Difference between revisions of "Forum World Features"

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==Origins==
 
==Origins==
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Forum World Features was set up in 1965. It grew out of a previous CIA funded operation called [[Forum Information Services]], which was run by the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom]]. <ref>‘Crozier replies to Guardian’, ''The Guardian'', 31 Dec 1976</ref> It would appear that Forum World Features was created to shift that earlier operation after the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom|Congress's]] lead magazine ''[[Encounter]]'' had come under suspicion. <ref>Steve Weissman, 'The CIA Makes the News', in Philip Agee and Louis Wolf (Eds.) ''Dirty Work: C.I.A. in Western Europe'' (New York: Dorset Press, 1978) p.206</ref>
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Forum World Features was part of a world wide CIA propaganda operation overseen by [[Kermit Roosevelt]], the CIA agent who had engineered the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953. Roosevelt approached wealthy American families asking for money to fund CIA propaganda operations abroad, asking: 'Are you patriotic?' <ref>Brian Freemantle, ''CIA: The Honourable Company'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189</ref> One man who agreed was the millionaire businessman [[John Hay Whitney]], a former U.S. Ambassador to Britain and publisher of the ''International Herald Tribune''. He set up a CIA 'propriety' in Delaware called [[Kern House Enterprises]]. With the knowledge and co-operation of British intelligence, [[Kern House Enterprises]] established a London subsidary Kern House Enterprises Ltd. That the British operation was the sole purpose of [[Kern House Enterprises]] is clearly evidenced by the fact that the British subsidiary was based at Kern House, 61-62 Lincoln's Inn Fields. <ref>Brian Freemantle, ''CIA: The Honourable Company'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189</ref> The Managing Director of the company was [[Iain Hamilton]], <ref>Brian Freemantle, ''CIA: The Honourable Company'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189</ref> a former editor of the British conservative weekly ''The Spectator''.
 
Forum World Features was part of a world wide CIA propaganda operation overseen by [[Kermit Roosevelt]], the CIA agent who had engineered the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953. Roosevelt approached wealthy American families asking for money to fund CIA propaganda operations abroad, asking: 'Are you patriotic?' <ref>Brian Freemantle, ''CIA: The Honourable Company'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189</ref> One man who agreed was the millionaire businessman [[John Hay Whitney]], a former U.S. Ambassador to Britain and publisher of the ''International Herald Tribune''. He set up a CIA 'propriety' in Delaware called [[Kern House Enterprises]]. With the knowledge and co-operation of British intelligence, [[Kern House Enterprises]] established a London subsidary Kern House Enterprises Ltd. That the British operation was the sole purpose of [[Kern House Enterprises]] is clearly evidenced by the fact that the British subsidiary was based at Kern House, 61-62 Lincoln's Inn Fields. <ref>Brian Freemantle, ''CIA: The Honourable Company'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189</ref> The Managing Director of the company was [[Iain Hamilton]], <ref>Brian Freemantle, ''CIA: The Honourable Company'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189</ref> a former editor of the British conservative weekly ''The Spectator''.
  

Revision as of 08:19, 19 January 2009

Forum World Features was a London based CIA propaganda operation which operated as a professional news service from 1965 to 1974. It was run by the anti-communist crusader Brian Crozier.

Origins

Forum World Features was set up in 1965. It grew out of a previous CIA funded operation called Forum Information Services, which was run by the Congress for Cultural Freedom. [1] It would appear that Forum World Features was created to shift that earlier operation after the Congress's lead magazine Encounter had come under suspicion. [2]

Forum World Features was part of a world wide CIA propaganda operation overseen by Kermit Roosevelt, the CIA agent who had engineered the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953. Roosevelt approached wealthy American families asking for money to fund CIA propaganda operations abroad, asking: 'Are you patriotic?' [3] One man who agreed was the millionaire businessman John Hay Whitney, a former U.S. Ambassador to Britain and publisher of the International Herald Tribune. He set up a CIA 'propriety' in Delaware called Kern House Enterprises. With the knowledge and co-operation of British intelligence, Kern House Enterprises established a London subsidary Kern House Enterprises Ltd. That the British operation was the sole purpose of Kern House Enterprises is clearly evidenced by the fact that the British subsidiary was based at Kern House, 61-62 Lincoln's Inn Fields. [4] The Managing Director of the company was Iain Hamilton, [5] a former editor of the British conservative weekly The Spectator.

