-Caveat Lector-
Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient! - An Insider’s Look at Supermarket
Tabloids
Jim Hogshire(C) 1997 - All Rights Reserved
Feral House 2532 Lincoln Blvd. Suite 359
Venice, California, 90291
ISBN 0-922915-42-3
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An EXCELLANT book, highly recommended. Lotsa pix of the tabs.
Om
K
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4
Domestic Tranquility
How Tabs Support the Status Quo
In the long run only he will achieve basic results in influencing public
opinion who is able to reduce problems to the simplest terms.
—Joseph Goebbels, 1942
As chapter 2 suggests, the use of supermarket tabloids as tools for espionage
and the dissemination of propaganda seems exceedingly natural. Although they
are widely read, they remain invisible to the mainstream media. In a time when
subliminal advertising and the subtle effects of violence on TV warrant
serious debate, tabloid content remains unexamined and ignored. Millions of
people claim to never pick up a tabloid, yet the
y are exposed to the headlines as they pass through checkout counters. As
outlined earlier, merely reading a headline has its effects.
Once again, the tabloids' anonymity is key. Even people who look for signs of
media conspiracy to shape public opinion do not address tabloids. This
publishing realm has the perfect camouflage—it's right in front of our noses.
In 1984 a reporter visited the offices of the National Examiner to try to
expose its unethical practices. Editor Billy Burt allowed her full run of the
office. She could speak to anyone at all and look at whatever she wanted as
long as she didn't interfere with people doing their work.
On a hunch, she decided that a recent story about a boy born on a
rollercoaster was a fake. She researched the story but could find no trace of
it in any other newspaper. She called Burt on it, and he quickly told her that
the story had been taken from a stringer in Brazil. She doggedly used the
resources of her paper to try to track down the story, but came up with
nothing. When she presented this to Burt he asked her to come into his office,
where he shut the door.
"Look, I'll tell you a secret," he said in a sheepish tone. "That story's
about 30 years old."
Aha! There was her answer. She couldn't find the incident because it was too
old to show up on any of her databases. She swallowed Burt's ploy completely.
A good reporter, she thought she had run her quarry to ground. There are few
more gullible than a journalist.
The Not so-Harmless Side of Tabs
Some of the tabloids' activities parallel those of Readers Digest, which has
been linked to the CIA. In 1988, Covert Action Information Bulletin No. 29
documented the magazine's connections to propaganda efforts, starting when
copies of the Digest were air-dropped behind enemy lines during World War II.
The article explains the links between the wholesome Reader's Digest and
various American "psychological warfare" agents.
Like the Digest, tabloids are considered harmless. Nobody questions why
tabloids and the Digest expend large sums of money on stories they lever
print, or which could have been written after making a few phone calls. Why
Reader's Digest—a magazine supposedly devoted to reprints—would maintain a
well-staffed Hong Kong office makes little sense. Its maintenance of other
offices around the world is suspicious, specially its former Havana offices,
which served as the focal point for its Central American editions.
In fact, the more innocuous the format, the more insidious the proaganda.
Readers Digest has the largest circulation of any publication in he world. It
is pro-American and pro-Christian. Its editors and pubishers are notoriously
jingoistic. At one time American flag decals were dispensed to every employee.
The Digest has been a useful outlet for disinformation, especially about the
supposed Communist threat. Ronald Reagan even cited it as a source of
information about the Sandinista government in Nicaragua! As if the man in
charge of the Contras needed bolstering from reading material normally
associated with musty dentist offices.
Tabloids—especially the Enquire~spend tons of money on foreign stories,
sending reporters all over the world for no discernible reason other than to
gather information. They may claim to be looking for lost dinosaurs in the
jungles of Zaire or for ancient astronauts in Peru. But none of these stories
require on-the-ground reporting. Curiously, many of the sites are close to
hard-to-monitor war zones or areas controlled by guerrilla movements.
The people who run and staff the tabs are anything but stupid. Many are former
editors and reporters for the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time and
Newsweek. American Media co-owner Michael Boylan is a former photo editor for
the New York Times. Eddie Clontz, editor of the outrageous Weekly World News,
used to be an articles editor at the Pulitzer-Prize-winning St. Petersburg
Times.
Many tabloid reporters are bright, accomplished investigators and writers.
