December 2, 2001, Washington Post, Letter, FBI Hindsight, by Lawrence Rosenshein,
I would be amused by the Nov. 28 front-page story in which ex-FBI officials carped about Attorney General John Ashcroft's and Director Robert Mueller's actions if their criticisms weren't so pathetic.
These are the people whose exempting of the top 200 officials of the FBI from lie detector tests led to having a Soviet mole in our midst for 15 years.
If they stopped so many plots, why didn't we hear about them? Wouldn't it have been useful for the public to know about all of these plots -- maybe the operators of the flight schools would have been suspicious when Saudis with cash showed up for flight lessons but didn't want to learn how to take off or land.
And if they had information about so many terrorists planning actions against us, why didn't they resign and make a stink that President Clinton wasn't doing enough to stop the overseas training?
We're past the point of sitting back and foiling plots on our soil. We now need to go after the perpetrators in the holes where they live.
LAWRENCE ROSENSHEIN
Upper Montclair, N.J.
See:
February 20, 2001, Washington Transcript Service, FBI Director Louis Freeh Holds News Conference Regarding Charges Against FBI Agent Robert Philip Hanssen,
Tuesday, September 01, 2015
Thursday, July 16, 2015
War of the Worlds: The Martians Have Landed!
February 21, 1998, Los Angeles Times, Rehearsal of War Coverage Backfires at CBS News, From a Times staff writer, diigo,
NEW YORK — CBS jumped the gun Friday on a possible U.S. attack on Iraq: The network inadvertently transmitted a practice news report via satellite that could be picked up by television stations and viewers with special equipment.
To try out new graphics for combat coverage in the event the U.S. goes forward with the threatened bombing of Iraq, CBS anchor Dan Rather was rehearsing with Pentagon correspondent David Martin over a closed line between CBS' New York headquarters and its Washington news bureau. The report was mistakenly sent up to a communications satellite.
"This was very embarrassing," one CBS staffer said Friday. "If I'd seen the report, I would have thought we were at war."
A technician at a West Virginia TV station who was checking satellite transmissions was shocked to see Rather describing aircraft being used in a bombing run on Baghdad.
Officials at the station, WTAP-TV, an NBC affiliate in Parkersburg, W. Va., called the Associated Press to find out if Iraq had been attacked. "It looked like a real broadcast of what was going on," said Bill McClure, master control operator at WTAP.
CBS News spokeswoman Kerri Weitzberg said that, as far as CBS knew, the practice report did not air on any TV stations during the 20 minutes that it was up on the satellite. Weitzberg said the network received "a handful" of calls from people who were concerned about the mistaken report.
_______________________________________________________________________________
March 4, 1998, WSWS.org, Rather rehearses his lines,
A technical error recently provided a glimpse into the workings and mentality of the American media. On February 20, as war fever raged in Washington, CBS News anchorman Dan Rather and Baghdad correspondent David Martin were caught rehearsing coverage of a US bombing raid on Baghdad. For twenty minutes the test report, intended to be seen only in the network's New York and Washington newsrooms, was mistakenly beamed to a satellite where it could be picked up by anyone with the required receiving equipment.
The incident became public--although not widely covered by the media--when Bill McClure, master control operator at an NBC affiliate in Parkersburg, West Virginia, picked up the transmission and telephoned Associated Press to see if an attack on Iraq had indeed been launched. "It looked like a real broadcast of what was going on," he told the news agency.
The CBS News anchorman, in pancake makeup, could be seen describing the bombing raid and the type of aircraft involved. He declared that the number of Iraqi casualties was unknown.
An explanation from a CBS spokeswoman made the incident, if anything, even more chilling. She said the network wanted to test new graphics and theme music that would be used to cover the attack.
"It felt like Wag the Dog," commented a senior news producer who had watched the rehearsal. "I bet the network is living in fear that someone on the receiving end of the transmission had tape rolling."