Kern House Enterprises established Forum World Features, the full title of which was Kern House Enterprises (Forum World Features) Ltd. According to Steve Weissman, Forum World Features was established to replace an earlier news service set up by another CIA front group, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, after the latter's lead publication Encounter had come under suspicion. [6]

In 1965 Brian Crozier was appointed chairman of the company. Brian Crozier was a journalist and fervant anti-communist who had worked for the Economist and the BBC. [7] He was assisted by John Tusa - later to become head of the BBC's World Service. Tusa, who was reportedly unaware of the CIA connection, resigned after an argument over editorial policy. [8]

Activities

News service

Forum World Features, was ostensibly a small commercial news service, selling weekly packets of stories to as many as 50 newspapers around the world, including at one time about thirty in the U.S. According to The Observer ‘Forum bought articles from a wide range of journalists and placed them in English language newspapers. Many of them were innocuous in order to retain the agency’s credibility as a bona fide news syndicate. But others, particularly those aimed at Asia, were heavily slanted towards support for the US cause in Vietnam’ [9] In his 1976 essay 'The CIA Makes the News', Steve Weissman writes:

...the CIA could easily slip in straight American propaganda, especially when it came to the war in Vietnam, or the campaign against the Allende government in Chile. The Agency could also use Forum to send almost anyone anywhere as "a journalist," and to give research and other backup to good friends such as Sir Robert Thompson, the former British security chief in Malaya, and a key advisor to the Americans on Vietnam. Control, of course, remained with the Americans, who had at least one "case officer" in the Forum office — a career CIA man named Robert Gene Gately, who was last seen as a member of the CIA Station in the American Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.[10]

Brian Crozier’s good friend Robert Moss wrote news agency articles for FWF including an article describing Brussels as a ‘centre of subversion’ warning of ‘widespread recruiting by Trotskyite 4th International’, and an interview with the racist British politician Enoch Powell. [11]

Secret financial conduit

According to ‘intelligence sources’ consulted by The Observer FWF was also used designed as a conduit for secret payments to foreign journalists working for the CIA. [12]

Publishing

It also published a journal called Conflict Studies and established a subsidiary company called the Current Affairs Research Services Centre, said to have been a research library. In 1970 the Current Affairs Research Services Centre became the Institute for the Study of Conflict, which also took over publication of Conflict Studies.

FWF also published books with David Higham Associates acting as its literary agent. [13] According to The Guardian FWF started its publishing operation through an arrangement with the publishing house of Secker and Warburg. Secker and Warburg published three books in the ‘World Realities’ series, until the arrangement lapsed in 1969. In 1971 FWF struck up a new relationship with the publishing company of David and Charles in Newton Abbot, Devon. A contract was agreed in February 1972, and the ‘World Realities’ series was renewed. [14]

FWF published a book on Taiwan and negotiated money from the Taiwan government prior to the book being written. Iain Hamilton had told the Taiwan government that they would want to purchase a considerable number of copies of the book because the work would be ‘objective’. [15]

In the course of 1973-4 FWF’s publishing activities were transferred to a new company Rossiter Publications Ltd, which was originally Bridoon (Butchers) Ltd before Crozier changed its name. [16]

Funding

The older CIA front group the Congress for Cultural Freedom provided an initial “surge fund” after which funding came from the CIA via Delaware based Kern House Enterprises, headed initially by John Hay Whitney. In 1966 Whitney’s charity had provided $225,000 to the Congress for Cultural Freedom. [17] In 1968 Richard Mellon Scaife agreed to replace John Hay Whitney as the head of the parent firm of Forum World Features. [18] Money to support Forum World Features's publishing activities came from the National Strategy Information Center in New York. [19] The accounts for FWF in 1972 noted that if the Kern House subsidy was withdrawn “it would seriously damage our financial viability.” [20]

