Sensational Memos Lift the Lid on News Control

"It seems that guerrilla warfare is a real thing. Too much looting, assaulting Iraqi women, too much Muslim-bashing. No discipline in the US forces and the commanders have a hard time in controlling their men. Protestors are to be shown to be "die-hard Baathist supporters of the evil Saddam" and show pictures of a "commando" camp with pictures of Saddam and anti-US slogans." (June 12)

Since April, The Barnes Review News web site (www.tbrnews.org) has posted memos like this from an executive at a major TV network to selected News Division staff.

If they are authentic, these memos represent the most important revelation of government deception since the Pentagon Papers, and suggest the "news" is little more than mass psychological control. There are shocking references to cover-ups of government domestic terrorism, SARS, Mad Cow, and events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Iran and much more.

In mid-March TBR Webmaster Walter Storch received an email from a man who claimed to be a mid-level executive at a major U.S. TV network. He said he had "serious doubts" about the strict control of the media by the government.

He sent Storch a disc containing 1500 pages of memos dating back to 2001. All were on corporate stationary signed by the sender and recipients in the News Division.

Storch asked for current directives and was able to ascertain that they were followed both in print and on TV. He posted the memos in excerpt or in full and watched "as ordained news was created before our eyes."

"We are now printing the more outrageous and serious aspects of the incoming papers with the hopes that this will cause serious public relations problems [for] those directly involved," Storch wrote recently.

Named for "revisionist" historian Harry Elmer Barnes, TBR sees accepted history as propaganda by the winners. Presumably the TV executive thought this web site would have the courage to expose contemporary propaganda as well.

The memos so far have created a minor sensation. TBR news gets 3,000-10,000 viewers of this item per day, about half foreign. About 95% of the email response is positive while 5% are from government and press people who are "outraged by the implications. "

The memo writer is probably an executive at a media conglomerate in New York charged with coordinating with government. His directives seem to be followed by other networks and newspapers, although he refers to "unreliable" newspapers (June 2).

He decides what to suppress ("blackout"), what to promote ("puff pieces"), what angle to take on anything controversial. About SARS, which did spread to the US but was called pneumonia, he says," Get the usual medical people and give them the usual script." (May 25)

He has a cynical, conspiratorial, chatty style and makes the newsmen feel they are "in the know." They do not include the public in this charmed circle.


In July, the memo writer starts to distance himself from Bush policy in Iraq, which is becoming a quagmire like Vietnam. He implies that "our circle" predicted this from the start. This suggests that his master may be the Rockefeller-CIA-CFR elite network.

For the first time, the writer urges a "completely neutral position" in case Bush goes the way of Richard Nixon. On July 12, he tells the executives to follow the example of "bellweather" <>New York Times.<> On August 1, the <>New York Times<> described Bush's performance at a recent news conference as "vague and sometimes nearly incoherent.... [he gave] rambling non answers."

On July 17, the writer says, "The White House is moving into a bunker mentality, very much like Nixon during the end of the Watergate business." The elite media may be getting ready to dump George W. Bush. Why would they report every U.S. casualty in Iraq when they have blacked out Afghanistan?

Iraq may be Bush's Watergate. He may have been tricked into invading Iraq, just as Nixon was tricked into sanctioning Watergate. The whole affair from Sept 11 to the Iraq war may be designed (like Vietnam) to bleed the U.S. taxpayer, destroy American morale and undermine the US's stature in the world.


Ultimately you will make your own mind up about the authenticity of this material.

For me they read like the script of a play I have been seeing. Play down North Korea. Black out Rachel Corrie. It's all followed. I have always been disturbed by the uncanny uniformity of the three TV network newscasts.

Go to www.tbrnews.org and click on "Controlling the News". The latest reports are at the bottom of Storch's introduction. There is a link to about 10 pages of excerpts since February. You can subscribe to a full service for $5 a month.

Here is a sample:

"Speculations of the actual nature of SARS are not under any circumstances to be permitted. Keep in mind the currently in- place rules following the outbreak of "Legionnaires Disease." (March 30)

"If this gets any credence, it could wreak havoc with the US cattle industry, not to mention the fast food and restaurant business. Mad-cow has been in the US before and kept very quiet. Let's see if we can't repeat this now." (May 24)

"Regarding North Korea, it is urgently requested by the White House that any reference to the President’s determination to remove the existing leadership of that country be downplayed. It should be mentioned as an "option" rather than the intention of the President." (April 19)

"Re. Enormous amounts of US currency found in Iraq. Under no circumstances, it has to be stressed, should any mention of amounts in excess of the publicly stated $600 million be made. And absolutely no mention of the possibility of these $100 bills being counterfeit." (May 3)

"The decision to proceed against Iran has been taken." (May 25)

Martha Stewart: “Better the Small Fry Get Cooked”
Re. Martha Stewart: "Better the small fry get cooked than the really important ones. Campaign funding? Hah, hah!" (June 7)

"There is a black-out on guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan. The fear is that these are part of a coordinated attack in the Arab world." (June 12)

"The Administration has gotten burned by attacking [Ariel] Sharon. It won't happen again." (June 13)

"North Korea is a back issue for now. We are pulling troops away from the DMZ in case we have to nuke Pyongyang..." (June 13)