Glen Troelstrup, who worked for the National Examiner for years, covered the
Vietnam War for UPI and Newsweek [before becoming an award-winning
investigative reporter for the Denver Post. Tabloids also tend to hire the
stereotypical transplanted Brit reporter, whose boorish and ruthless ways have
become legend—Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous host Robin Leach got his start
in America as an editor at the Globe.
Although pushy tabloid reporters are very effective at discovering well-kept
secrets, they are often portrayed as too loutish to be involved in anything as
subtle as politics. Still, it's interesting how often these guys pop up in
curious places, from Monaco to Uganda. Being viewed as a lout might just
provide the perfect cover. Like the old-time "house Negro" on Southern
plantations, people will talk freely around them, believing them to be too
dumb or too inconsequential to pose a problem. However, these reporters are
famous for the lengths they will go to get a story. The use of disguises, fake
credentials, bribes and other unwholesome methods of obtaining information are
the same as those used by espionage agencies.
In mainstream politics the role of celebrity journalist is almost identical to
that of politician. David Gergen rotates between stints as a Clinton aide to
news "commentator" on PBS and network TV news shows. Michael Ledeen switches
between jobs as a spy and conspirator for a secret foreign policy, to a news
"commentator" for the Wall Street Journal and the conservative Weekly
Standard, to a member of a "think tank" cranking out papers that will guide
executive policy. Other celebrity journalist/politicians include Henry
Kissinger, Dan Rather and William Safire. Certainly none of them would admit
to associating with anyone connected with supermarket tabloids—even though
they do.
Closer inspection of the people who own, write for and run the tabloids shows
an astonishingly influential cast of characters. Les Aspin, the former mighty
chairman of the Armed Forces committee, was once an Enquirer contributor.
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, of CNN's Evans B Novak, were once regular
contributors to the National Enquirer. This is not something they list on
their resumes anymore.
Jack Anderson, foe of Richard Nixon, has sold information to the National
Enquirer. Like a politician admitting to a little marijuana smoking, Anderson
now regrets his work for the Enquirer. Perhaps it was a youthful indiscretion.
He needed the money. Yet Anderson maintains close ties to the same
politicians, millionaires, and military and industry figures that associate
with the owners and editors of the supermarket tabloids. One wonders what
information a serious political journalist like Anderson could possibly have
that would interest the National Enquirer. Anderson won't say.
Other movers and shakers are not so shy about their ties to the tabloids. When
Enquirer founder Generoso Pope died in 1988, none other than former Secretary
of Defense Melvin Laird gave the eulogy at the funeral. And why not? During
the Vietnam War, Laird brought Pope to visit the White House, where he met
with President Nixon and a group of grocery store chain executives. Until
then, the southern supermarket chain Winn-Dixie had refused to carry the
tabloid. After seeing the kind of clout Pope wielded, the paper was welcomed
in every supermarket checkout line in the country.
Billy Graham, a regular at all the tabs as well as at many conservative
mainstream dailies, is proud of his connection with the - National Enquirer.
In 1972 he told Reuters, "In my judgment, part of the success of the National
Enquirer has been that there are millions of Americans who want clean,
accurate reporting—but who like to see it in headlines. The National Enquirer
has filled a vacuum. It also carries a number of religious-oriented stories,"
Graham said, confusing the word religious with Christian, "that I think have a
tremendous appeal to people of all ages at this particular time of religious
awakening in the country."
In 1985 Graham said, "Thanks to the Enquirer, I've been able to touch the
lives of millions."
Billy Graham, while often portrayed as a buffoon, does seem to get around. He
was the first preacher allowed to tour the Soviet Union, and he testified as a
character witness at John Connally's trial for bribery in the 1970s.
Planting Stories
Estimates of the CIA's propaganda budget show it to be larger than the
combined budgets of Reuters, United Press International, and the Associated
Press. In The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Victor Marchetti and John
Marks extrapolated approximate amounts of money and numbers of people devoted
to propaganda. They determined that in the early 1970s at least 3,000 people
were employed either on salary or on contract by the CIA to infiltrate and to
influence media around the world. As economics Professor Sean Garvasi states
in Covert Action Information Bulletin, the CIA may be considered the largest
"news" organization in the world.
In 1977 Carl Bernstein reported in Rolling Stone that about 400 American media
people were secretly working for the CIA. The same year, the New York Times
practically bragged about the assistance it had given to the agency over the
years, even naming editors and reporters who had participated.
