Operation Mockingbird was established by Frank Wisner, director of the Office of Policy Coordination, a covert operations unit created by the U.S. National Security Council. Davis writes that Mockingbird was a response to the creation of a Communist front organization, the International Organization of Journalists, which "received money from Moscow and controlled reporters on every major newspaper in Europe, disseminating stories that promoted the Communist cause."[2]
Wisner recruited Philip Graham from The Washington Post to run the project within the industry. According to Davis, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."[3]
In 1951, Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. According to Deborah Davis, Meyer became Mockingbird's "principal operative."[4]
After 1953, the media network was overseen by CIA Director Allen Dulles, by which time Operation Mockingbird had major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies.[5] The usual method was placing reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA to cooperating or unwitting reporters. Those reports would be repeated or cited by the preceding reporters, which in turn would then be cited throughout the media wire services. These networks were run by people with well-known liberal but pro-American big business and anti-Soviet views, such as William S. Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham, Sr. (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor).[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird