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Abstract
The press was outraged in the 1970s when investigations exposed the CIA’s use of American journalists as undercover informants during the Cold War. This was treated as a shocking break in the traditional line between journalism and government. A study of journalist Carl W. Ackerman’s activities in the Great War, however, reveals such cooperation had precedents. While reporting oversees, Ackerman, later dean of Columbia Journalism School, worked behind the scenes with officials to shape and promote the Wilson administration’s foreign policy. This paper is a first step to understanding that pervasive, close relationships between journalists and government were well established at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Notes
1. Ackerman to House, 18 June 1918, box 1, House Papers.
2. Ackerman to Josephus Daniels, 24 June 1918, box 169, Ackerman Papers.
3. Ackerman to House, 9 July 1918, box 1, House papers.
4. National News Council, “Statement on CIA use of Journalists,” 102.
5. Loory, “The CIA’s Use of the Press,” 12.
6. Aldrich, “American Journalism and the Landscape of Secrecy,” 189.
7. Startt, “Colonel Edward M. House and the Journalists,” 40.
8. Walsh, The News from Ireland, 126–51.
9. Boylan, Pulitzer’s School.
10. See Bernstein, “The CIA and the Media”; Crewdson and Treaster, “C.I.A.: Secret Shaper of Opinion”; Johnston, “Journalists doubling as C.I.A. contacts.”
11. Johnson, America’s Secret Power, 184.
12. Thompson, Reformers and War, 180–3.
13. See Hilderbrand, Power and the People; Juergens, News from the White House; Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency.
14. See Mock and Larson, Words that Won the War, and Vaughn, Holding Fast Inner Lines.
15. Filler, The Muckrakers, 375.
16. Chester Wright to J. G. Phelps Stokes, 12 September 1918, Box 30–31, J.G. Phelps Stokes Papers.
17. Radosh, American Labor and U.S. Foreign Policy, 71.
18. Boylan, Pulitzer’s School, 30.
19. Ibid.
20. Henry Ackerman, interview by John Maxwell Hamilton and Meghan Menard McCune, 7 September 2016; Ackerman, “Speech at 50th anniversary,” 10 April 1963, box 165, Ackerman papers.
21. Ackerman, “Speech at 50th anniversary,” 10 April 1963, box 165 Ackerman papers.
22. Ackerman, “Address to class 1953,” 25 September 1952, box 164, Ackerman papers.
23. Boylan, Pulitzer’s School, 35.
24. Ackerman to Howard, [?] December 1913, box 145, Ackerman papers.
25. Ackerman to parents, [?] 1914, box 14, Ackerman papers.
26. Ibid.
27. Ackerman, “Speech at 50th anniversary,’ 10 April 1963, box 165, Ackerman papers.
28. Ibid.
29. Ackerman, Germany, the Next Republic?, v.
30. Ibid.
31. Ackerman, “Uncle Sam and War,” typescript, 1915, chapter IV, box 192, Ackerman papers.
32. Ackerman, Germany, the Next Republic?, 20.
33. Ibid., vi.
34. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany, 306.
35. Ackerman to House, 21 March 1917, box 1, House papers.
36. House to Ackerman, 22 March 1917, box 29, Ackerman papers.
37. House to Ackerman, 24 June 1917, and House to Ackerman, 27 June 1917, box 29, Ackerman papers. House requested the following articles: Ackerman, “The Kaiser and the Blackbird,” Saturday Evening Post, 16 June 1917; Ackerman, “What is New Orientation?,” Saturday Evening Post, 9 June 1917.
38. House to Ackerman, 24 June 1917, box 29, Ackerman papers.
39. Seymour, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 13.
40. Seymour, Intimate Papers of House, 14.
41. House diary, 9 March 1917.
42. Link, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 360.
43. House diary, 17 April 1917.
44. House diary, 15 December 1916.
45. Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson’s Right Hand, 171; Kaplan, Lincoln Steffens, 223, 224; Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens, 773–4.
46. Hamilton and Mann, A Journalist’s Diplomatic Mission, xiv–xv.
47. Hodgson, Wilson’s Right Hand, 171.
48. Lasch, The New Radicalism in American, 236.
49. Ackerman to Charles Seymour, 25 April 1927, box 1, House papers.
50. Ackerman to House, [?] August, box 1, House papers. Ackerman’s article on the League of Nations was not published.
51. House diary, 18 April 1917; House diary, 26 March 1917.
52. House diary, 7 July 1917.
53. Ibid.
54. House diary, 7 July 1917.
55. House diary, 29 May 1917.
56. Ibid.
57. Seymour, Intimate Papers of House, 132–3.
58. Ibid., 133, 134.
59. Woodrow Wilson, "Address on Flag Day," (speech, Washington, D.C., 14 June 1917), The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65400.
60. Ackerman to House, 4 February 1918, box 1, House papers.
61. Ackerman to mother, [?] 1917, box 14, Ackerman papers.
62. House diary, 19 September 1917.
63. House diary, 4 October 1917.
64. Ackerman, “Robert VanderHoof Ackerman,” unpublished manuscript, n.d., from files of Henry Ackerman, chapter three, page 6.