According to a year-long Penthouse investigation, Copley Press was discovered
to have at least 23 intelligence agents masquerading as reporters on its
payroll. The company owns a number of newspapers in the United States and the
worldwide Copley News Service, to which most supermarket tabloids subscribe.
Copley Press' relationship with intelligence agencies seems to have stemmed
from a meeting between President Eisenhower and James S. Copley. Documents
obtained by Penthouse confirm that Copley volunteered his news service to be
"the eyes and ears" for the CIA and other "intelligence services." At
subsequent meetings Ike directed Copley to provide U.S. agents with documents
establishing suitable covers for American intelligence operatives. The
relationship between the perennial money-losing"news organization" and the CIA
conti Ònued into the 1980s. James Copley curried favor with the editors and
publishers of right-wing (i.e., U.S.-sympathetic) newspapers, most notably
with Agustin Edwards, publisher of the Chilean daily El Mercurio.
Copley News Service deployed agents around the world and even among American
citizens. It released disinformation and other bogus news about perceived
enemies, which were followed by incriminating editorials. Such tactics were
used against the daughter of Daniel Ellsburg's attorney to imply that she was
a Communist. The agency also planted editorials denouncing the Black Panthers.
The value of controlling the media, no matter how "trivial," is inestimable.
In a world where a Johnny Carson joke about a supposed toilet paper shortage
caused a real shortage during the oil embargo in the mid-1970s, no media forum
is too inconsequential. As shown with Copley News Service, only a few of a
company's employees need to be involved to have it function as an arm of an
intelligence agency. Such an arrangement can be made from the top down, thus
limiting the number of people with explicit knowledge of ties to the CIA or to
any other outside organization.
Both the CIA and the Soviet KGB (and their subsidiary intelligence agencies)
have accused and exposed each other of"planting" various stories in the
foreign press to influence the masses. In the early 1990s, stories of American
baby brokers stealing or purchasing children of impoverished Central American
people were blamed on old Soviet propaganda. In 1989 I wrote a bogus story for
the National Examiner in which children at a South American "organ farm" were
forced to work as field hands until it was time to part them out.
In 1985 the CIA was discovered to have published and distributed to villagers
throughout Sandinista-controlled Nicaragua a booklet on how to commit
industrial sabotage and attack police stations. During the Cold War, South
America and Africa were constant battlegrounds between rival superpower spy
agencies for the "hearts and minds" of the people who lived there.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, law enforcement agencies in this country
were accused of fomenting bogus "satanic" crime waves or spates of mass child
abuse, which resulted in widespread fear and horrendously damaging
prosecutions. Whether the media is actively complicit or not, it certainly
makes such deceptions easier. Police officers say they believe Satanists are
at work, the news media hypes it, and soon the public perceives a problem
without any evidence. If the deception is successful enough in cowing the
public, people may begin to tolerate certain abuses of their rights to stave
off the manufactured menace. Controlling mass media can mean the ability to
shape public opinion, especially when these opinions are reinforced by"polls"
undertaken by the same media outlets that use the results to bolster further
"news" stories.
Tabloid stories, in their bipolar world of darkness and light, are often home
to stories that help demonize establishment foes. Fidel Castro, Ayatollah
Khomeini, the Soviets, Saddam Hussein, along with gays and blacks have all
been cast at one time as fearsome agents of the devil. The forces of good are
just as clear-cut. Police may stumble from time to time and politicians may
introduce pork barrel legislation, but they are never truly corrupt. U.S.
military boys are always portrayed as knights in shining armor. Troops
stationed in Saudi Arabia were even blessed with visitations by Elvis and
Jesus Christ.
Reporting and Spying Techniques
Tab reporting methods borrow techniques used by intelligence agencies to
gather information and have almost nothing in common with what is thought of
as modern journalism. Tab reporters do not depend on press releases or PR
people to give them stories. Instead, they are sent out to collect as much
information as possible, which they hand to editors who "control" them. All
information is sourced, dated and filed in libraries staffed by researchers
and tape transcribers. Planting moles and using decoys, hidden cameras and
surveillance are the norm for tabloid reporting. So, too, is the practice of
paying for information. Like spies, tab reporters know that once people accept
money, they are linked to you, giving you leverage should they ever want to
keep the relationship secret. Speaking of the company's flagship publication,
Tony Fromt, vice president of Globe Communications, said, "Globe is one of the
major practitioners of checkbook journalism in America and we make no
apologies. We'll do anything to get a jump on our rivals, provided it's within
the law."