____________________________________________________________________________
NEW YORK — CBS jumped the gun Friday on a possible U.S. attack on Iraq: The network inadvertently transmitted a practice news report via satellite that could be picked up by television stations and viewers with special equipment.
To try out new graphics for combat coverage in the event the U.S. goes forward with the threatened bombing of Iraq, CBS anchor Dan Rather was rehearsing with Pentagon correspondent David Martin over a closed line between CBS' New York headquarters and its Washington news bureau. The report was mistakenly sent up to a communications satellite.
"This was very embarrassing," one CBS staffer said Friday. "If I'd seen the report, I would have thought we were at war."
A technician at a West Virginia TV station who was checking satellite transmissions was shocked to see Rather describing aircraft being used in a bombing run on Baghdad.
Officials at the station, WTAP-TV, an NBC affiliate in Parkersburg, W. Va., called the Associated Press to find out if Iraq had been attacked. "It looked like a real broadcast of what was going on," said Bill McClure, master control operator at WTAP.
CBS News spokeswoman Kerri Weitzberg said that, as far as CBS knew, the practice report did not air on any TV stations during the 20 minutes that it was up on the satellite. Weitzberg said the network received "a handful" of calls from people who were concerned about the mistaken report.
_______________________________________________________________________________
March 4, 1998, WSWS.org, Rather rehearses his lines,
A technical error recently provided a glimpse into the workings and mentality of the American media. On February 20, as war fever raged in Washington, CBS News anchorman Dan Rather and Baghdad correspondent David Martin were caught rehearsing coverage of a US bombing raid on Baghdad. For twenty minutes the test report, intended to be seen only in the network's New York and Washington newsrooms, was mistakenly beamed to a satellite where it could be picked up by anyone with the required receiving equipment.
The incident became public--although not widely covered by the media--when Bill McClure, master control operator at an NBC affiliate in Parkersburg, West Virginia, picked up the transmission and telephoned Associated Press to see if an attack on Iraq had indeed been launched. "It looked like a real broadcast of what was going on," he told the news agency.
The CBS News anchorman, in pancake makeup, could be seen describing the bombing raid and the type of aircraft involved. He declared that the number of Iraqi casualties was unknown.
An explanation from a CBS spokeswoman made the incident, if anything, even more chilling. She said the network wanted to test new graphics and theme music that would be used to cover the attack.
"It felt like Wag the Dog," commented a senior news producer who had watched the rehearsal. "I bet the network is living in fear that someone on the receiving end of the transmission had tape rolling."
____________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
May 13, 1976, AP - The Robesonian (Lumberton, NC) page 1, Former Nashville Newswoman May Have Been Counteragent For FBI, by William Morrissey,
May 13, 1976, AP - The Robesonian (Lumberton, NC) page 1, Former Nashville Newswoman May Have Been Counteragent For FBI, by William Morrissey, diigo,
Former Nashville Newswoman May Have Been Counteragent For FBI, by William Morrissey,
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A former employee of The Tennessean may have been used by the FBI as part of its domestic counterintelligence program, the newspaper's publisher says.
John Seigenthaler said Wednesday. Mrs. Srouji, fired eight days ago, showed him documents of a highly sensitive nature last week he believed to be from the FBI. He said she also told him she reported to a "control agent" in Nashville while she was a reporter in the 1960s for the Nashville Banner. The newspaper was sold in 1972 by the late James Stahlman.
Seigenthaler, former special investigator with the Justice Department under the late Atty, Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, said, "I have never known any citizen to have access to information as sensitive as she had."
He refused to elaborate whether the document he saw dealt with criminal, secret or radical activities.
Mrs. Srouji also acknowledged to the House Small Business Committee's subcommittee on energy and environment she has 1,000 pages of FBI reports on the 1974 traffic death of an Oklahoma plutonium worker.