Forum World Features exposed

Steve Weissman's 1976 essay 'The CIA makes the News' provides a contemporary viewpoint on the exposure of this operation. For Weisman the first inkling about Crozier emerged in April 1975, when a team of British journalists from the TV series World in Action went to Washington to do a story on the CIA. The team uncovered a memo which purported to have come from inside CIA headquarters:

The memo appeared to have been written in May 1968; it was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence (at the time Richard Helms), and it gave "an operational summary" of a CIA propaganda outfit located in London and called Forum World Features (FWF). "In its first two years," the memo explained, "FWF has provided the United States with a significant means to counter Communist propaganda, and has become a respected feature service well on the way to a position of prestige in the journalism world."...The memo — which proved to be authentic — also mentioned in a handwritten note that Forum was "run with the knowledge and cooperation of British Intelligence". The editor of "World in Action" decided that it was too hot to handle on TV, it filtered down to the London news and entertainment weekly Time Out, and from there to the pages of the Guardian, the Irish Times, the Washington Post and beyond. [21]

According to The Observer FWF ‘closed abruptly' in July 1975, six months before the Congressional hearings into the CIA propaganda operations were due to begin. [22]

Resources

Notes

  1. ↑ ‘Crozier replies to Guardian’, The Guardian, 31 Dec 1976
  2. ↑ Steve Weissman, 'The CIA Makes the News', in Philip Agee and Louis Wolf (Eds.) Dirty Work: C.I.A. in Western Europe (New York: Dorset Press, 1978) p.206
  3. ↑ Brian Freemantle, CIA: The Honourable Company (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189
  4. ↑ Brian Freemantle, CIA: The Honourable Company (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189
  5. ↑ Brian Freemantle, CIA: The Honourable Company (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.189
  6. ↑ Steve Weissman, 'The CIA Makes the News', in Philip Agee and Louis Wolf (Eds.) Dirty Work: C.I.A. in Western Europe (New York: Dorset Press, 1978) p.206
  7. ↑ ‘CROZIER, Brian Rossiter’, Who's Who 2009, A & C Black, 2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2008
  8. ↑ Richard Norton-Taylor, 'With the right on his side', The Guardian, 4 August 1993
  9. ↑ Ian Mather, ‘Secret Service story led to deport’, The Observer, 21 November 1976, p.1
  10. ↑ Steve Weissman, 'The CIA Makes the News', in Philip Agee and Louis Wolf (Eds.) Dirty Work: C.I.A. in Western Europe (New York: Dorset Press, 1978) p.206
  11. ↑ ‘Only the views we want you to read’, The Guardian, 20 December 1976
  12. ↑ Ian Mather, ‘Secret Service story led to deport’, The Observer, 21 November 1976, p.1
  13. ↑ ’Only the views we want you to read’, The Guardian, 20 December 1976
  14. ↑ ’Only the views we want you to read’, The Guardian, 20 December 1976
  15. ↑ ’Only the views we want you to read’, The Guardian, 20 December 1976
  16. ↑ ‘Crozier replies to Guardian’, The Guardian, 31 Dec 1976
  17. ↑ ‘Crozier replies to Guardian’, The Guardian, 31 Dec 1976
  18. ↑ Ira Chinoy and Robert G. Kaiser, 'Decades of Contributions to Conservatism', Washington Post, 2 May 1999
  19. ↑ Brian Freemantle, CIA: The Honourable Company (London: Michael Joseph, 1983) p.190
  20. ↑ ’Only the views we want you to read’, The Guardian, 20 December 1976
  21. ↑ Steve Weissman, 'The CIA Makes the News', in Philip Agee and Louis Wolf (Eds.) Dirty Work: C.I.A. in Western Europe (New York: Dorset Press, 1978) p.205-6
  22. ↑ Ian Mather, ‘Secret Service story led to deport’, The Observer, 21 November 1976, p.1
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