Mainstream articles about tabloids never fail to mention the lengths to which
their reporters and photographers will go to get a story or a picture.
Photographers will helicopter over people's homes and use enormous long-range
lenses and infrared filters to catch people who thought they had privacy. Tab
reporters will buy airplane seats near their quarry just to eavesdrop on
conversations. Sometimes they stage car "accidents," ramming someone's car to
get a word with that person. Tabloid reporters routinely impersonate priests,
bellboys, long-lost relatives—anyone to get a story.
The stakeout is matched only by those done by detectives. Tab photographers
will spend a week in underbrush outside the Betty Ford Clinic to get a shot of
Liz Taylor. If the situation calls for more intensive or long-term
surveillance, tab reporters are dispatched in teams to cover all points of
entry and exit. The house next door is likely to become a field headquarters
for the stakeout team, which communicates with tiny walkie-talkies, listens
through walls with parabolic microphones, and tails people with three or more
cars to avoid detection. Tab reporters have hidden in dumpsters, disguised
themselves as llamas, and broken into countless houses to get close to their
prey.
On an assignment for the Globe in the early '90s, I rented a limousine and
driver along with a van. After driving up from Seattle, I practically lived in
the parking lot of the Vancouver airport for five days waiting for one of
Sharon Stone's boyfriends to show up. My job? To tell him Sharon had sent me
and to get him into the limo. There were at least two other people watching
his movements in the airport, two more people inside the airline, and another
two tailing him in L.A. All of us were just waiting for him to go home so we
could confirm that he knew Sharon Stone.
When I got him in the car, he got skittish and foolishly took out his cellular
phone and called his voice mail. As I was recording everything with a tape
recorder, I also captured his "secret" access code as he punched it in. Even
when he realized something was wrong, he continued to give away information
about himself, his relationship with Sharon Stone, and other parts of vhis
personal life. Within five minutes of dropping him off at a hotel lobby to
meet a woman there, all of these details were transmitted to an editor in Los
Angeles.
Needless to say, this kind of spying is practiced really one other place.
pp.49-58
=====
8
Gangsters, Spies and the National Enquirer
It's easy to find overt connections between the tabloids and the CIA, the
Mafia and other highly motivated and political organizations. The Enquirer's
founder and longtime publisher, Generoso Pope, worked as a CIA officer and was
intimately connected with Mafia figures like Frank Costello, who in turn was
closely tied to anti-Castro Cubans, the CIA and Israeli intelligence services.
The CIA, Sophia Loren and the Mafia were the three topics said to be forbidden
at the National Enquirer ú during Pope's reign.
Pope "invented" the supermarket tab by becoming the first tabloid publisher to
sell in grocery store checkout lines. The National Enquirer set the tone for
all the tabs that followed. Even the phrase "like something out of the
National Enquirer" has come to mean something farfetched, unbelievable or
sensational.
Mainstream reporters "covering" the tabloids loved to interview Pope because
he knew what they had come for and he gave it to them in spades. He was the
archetypal self-made man, son of an Italian immigrant who came to America with
just $4 in his pocket. By his wits, shrewd analysis of his readership and dumb
luck, Pope was able to transform an ailing and doomed New York rag into a
nationwide magazine with a circulation that topped 6.5 million in the early
1970s (also in 1977, when Elvis died). His penchant for getting the story at
any cost is legendary. He thought nothing of sen æding a team of 20 or 30
reporters to cover a Hollywood scandal. He never winced at shelling out tens
of thousands of dollars for a story, then killing it at the last second
because he just didn't feel it was right for the Enquirer.
He offered bonuses to his already highly paid staffers if they came up with
the week's most far-out idea. He lavished his reporters with princely expense
accounts, paid exorbitant sums for information and still never fell prey to
the evils of filthy lucre. Gene Pope lived for the Enquirer. Far more
interested in expanding the paper's readership than its profits, he pulled out
all the stops to seek out and keep customers. Although his $12 million annual
TV ad campaign increased circulation, it was not cost-effective. (It was axed
upon his death in 1988.) "It was like stapling three dollars to the last
150,000 copies," Michael Boylan complained, once he had taken over. Pope
didn't care.
