The Hidden Role of the CIA at Popular Mechanics
March 17, 2005
A brutal purge of the senior staff at
Popular Mechanics preceded the publication of last month's scandalous
propaganda piece about 9-11. Pulling the strings is the grand dame of Hearst
Magazines and behind the scene is her obscure husband - a veteran propaganda
expert and former special assistant to the director of the C.I.A.
The Reichstag fire, a key event in
German history, and the steps that followed en suite leading to the Nazi
dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, provide remarkable precedents for what occurred in
the
Likewise, a month after 9-11 the U.S.
Congress passed, without even reading, similar emergency legislation: the Bush
administration's USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. The pre-prepared massive security
act's unabbreviated title is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism."
Another parallel is seen in the way
George W. Bush and Hitler came to power. Bush obtained the presidency in 2001
through a Supreme Court decision after a seriously flawed and un-counted
election, while Hitler secured the German chancellorship through elections in
November 1932 in which the Nazi Party failed to win an outright majority.
Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph
Goebbels, is thought to have let arsonists into the parliament building through
a tunnel leading from the official residence of Hermann Goering, Reichstag
president and Hitler's chief minister. Goering then presided over the official
investigation, which blamed the communists. In a similar manner, the Bush
administration openly opposed an independent investigation of 9-11 and fixed
blame on Osama Bin Laden and 19 Arab terrorists. Based on this official, but
unproven, explanation for 9-11 the
"DISINFORMATION AND DECEPTION"
"Ninety-five percent of the work of
intelligence agencies around the world is disinformation and deception," Andreas
von Bülow, former parliamentary official responsible for the budget for
Like Nazi Germany of 1933, American
newsstands today carry a mainstream magazine dedicated to pushing the
government's version of 9-11 while viciously smearing independent researchers as
"extremists" who "peddle fantasies" and make "poisonous claims." The magazine
pushing the government's 9-11 propaganda, Popular Mechanics (PM), is
published by the Hearst family. Its March cover story, "Debunking 9-11 Lies,"
has been exposed by credible researchers to contain numerous distortions and
flawed conclusions.
I revealed that Benjamin Chertoff, the
25-year-old "senior researcher" who authored the 9-11 article, is related to
Michael Chertoff, the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS). The PM article illustrates how a propaganda method, used by
dictatorships, is now being employed by the
While Chertoff is the "czar" of DHS, he
is not sovereign at PM or Hearst Magazines, its corporate parent. The president
of Hearst Magazines, one of the world's largest publishers of monthly magazines
with 18
Black is a former president and
publisher of USA Today. In 1983, Black was made president of the new
newspaper published by Gannett. The following year she was made publisher and
soon became a member of Gannett's board of directors. "Despite her efforts,"
her biography reads, "USA Today did not show an operating profit in the
eight years that Black was there." The newspaper's non-profitability
notwithstanding, Gannett paid Black $600,000 a year for her efforts. USA
Today reportedly had a circulation of 1.8 million when Black left in 1991.
USA Today is often given away free of charge.
Black left USA Today to become
president and chief executive of the nascent Newspaper Association of America (NAA),
formed on June 1, 1992. She then became the leading spokesperson and lobbyist
for the nation's newspaper industry. Black's position at the NAA carried
"considerable political heft," Paul Farhi of the Washington Post wrote,
"given that the 1,400 members of her organization control the nation's editorial
pages."
In 1995, for an annual salary reported
to be "in excess of $1 million," Black was hired by Hearst Corp. to head its
magazine division.
Named by Fortune magazine as one
of the Most Powerful Women in American Business, Black sits on the boards of
Hearst Corp., the Advertising Council, IBM, and Coca-Cola. She is also a member
of the Council on Foreign Relations.
It is often said that USA Today
is controlled by the CIA, which, like the paper, is based in
President Jimmy Carter made
In the 1980s,
THE COUP AT POPULAR MECHANICS
In the months leading up to the Chertoff
article in PM, a brutal takeover occurred at the magazine. In September 2004,
Joe Oldham, the magazine's former editor-in-chief was replaced by James B.
Meigs, who came to PM with a "deputy," Jerry Beilinson, from National
Geographic Adventure. In October, a new creative director replaced PM's
21-year veteran who was given ninety minutes to clear out of his office.
A former senior editor at PM, who is
forbidden from openly discussing the coup at PM, told me that the former
creative director was abruptly told to leave and given severance pay of two
weeks wages for every year spent at PM. "Three or four" people have been
similarly dismissed every month since, he said. He said he was astounded that
the coup at PM had not been reported in the mainstream media.
PM has long been a supporter of the