"SARS is officially dead. Monkeypox is replacing it. We have beaten SARS to death so it is best to keep the file footage for when it comes back with a bang this winter. With no vaccine in sight, buy masks, kids! If SARS combines with something else, watch out on this one... " (June 14)

"Unemployment is soaring but let's keep this minor key unless some trouble breaks out over it. Justice has evidence of serious labor unrest, especially among ghetto minorities." (June 15)

"Serious problems with the growing resistance movement in Iraq... Iraqi oil is being interdicted before it can be shipped out of the country. Casualties cannot be concealed but can be minimalized....[No pictures of] Iraqis that appear to have been beaten." (June 15)


"The most severe methods of interdiction are currently being indicated including setting up detention camps, curfews, the issuance of ID cards, the closing of mosques, the detention of religious leaders...An order is being prepared to exclude all foreign media..." (June 16)

"For a decade, the establishment has taken a very dim view of the Internet. It is seen as a method by dissident elements to propagandize the public and publish material that might cause great disruption in the public mind..." [Counter measures are discussed.] (June 16)

" Nailing the people at the tabloid press in Florida was a shot across our bows...the media had best shut its mouth or look what can happen to you. There is no substantive control over the military and official Washington is terrified that they could pull another Northwoods game again..." (June 22)

" Bush was warned repeatedly by Pentagon experts that there was the strong probability of dangerous insurgent activity [but] he and his close advisors such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz discounted it. ... Pacification could take years, not weeks or months, and with elections coming up next year, inside White House sources have said the President and Rove are in a panic." (June 28)

"The best way to cover this [fraudulent claims of uranium sales to Iraq ] is to be strictly neutral in comment and we must now maintain a completely neutral position in all of this. If Bush has the same problems Nixon did over Watergate, our viewers cannot see us as being blindly partisan. We have to have plausible deniability in this. The NYT is now beginning to crack the wall of silence surrounding the Presidency and as they are the bellweather, best to watch them closely. " (July 12)


"The major disaster for the White House is that they cannot get oil out of Iraq. The plan always was to root out Saddam, occupy the country after securing the oil fields first and then put a CIA trained and controlled local governments into place. This puppet government (let’s face it gentlemen, that is what it would be but we can call it Iraqi autonomy) would graciously grant to the US the right to protect their oil resources and assist them in recovering their pre-Desert Storm production levels. In fact, the Iraqis would get none of the proceeds of the oil sales...(July 13)

"The Administration is over a barrel on this [prior warnings of Iraqi guerrilla resistance]] because if they try to make too many scapegoats, someone will let the cat out of the bag over who really knew what and what kind of specific warnings the White House had actually received...the same scenario as the 9-11 warnings...." (July 13)

"There is a growing fear in counter intelligence circles that if the resistance movement in Iraq is not stopped, the resulting very bad PR might cause an "incident" somewhere in the US just before election time to whip the voters up to vote for Bush as a "wartime leader" who can put a number of draconian laws and edicts in place to "protect the American people." Someone in the FBI said to one of our people, entirely off the record, that quote it will probably be the Statue of Liberty endquote.

There must be no speculation on this subject under any circumstances. If some rigged incident does happen and we comment on it in advance, new regulations could cause us serious problems ...If this happens, it will be Rumsfeld who plans and executes it. This will give the President the usual deniability. It is more than likely that we will get some advance notice of such an action and then decisions can be made relative to going to the public. On one hand, it would be a magnificent media coup guaranteeing ratings off the chart and on the other, a death sentence..." (July 14)


"The White House is now moving into a bunker mentality, very much like Nixon during the end of the Watergate business. With mounting Iraqi opposition and facing a very capable guerrilla movement, supplied by Syria and Russia, the US has run into the stonewall we all predicted. His personality will not permit the President to withdraw in good order; the neocons and the oil people will simply not let him. Bush is stuck between the rock and the proverbial hard place... Serious growing unrest in the troops coupled with very low morale, growing death tolls, lack of rotation, real fear of being fatally attacked are all leading to a situation that our Pentagon source informs us could actually erupt into open mutiny.

Couple all of this with the terrible economy, the insistence of the Bush people on insane tax cuts (to help out corporate America), the obvious right wing political and religious fanatics supporting the President and we have the makings of serious, probably fatal, domestic problems. The fear is that a frantic Administration could connive at some kind of domestic terrorism if and when they perceive the President slumping badly in the polls. He already is and it looks like it might go like the economy. Today, a 65% favorite; tomorrow matching [Grey] Davis'20%. " (July 17)

"We have to sit on stories of serious physical abuse of Iraqi citizens. Most sensitive (and we put the blackout on this subject) are the numerous rapes and sexual assaults against Iraqis. Interesting are the unreported but fully known homosexual rapes...the real problem here is that US GI minorities are mostly responsible for these and Bush needs these votes in November so on with the lid...we don’t think they can keep this shut up for too long...the Okinawa syndrome all over again." (July 20)

Henry Makow Ph.D. is the inventor of the board game Scruples and author of "A Long Way to go for a Date." His past articles on Feminism and the New World Order can be found at his web site www.savethemales.ca He enjoys receiving comments at henry@savethemales.ca

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Last updated 05/03/2004

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