"I can eat only so many hamburgers," Pope would say when questioned why he
didn't seek to expand his empire or pamper himself. He drove beat-up cars to
work, chain-smoked Kents and worked six days a week. Pope's gardener told
visiting reporters his boss would sometimes come out in his pajamas with a
ruler to make sure the grass around the Enquirer was exactly four inches high.
Pope ran a tight ship.
Lantana, Florida, the town that hosted his paper, benefited from his
extravagant generosity. He funded local charities and hospitals and blew more
than a million dollars each Christmas to have "the world's tallest Christmas
tree" brought from a special railroad car from Washington State.
This is just one side of Generoso Pope Jr.—the official side—as manicured as
his lawn. He could be a hard boss. He approved or rejected every story idea
that went into his paper, and he scanned each issue for typos or layout
errors. A slacker could not get by for long. Pope's habit of firing anyone who
failed in his assigned task was as well-known as his habit of rehiring them
once they had been exiled for a few months in Palm Beach County. This
encompassed the "dark side"' of Pope, the ugly truth reporters were allowed to
ferret out. It was not the official Enquirer line—not officially.
Outside reporters writing about the Enquirer found it relatively easy to
discover the enormous newsroom pressure to "get the story." They saw the
evidence of mass and capricious firings, of deliberate humiliation between
rivals. Pope used to pit "teams" of reporters against each other for the same
story, with the winners getting to keep their jobs. The current editor-in-
chief, Iain Calder, is so cold-hearted that employees call him "Ice Pick" to
his Kface. Calder brags that "at least it shows [I] won't stab you in the
back." The intense competition has led to heavy alcohol abuse and suicide
among some tabloid reporters.
All this "dirt" was spoon-fed to mainstream reporters.
By giving outsiders juicy, even mean things to say about him, Pope placated
them and they left him alone. 60 Minutes showed up to "expose" the Enquirer
and its quirky owner more than once, only to be fed a little bit of damning
information and sent packing. Never once did anyone look into Pope's
background or question whether what he told them was the truth. Mainstream
reporters proved themselves as gullible as anyone else. Starstruck by Pope and
the glittering image of the Enquirer, no one thought to verify his words or
find out if there was, perhaps, another story besides the one they were
telling.
Behind the Cover
Another story about Pope parallels the one normally told about him. This
chapter will enumerate interesting facts about the man and his newspaper and
let the reader draw his or her conclusions. Just as I challenge the assumption
that supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer are of little or no
consequence in American society, I also challenge the idea that Generoso
Pope—and indeed anyone who owns or seeks to own a supermarket tabloid—is or
was an inconsequential buffoon.
Generoso Pope's father was an Italian immigrant, but whether or not he really
came to the United States broke is hearsay. Pope Sr. was the founder of the
Italian-language newspaper Il Progresso, which influenced large numbers of
Italian Americans in America—especially in and around New York City and along
the East Coast. The paper was of sufficient interest to the U.S. government
that the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the predecessor of the CIA) kept
it under close watch during World War II, infiltrating meetings attended by
Pope Sr. and keeping a sharp eye on its editorial policies. Pope Sr. was
rumored to be a fascist sympathizer, but reports to the government showed he
was a staunch supporter of Italy's king and welcomed good relations with the
United States, especially once the fascists had been routed.
During Generoso Pope Jr's life, his connections to the Mob were well-known.
They were mentioned—then skirted—by nearly everyone. Perhaps reporters feared
the consequences of revealing the extent to which Pope was connected to the
Mob. Maybe it seemed enough just to mention the association; after all, it
added to the man's mystique. Maybe reporters thought too highly of the Mafia
or of the U.S. government's espionage agencies to connect them with someone as
laughable as the publisher of a sleazy supermarket tabloid.
If so, then Pope had played them like fiddles. Again.
Generoso Pope was anything but inconsequential. Pope attended high school at
New York's Horace Mann School for Boys with future right-wing lawyer Roy Cohn,
who often had young Gene over for dinner at his mother's house. He then went
to MIT and graduated in 1947 with an engineering degree at the age of 19. He
was something of a prodigy, if not an outright genius.
According to his resume, Pope accomplished all this-while editing II
Progresso. He also served as vice president of the family's sand and gravel
business, characterized as a "racket" by the FBI (which kept files on the Pope
family until at least the '60s). As cited in Pope's self-written biography in
Who's Who, the young engineer went to work for the CIA in 1951.