65. Ackerman, memo to Library of Congress, 21 June 1962, box 158, Ackerman papers.
66. Ackerman to House, [?] June 1918, box 1, House papers.
67. Ackerman to House, 9 July 1918, box 1, House papers.
68. House to Ackerman, 12 July 1918, box 29, Ackerman papers.
69. Ackerman to father, [?] 1918, box 14, Ackerman papers.
70. Ackerman to House, 21 August 1918, box 1, House papers.
71. Ackerman to House, [?] 28 August, box 1, House papers.
72. Ackerman to House, 20 December 1917, box 1, House papers.
73. Ackerman to House, 17 February 1918, box 1, House papers.
74. Startt,“Colonel Edward M. House,” 40.
75. Ackerman to House, 18 June 1918, box 1, House papers.
76. Ibid.
77. Ackerman to House, 18 June 1918, box 1, House papers.
78. Ackerman to House, 4 February 1918, box 1, House papers.
79. Ackerman to House, 12 April 1918, box 1, House papers.
80. Ibid.
81. Ackerman to House, 12 April 1918, box 1, House papers; Ackerman to Burton, 18 May 1918, box 143, Ackerman papers.
82. Ackerman to Carl Van Anda, 30 August 1918, box 122, Ackerman papers.
83. Ackerman to Morris, telegram, [?] 1918, box 141, Ackerman papers; Carol Wilcox Melton, Between War and Peace, 63.
84. Melton, Between War and Peace, 63.
85. Ackerman to Morris, telegram, [?] 1918, box 141, Ackerman papers.
86. Melton, Between War and Peace, 92–3.
87. Filene, Americans and Soviet Experiment, 60.
88. According to Melton, Between War and Peace, 93, “The coup was accomplished with the tacit consent, if not connivance of the British Middlesex Regime.”
89. Ackerman to Morris, telegram, [?] 1918, box 141, Ackerman papers.
90. Wood, Smith, and Hayns, “The Sinking of the Lusitania,” 178.
91. The cause of the second explosion was never established, but scholars have suggested that a busted steam line was the likely culprit. See Wood, Smith and Hayns, “The Sinking of the Lusitania,” 187.
92. Ackerman to Daniels, 24 June 1918, box 169, Ackerman papers.
93. Ibid.
94. Ackerman to Daniels, 23 July 1918, box 102, Ackerman papers.
95. Levy, introduction to A Lie and a Libel by Binjamin W. Segel, 16.
96. Singerman, “The American Career of the Protocols,” 48; Levy, introduction to A Lie and a Libel, 16–7.
97. Levy, A Lie and a Libel, xi–xii, 3.
98. Singerman, “American Career of Protocols,” 48–50.
99. Ackerman to John Spurgeon, 25 November 1919, box 131, Ackerman papers. Dr. Harris Ayres Houghton, an American military intelligence officer, and Boris Brasol, a leader of the Russian monarchist movement in the U.S., challenged the Public Ledger over the copyright of the Protocols, according to Ackerman’s letter to Spurgeon. Houghton had received the Protocols from Brasol and had the document translated by his secretary. (Singerman, “American Career of Protocols,” 48–50.) After meetings with Houghton and correspondence with Brasol, Ackerman was convinced ‘they would like to force the Ledger by threats to take part in the campaign of propaganda, which they are leading against the Jews’ and suggested to Surgeon the Public Ledger not make ‘any further public statements’ on the issue.
100. Singerman, “American Career of Protocols,” 53–4.
101. Singerman, “American Career of Protocols,” 48; Ackerman to John Spurgeon, 25 November 1919, box 131, Ackerman papers.
102. Singerman, “American Career of Protocols,” 48.
103. Ackerman to House, 24 May 1917, box 29, Ackerman papers.
104. For instance, David Lawrence, New York Evening Post, 6 July 1917.
105. Ackerman to House, 20 December 1917, box 1, House papers.
106. Ibid.
107. Ackerman to House, 7 January 1918, box 1, House papers.
108. Mock and Larson, Words that Won War, 275.
109. Ackerman to House, 7 January 1918, box 1, House papers.
110. Ibid.
111. Wilson, Diplomat Between Wars, 17.
112. Boylan, Pulitzer’s School, 68.
113. Whitehouse, A Year as a Government Agent, 104.
114. Whitehouse to Creel, 24 February 1918, Entry 1, Committee on Public Information, Record Group 63, National Archives and Records Administration.
115. Stovall, Switzerland and the World War, 178; Johnson, America’s Secret Power, 183.
116. Whitehouse, A Year as Government Agent, 104–5.
117. As an example of Ackerman offering views on other correspondents, see Ackerman to House, 26 January 1918, box 1, House papers.
118. For example of this, see Wilson to State Department, 30 January 1918 box 1, House papers.
119. Ackerman to House, 12 April 1918, box 1, House papers.
120. Ibid.
121. Ackerman to House, 12 April 1918, box 1, House papers.
122. Ackerman to House, 29 April 1918, box 1, House papers.
123. Ibid.
124. Gibson to Will Irwin, 24 April 1918, Entry 110, Committee on Public Information.
125. Ackerman to House, 4 May 1918, box 1, House papers.
126. Chicago Daily News, 24 April 1917.
127. David Lawrence to Woodrow Wilson, 8 April 1917, and to Robert Lansing, 7 April 1917, Wilson papers.
128. Lewinson and Hough, History of Services Rendered, 4. The prize was in the category of Newspaper History. The prize was never given again.
129. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 206.
130. Ackerman, “How Free is the American Press,” 543.
131. Boylan, Pulitzer’s School, 96.
132. Boylan, Pulitzer’s School, 83–4.
133. Baker, “Railroads on Trial,” McClure’s Magazine, March 1906, 535.
134. Heaton, Cobb of “The World,” 340–1.
135. Ray Stannard Baker to William Allen White, 28 April 1920, William Allen White Papers.
136. Wile, News Is Where You Find It, 374–5.
137. Rausch, “Poison-Pen Diplomacy,” 273–5.
138. Dennis, Victor Lawson: His Time and His Work, 273.
139. Hamilton, Journalism’s Roving Eye, 399.