by return mail. the late Thomas Brady, covered the continent for the Times. I "You are right: a veritable McCarthyism rages every- covered the continent for The Washington Post. at the time on where," he wrote. "The other day. someone said to me: 'The a non-staff basis. AP. UP, Tom Brady. and myself were the CIA station chief in Senegal is the director of Cifkohig eu-, e "UN 1932031)1b- eta- arid r Yeee-1%,. fare.' So. 1 Said: 'How telougnktui ut mein Lusenu us Catholic!' 1 am today instructing my Minister of National called the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris, inviting and Representative Education to invite you to be a Visiting Professor at the Uni- to participate in a seminar on "Progress Government" at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. The let- versity." ters were signed by Melvin Lasky, the American co-editor of In Dakar. I lost no time in finding out that the source of the (e--* .fk■ • ,p;;_,-,7Ato (r - , _ .... .... ,... .... _ . ,' - ...46 – 7.,. – . • ' `-...c,.., if:- .1-1-,0 0.• • --0 ...or ...VV. N k..Qr . ti 22 MORE May 1978 self to placing pieces in the The "Ltd."—implying incor- can leaders, and so on. It Encounter. a London-based third world press. But on De- poration in Britain—was could be that i was included. magazine. in his capacity as a credentials and cember I, 1965. Mindlin wrote dropped. Forum was a Dela- with my Post director of the CCF—the to me in New York saying an ware corporation. The news- free-spirit, liberal, but non- body later exposed by Ram- analysis I had written of Mo- letter format was replaced by Marxist analyses of African parts as a sort of CIA beach- butu's bloodless coup against a mailed syndication service affairs. to give balance and head in the cultural world. Moise Tshombe in Leopold- of separate articles. The mar- credibility to a service whose The Ibadan encounter ville was "so good it ought to ket was still editors in Africa. basic aim, presumably, was to brought together African poli- go into Europe." Someone Asia. and Latin America. and counter communist propagan- ticians, labor leaders. writers. apparently authorized such a it was still free. Foundation da. and academics. mostly from departure from policy, and grants, channeled through the still dependent countries. and the piece appeared in the Lon- "Congress"—as the CCF was Forum Reformed a sprinkling of their opposite don Guardian. From then on. always called—would pay the numbers from Asia. It was at Forum began to seek sub- bills. On the new notepaper. In 1965, the Congress gave Ibadan that I first met Patrice scribers in Europe, but with Lasky was described as edito- Mindlin funds to start another Lumumbu. then a politically limited success—the syndicat- rial director: Mindlin had be- enterprise, a quarterly maga- active beer salesman and later which ed column or article is virtual- come the managing editor. zine called Censorship. first prime minister of the ly unknown in Europe. Checks now arrived on the investigated overt and covert Congo. and Cyrille Adoula. Most of Forum's writers, CCF account. limitations on free expression then a labor leader and later to however, were European. Mindlin was a short. myop- around the world. Although be Lumumba's successor. We predominantly British. Mind- ic, puckish. twinkling-eyed. most of the articles concerned were all told that the CCF was lin must have mentioned some eggshaped man of about 30. communist and other au- supported by U.S. cultural names to me on the few occa- He was a book editor by train- thoritarian regimes, these foundations, which seemed sions we met, but they were ing. Judging by our conversa- were carefully balanced by believable enough. unfamiliar, and I remember tions, he objected to censor- pieces on thought control in Several weeks later. I re- none. When Crozier came ship in all its forms, and. so Japan. or on press taboos in ceived a letter from Meir America or western Europe, aboard, he ordered articles Mindlin, an American in Len- fitLas,I can resall. aosubject Lwu conservative writ- rormation Bulletin Ltd. Listed turned down by Mindlin for ting assets in academe. Giving ers—Anthony P. Hartley of as "principal director" of IB what might now look like po- Mindlin his own magazine on The Economist and Henry was Walter Z. Laqueur, litical reasons. He seemed to the subject closest to his heart Fairlie of the London Daily British academic who fre- publish anything a non-com- was. it soon emerged, the first Mail. quently wrote on Middle East munist reporter might want to step toward putting Forum it- December 1965 was clearly r. affairs from an Israeli per- write. self under new leadership. watershed month in Forum spective. and who is now with In 1961, for instance, by That same year, a British activities. The people direct- the conservative Georgetown which time I was working full- journalist, Brian Crozier, was ing covert press programs Center for Strategic Studies in time for the Post.1 suggested told by Michael Josselson. must have decided that, with Washington. Mindlin was list- summarizing for Forum some then heading the Congress in sharper management and edit- ed as editor. of my Post reporting on cor- Paris. to plan a reconstruction ing. Forum could move out of Mindlin said he had read my ruption in Adoula's govern- of Forum. This was to ex- Asia. Africa. and Latin Amer- Ibadan paper. Would I write ment in the Congo. Adoula clude Mindlin. According to ica and might even become occasionally for him? The was then the Kennedy ad- informed sources.