"I did something called psychological warfare," Pope told reporters, "but I
can't tell you anything more." And he didn't. And neither did they. After all,
he worked for the CIA for just that one year. Nobody probed what he did at the
CIA, and nobody questioned whether someone could drop in on the intelligence
community, do a little psychological warfare, "become disenchanted with the
bureaucracy," and then drop out, severing all ties with the agency.
Considering that Pope's next step was to purchase a newspaper in 1952, it
seems highly unlikely that the 25-year-old spy was merely job-hopping. He
supposedly financed the purchase of the Hearst-owned New York Enquirer for
$75,000, putting up $20,000 as a down payment. The 20 grand was said to have
come variously from a bank, a banker, a friend, or mobster Frank Costello. In
Pope's words the loan was at "zero interest." He claimed he was unaware that
the paper was a week away from bankruptcy at the time he bought it. So much
for the shrewd investor.
Despite the bad financial health of his paper, he borrowed $250,000 in
personal loans over the next five years. By 1957 things began to stabilize; by
1958 the paper was beginning to show a profit. His business sense seems to
have had less to do with shrewdness than with good connections, especially for
money. A penniless person simply cannot borrow a quarter of a million dollars
over five years without any collateral—unless he wasn't borrowing at all.
Generoso Pope's links with government agencies and known mobsters is
undisputed. In 1950 the New York Times reported that Pope lost his title as
honorary police deputy in the city, which entitled him to special parking
privileges and snappy salutes from police officers. Apparently, Acting Mayor
Impellitteri was punishing Pope for his role as an "emissary of Frank
Costello, gambler and racketeer" and for publicly saying he was backing New
York Supreme Court Justice Ferdinand Pecora for mayor—just as Frank Costello
was. Impellitteri was explicit that it was Pope's pro-Costello, pro-Pecora
remarks that got him booted off the ceremonial police force.
Pope's enduring relationship with Costello, and by extension, the gangster's
associates, helps clarify aspects of Pope's career that would otherwise be
chalked up to blind luck or uncanny business acumen. That Pope was close to
Costello is clear: Costello was godfather to Pope's children. On 2 May 1957,
the night a hit man botched his assassination of Costello, Pope had just
finished dinner with Frank and a mysterious character named Phillip Kennedy.
The bullet failed to penetrate the mobster's head, and neither Costello,
Kennedy, nor Pope said they saw a thing.
Other Mafia figures Pope admitted acquaintance with were Joseph Profaci and
Albert Anastasia. Anastasia was gunned down in his barber's chair shortly
after Costello's head got creased during an assassination attempt.
In 1976, in a lame attempt to investigate Enquirer-Mafia connections, CBS's
Mike Wallace asked Pope during a 60 Minutes episode if Mafia money had
bankrolled the Enquirer. Pope told Wallace, "I think it's pretty obvious to
anyone that understands or reads or knows anything about this organization
[the Mafia], whatever it is, that if there were [Mafia money behind the
Enquirer] there still would be. Because they never let go once they get their
hooks into you, and that obviously has not happened."
Tough investigative journalist Wallace seemed satisfied with the "obviousness"
Pope claimed. Pope's insight into how lasting a Mafia connection is was not
considered any further.
Pope and the CIA
In 1950, a year before Gene Pope entered the CIA, the spy agency started the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center of International Studies (MIT-
CIS). In 1952 this center was headed by Max Millikan, director of the CIA's
Office of National Estimates. In 1955 the CIA began "Project Brushfire," in
which Millikan and others studied "the political, psychological, economic and
sociological factors leading to 'peripheral wars."'
The CIA routinely set up operatives in businesses around the world to provide
"deep cover." Such agents can remain dormant for more than ten years. At
times, businesses financed by the CIA have proven so profitable that the deep
cover agent decides to quit working for the CIA even before he has
started—paying back the capital as if it were a loan.
There's no direct evidence that Pope was involved in such a thing, but it is
possible and should be considered. Leaving the CIA is not like quitting a job
at the local car wash.
Pope must have had his enemies, too, as recently uncovered documents show both
he and his father were under investigation for years by the FBI, apparently
because of his extensive Mafia connections. For some reason, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service took an interest in his foreign employees in the
early '80s.