The committee has been unable to get the FBI's reports for its study of the investigation.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities described the FBI's counterintelligence program, Cointelpro, as an effort to attack the reputations of individuals and organizations it selected as its targets.
The FBI said the program ran from 1956 to 1972. Mrs. Srouji said she got copies of FBI documents in 1975.
Mrs. Srouji, a copy editor for The Tennessean, has been unavailable for comment since last Friday, when it was first reported she was fired for what Seigenthaler called "past and recent conversations with the FBI."
Asked if Mrs. Srouji might have been part of Cointelpro, Seigenthaler said, "I perceive that she probably was one of those people, but I don't have anyway to know. I would think if they went back in their records...that her informant role while she was at the Banner would have made her one of those people."
He said she had often been able to secure information for the paper on local stories involving the FBI.
"In light of what has transpired, all of us in news management positions must be alert to the possibility that FBI news sources may be in fact a two-way conduit through which the bureau may seek to raise questions about internal affairs of newspapers and conduct...of the people who work on newspapers," Seigenthaler said in a news conference.
"This, I think is the damage which has been [done] in recent months in Washington. It never occurred to me that it would effect me here in Nashville.
"She acknowledged to me last Tuesday and Wednesday that the FBI asked her, while she was reporting to them about other matters, about at least two members of this newspaper's staff....She said she reported only favorable items to the FBI about these staff members, but the fact that the questions were raised and she was in a position to respond to them led me to determine that it was not wise in the interest of the people who work here to continue her association with this newspaper.
Former Nashville Newswoman May Have Been Counteragent For FBI, by William Morrissey,
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A former employee of The Tennessean may have been used by the FBI as part of its domestic counterintelligence program, the newspaper's publisher says.
John Seigenthaler said Wednesday. Mrs. Srouji, fired eight days ago, showed him documents of a highly sensitive nature last week he believed to be from the FBI. He said she also told him she reported to a "control agent" in Nashville while she was a reporter in the 1960s for the Nashville Banner. The newspaper was sold in 1972 by the late James Stahlman.
Seigenthaler, former special investigator with the Justice Department under the late Atty, Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, said, "I have never known any citizen to have access to information as sensitive as she had."
He refused to elaborate whether the document he saw dealt with criminal, secret or radical activities.
Mrs. Srouji also acknowledged to the House Small Business Committee's subcommittee on energy and environment she has 1,000 pages of FBI reports on the 1974 traffic death of an Oklahoma plutonium worker.
The committee has been unable to get the FBI's reports for its study of the investigation.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities described the FBI's counterintelligence program, Cointelpro, as an effort to attack the reputations of individuals and organizations it selected as its targets.
The FBI said the program ran from 1956 to 1972. Mrs. Srouji said she got copies of FBI documents in 1975.
Mrs. Srouji, a copy editor for The Tennessean, has been unavailable for comment since last Friday, when it was first reported she was fired for what Seigenthaler called "past and recent conversations with the FBI."
Asked if Mrs. Srouji might have been part of Cointelpro, Seigenthaler said, "I perceive that she probably was one of those people, but I don't have anyway to know. I would think if they went back in their records...that her informant role while she was at the Banner would have made her one of those people."
He said she had often been able to secure information for the paper on local stories involving the FBI.
"In light of what has transpired, all of us in news management positions must be alert to the possibility that FBI news sources may be in fact a two-way conduit through which the bureau may seek to raise questions about internal affairs of newspapers and conduct...of the people who work on newspapers," Seigenthaler said in a news conference.
"This, I think is the damage which has been [done] in recent months in Washington. It never occurred to me that it would effect me here in Nashville.
"She acknowledged to me last Tuesday and Wednesday that the FBI asked her, while she was reporting to them about other matters, about at least two members of this newspaper's staff....She said she reported only favorable items to the FBI about these staff members, but the fact that the questions were raised and she was in a position to respond to them led me to determine that it was not wise in the interest of the people who work here to continue her association with this newspaper.
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