Public opinion was polarized over JFK’s assassination. Forty-six percent of Americans doubted the Warren Commission’s finding that Oswald “acted alone;” Garrison was becoming more vocal about Oswald’s alleged CIA connection; and independent journalists were asking potentially embarrassing questions. Nerves in Washington were frayed.

Then on April 1, the CIA circulated an extraordinary memo instructing agents how they could play the mainstream media in order to discredit all the speculation of CIA involvement. The top-secret memo—marked PSYCH for psychological warfare—read in part: “Employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.”

So the CIA instructed its media assets to plant book reviews designed to debunk conspiracy theorists. And lo and behold, almost five decades after the assassination, mainstream media reviewers in the daily and weekly press are still carrying out the CIA’s orders, willingly or unwillingly.

"Investigative Journalism and Mass Media" with Russ Baker. We discuss the investigative work behind his book, "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces That Put It In the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America"; his new internet investigative journalism project, Who What Why; some of the stories he investigated for Family of Secrets, and challenges facing journalists.

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.

John Perkins is the author of Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and has written about how corporations push politicians around and even threaten them with violence. Russ Baker, meanwhile, is the author of Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America and has written extensively about the military-industrial complex.

Russ Baker discusses his book, Family of Secrets, the first complete historic portrait of the Bush dynasty, and provides us with an overview of how this dynasty shaped our politics. He tells us about the shadow government in the US, the real players, elites, and power centers within each president’s government, and the limitation on what and how much an American president can accomplish – considering the influence of these powerful and independent fiefdoms characterized by entrenched agendas and constant intrigue.