The CIA has files on Generoso Pope, too, but most of them (like those still
held by the FBI) are either impossible to obtain or heavily censored.
Psychological Warfare
Pope freely admitted he worked in psychological warfare, or "psy-ops."
Psychological warfare uses propaganda techniques to influence people's
thoughts and opinions. Media is both the target and the medium of most
propaganda, and newspapers and broadcasting are the most essential forums.
Most hard-sell sales techniques make use of"psy-ops" to get a balking customer
to make a purchase. The same techniques can be used to "turn" a secret agent,
extract information, or convince someone of a certain political idea. Related
techniques can be used to disseminate a general opinion among a population
that serves the interests of the establishment. Red-baiting and spreading the
fear of Communism, for instance, were an important part of domestic propaganda
in the United States in the '50s and '60s. Before the first bomb was dropped
on Baghdad in January 1991, sophisticated and not-so-sophisticated techniques
had already prepared the American public to accept and endorse the bombing.
Whether one is selling vacuum cleaners or political indoctrination, an
understanding of"psychological warfare" is necessary for success. And the CIA
has done nearly as much as Madison Avenue in exploring ways of manipulating
people's emotions.
In the '50s and '60s, when Pope's Enquirer was experiencing its most
remarkable growth, the CIA did its most vigorous research into "mind control,"
some of which included bizarre and quite cruel "experiments" on unwitting
people. The ability to control the thoughts of individuals and the masses was
very much on the CIA agenda. Its research led to the suggestion, if not
construction, of all kinds of James Bond-type gear, from electronic implants
to LSD delivered by spray cans and in the payloads of mortar shells. Methods
for "brainwashing," especially for planting subconscious suggestions, became
almost a fetish for the CIA. Agents learned much from their experiments. One
of the arts developed during this time was the practice of planting subtle
disinformation among a population to try to steer public opinion.
Questionable Assignments
Pope was not the only tab reporter/editor to have worked for "the company."
Other tab employees claim to have worked for either British or American
intelligence agencies, including one of Pope's first employees, Bill Bates.
Some observers believe the tabloids provide cover jobs for spies around the
world. As one might expect in any propaganda or espionage enterprise, there
are few glaring ties to such organizations. Still, such obvious signs are
there and are backed up by a host of more subtle clues.
Like Readers Digest, the Enquirer has never seemed averse to spending large
amounts of money, and sending reporters into exotic areas for stories that
never make it into print.
In the late '70s reporter Bob Tenney was sent to Katmandu, then up more than
18,000 feet with Sherpa guides supposedly to look for the "abominable
snowman." The paper was candid about admitting Tenney's failed mission. The
Enquirer used that anecdote to support the claim that the paper would not make
up stories, twist or distort facts, or even pay someone for a particularly
juicy quote.
To come back from Nepal after exploring the Himalayas without an abominable
snowman story seems ludicrous. There must have been at least one person
willing to say they'd seen such a thing, probably for a pittance. If not that,
then surely it would have been possible to distort or even, perish the
thought, invent some information. This seems especially true if Pope really
was "a tyrannical bastard," as one of his editors once called him, who fired
anyone who failed to get a story.
There are other things going on in the mountain peaks where the borders of
Pakistan, India and China meet—listening devices and other spy operations,
primarily. Skirmishes between the Pakistani and Indian and Chinese armies
break out occasionally. Might be nice to have someone on the scene from time
to time asking questions about unusual sightings, taking pictures of the area,
learning the roads and paths, and so on.
Former Enquirer reporter John Harris once spent three months in the mid-'70s
traveling the world to "find Utopia." After spending tens of thousands of
dollars visiting places like Uganda (toward the end of Idi Amin's Mossad-
supported reign), Ha rris returned home supposedly empty-handed. It's not
that Harris didn't see anything, and it's not that he didn't write it all
down; he did. But the Enquirer never ran a story on it—not even a story about
how hard it was to find Utopia. It is also possible this same assignment, with
the same no-story results, was repeated at least one other time.
Another Enquirer reporter, Tony Brenna, visited Idi Amin in the 1970s and
witnessed the executions of 17 people who had their heads caved in with a
sledgehammer. Later, Enquirer editors suggested they return to interview Amin
with a psychiatrist posing as a fellow reporter to assess Amin's mental
condition.
