Today I Learned

The Reagan administration pulled right-wing media executives Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife into a CIA-organized “perception management” operation which aimed Cold War-style propaganda at the American people in the 1980s, according to declassified U.S. government records.

Although some records relating to Murdoch remain classified, several documents that have been released indicate that he and billionaire Scaife were considered sources of financial and other support for President Ronald Reagan’s hard-line Central American policies, including the CIA’s covert war in Nicaragua.

A driving force behind creation of Reagan’s extraordinary propaganda bureaucracy was CIA Director William Casey who dispatched one of the CIA’s top covert action specialists, Walter Raymond Jr., to the National Security Council to oversee the project. According to the documents, Murdoch was brought into the operation in 1983 when he was still an Australian citizen and his media empire was much smaller than it is today.

Footnote with more information if you like learning about "perception management, propaganda, and how/why America has gone so far off the rails:

Rupert Murdoch is the most easily recognizable name mentioned in the main article, but you should really know the names William Casey and Richard Mellon Scaife in the context of creating the modern U.S. right wing propaganda machine:

•Early in his career, as a business lawyer, William Casey created the concept of a tax shelter to help his wealthy clients escape regulations mandated under the New Deal.

•In addition to being recruited by Casey into the perception management operation, Richard Mellon Scaife was also responsible for helping launch the conservative think tank, Heritage Foundation. Without Heritage, humanity never would have been blessed with the moral majority movement or Project 2025.

•The precursor organization to Heritage, which focused mainly on social (rather than economic) conservatism, was created by self described "political mechanic" Paul Weyrich (who would eventually coin the term "moral majority") and funded by heir to the Coors brewing fortune, Joseph Coors. When the precursor organization failed, Weyrich was connected with the economic expertise of conservative Ed Feulner. Soon, another investment from Coors helped launch Heritage, and Coors' money was then followed by large donations from Richard Mellon Scaife and other wealthy conservatives.

•Once they had funding, Heritage created their first edition of Mandate for Leadership (the most famous edition would become Project 2025), and both Carter and Reagan received a copy before the upcoming election. Carter ignored it. Reagan loved it.

•The Iran hostage crisis unexpectedly allows Reagan to defeat Carter. Except, the history nobody really talks about is the fact that Jimmy Carter and several members of his administration firmly believed that prior to the election, Reagan's CIA director, William Casey, traveled to Iran and helped orchestrate the delayed release of the hostages. The delayed hostage release (the October surprise) is believed to be the main factor leading to Carter's defeat and Reagan's victory. Once in office, Reagan implements the majority of the Mandate for Leadership within his first year and appoints William Casey as CIA director.

• Coincidentally, it turns out, Joseph Coors and William Casey were good friends, and when the Iran Contra scandal happens, Coors names Casey while testifying (which could really be a whole other TIL post). Casey dies very suddenly during the Iran Contra hearings and subsequently takes all the blame for the entire scandal.

The rest is history.

Footnote TLDR: Starting as early as the 1970s, the man who would eventually become Reagan's CIA director, (who also held intelligence ties due to his work with the CIA precursor, OSS, during WWII), joined forces with several wealthy oligarchs to do some wild shit to the United States. Including interfering with global political negotiations, influencing public perception, subverting democracy, and essentially setting into motion Project 2025 decades before it was written.

I know that sounds like a crazy conspiracy, but at the end of the day, it really just boils down to the lengths a group of nepo babies and their high powered lawyer went in order to: 1. Skirt the regulations created to protect the people they continue to harm and manipulate to this very day, 2. Avoid paying the taxes they continue to avoid paying, and 3. Stack the decks in their favor in order to remain in control.