It is difficult to imagine why anyone would need to secretly analyze Idi
Amin's mental health. Not only would such an analysis be difficult to perform
by a non-Ugandan, one wonders what the outcome could possibly be during those
days of mayhem. Would reporters write "Amin steady as a rock" or "mass
executions normal behavior"?
The only information gained by an in-person interview with Amin would be
detailed and subtle—probably not at all what tab readers were dying to know. A
person could determine the layout of Amin's home, the length of an airstrip,
the types of food he ate and what time he slept, the direction the doors
opened, the number of bodyguards, and their locations. All this information is
crucial to intelligence agents on covert operations and can be gained only by
on-site observation.
There are other obvious connections between the CIA and Pope. One of the first
reporters hired by the Enquirer was Bill Bates, who was also a former employee
of the OSS. He spent part of World War II behind enemy lines flying low-
altitude bombing missions in Burma. Bates subsequently worked for Rupert
Murdoch's Star. Like all tabloid reporters, editors and photographers, he has
moved freely between the tabs.
Tabs also employ"hardened" reporters who, having covered serious news in
places like Vietnam and Biafra, are presumably acquainted with the cynical
ways in which human tragedy and "news" are used. Such reporters cannot
credibly fall back on the "wacky tab reporter" stereotype to shield them from
closer scrutiny. Their staunch, even extreme, politics should not be
overlooked. Besides the National Review's underground gossip Phil Brennan,
there is also Tom Valentine. Valentine used to be a tabloid reporter for the
National Tattler and now runs a right-wing radio show and writes a column for
the Spotlight—a newspaper known to be variously populist and fascist.
Just as the CIA likes to recruit from Ivy League schools, the Enquirer, too,
had a program to train Yale and Harvard graduates to become tab reporters.
Ostensibly, "Project Whiz Kid" was to show that "ordinary students" could
become trained reporters. I'm not sure the premise was ever in dispute. What
is in dispute, however, is whether Ivy League students could be considered
"ordinary."
Popes Death
In a letter to the editor of the Palm Beach Post shortly after Generoso Pope's
death in October 1988, local resident Eileen M. Hayes had but one complaint.
In the thousands of words the paper published describing Pope's massive
funeral, lavishly praising his contributions to the country, and lionizing him
as a visionary, the Post "failed to find any mention of his most wonderful
gift to the community."
The gift? The National Enquirer Christmas tree and the many fascinating
displays that enchanted the thousands of children and adults when they filed
by—skating bears, Santa's workshop, intricate trains and cable cars amid
colored lights shimmering in the trees.
Alas for Hayes, that Christmas in 1988 was the last to see that famous
Christmas tree. The tree was one of the first things to go when the new owners
took over. "Mr. Pope was Santa Claus," admitted American Media's Boylan, "and
we just can't afford to be."
In June 1989, G.P. Group, a pairing of Macfadden Holdings (named after its
former owner, Bernarr Macfadden) and Boston Ventures Limited Partnership III,
purchased the Enquirer for $412.5 million. Pope's personal fortune was $150
million at the time of his death.
Another money-saving cut instit ¤uted by American Media was the mass firing
of 57 employees in a single afternoon and the obliteration of the Enquirer's
trademark TV ad campaign ("Enquiring Minds"). Pope's death was the end of an
era for the whole community. An interpreter was sent to fire the Spanish-
speaking gardener who had kept the grass exactly four inches high at all times
for Master Pope.
When Pope died, media baron Robert Maxwell was one of a number of
international competitors who wished to purchase the valuable tabloid. Bidders
also included Hachette SA, at the time the world's largest producer of
magazines and reference books.
The German company Bertelsmann AG was after the Enquirer, too. Like Hachette,
Bertelsmann is one of the five biggest media conglomerates in the world. Owned
by the practically invisible Reinhard Mohn, this company has saturated
Germany's media after reaching the limits of that country's law. At the time
of the bidding war, Bertelsmann owned Doubleday, Bantam Books, Dell and the
Literary Guild book club along with RCA and Arista records and 40 magazines.
Six years after Macfadden Holdings (now called American Media) took over the
Enquirer, it went public, disclosing an empire of hundreds of millions of
dollars, more than a dozen publications and worldwide operations. In March
1990, American Media swallowed up its rival, the Star, for a little more than
$400 million. Since then American Media's stock is only rising in price.
pp.95-107
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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