FRANKFURT, October 10 (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – Many journalists working in the UK and across Europe are "being used as puppets" of Western intelligence agencies, Dr Udo Ulfkotte, a former Frankfurter Allgemeine German newspaper Editor told RIA Novosti Friday.
"German and UK journalists from the mainstream media have always been used as non-official cover. That means they have been used as puppets of the intelligence services because they could freely travel and claim there were just journalists," Ulfkotte said.
"There is an interference of intelligence services with the mainstream media across Europe," he added.
Dr Ulfkotte, who worked as a journalist for 25 years, 17 of those with Frankfurter Allgemeine - one of Germany's most well-known newspaper titles, claims to have worked himself, in a journalistic capacity, for the US Central Intelligence Agency.
"This has historical reasons and started shortly after World War II when the Cold War began. The mainstream media in the western countries had to be anti-Soviet and pro-American," a former Frankfurter Allgemeine editor explained.
Ulfkotte noted that no German publications like BILD or Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung would have got a license after World War II if they had not been pro-US.
"If their cover was blown the intelligence service running them could always claim they had no idea what they were doing," the journalist added.
BBC investigative reporter Peter Taylor has also detailed how British intelligence infiltrated the mainstream media in the UK. In a documentary film which Taylor wrote and presented, called "True spies", the BBC journalist said, that "all the conspiracy theories about the security services tapping phones and so on that we all dismissed, turned out to be true. They infiltrated everyone and everything, even Fleet Street and the BBC. The files they had were vast."
Taylor said BBC journalists deemed to be "subversive" had their personnel files marked with a green Christmas tree stamp that would alert senior BBC management and prevent them from covering stories deemed "sensitive" to UK national security. BBC journalists were also routinely asked to sign the Official Secrets Act before being offered an employment contract.
"UK journalists have always been used as embedded writers for the intelligence community," Ulfkotte proceeded.
"I remember a good old friend of mine from The Economist who worked in Frankfurt and was in fact the resident [operative] of MI6 in the Rhein-Main-Area (the area around Frankfurt). He was a very good friend of Stella Rimington who had been in charge of the MI5 from 1992 to 1996," claimed the reporter.
Last month Ulfkotte told the RT channel that he had decided to tell the truth about Western intelligence service control of the corporate media fearing a war may break out between the West and Russia on the back of the anti-Russian propaganda being broadcast and printed by Western journalists.
"The German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia," Ulfkotte said. "This is a point of no return, and I am going to stand up and say… it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia."
Asked by RIA Novosti what advice he could give to journalists trying to resist approaches by western intelligence Ulfkotte said, that as he had been bribed by western intelligence services in the past he specifically asks journalists not to be "lured by the honey pots."
"Intelligence services never approach you and say, "Hello, would you like to work for me? They cover up, but try to win you over with money or enticements you cannot afford," the former editor stressed.
Ulfkotte recalled that he was accepting golden watches or five star holidays and finally found himself in the trap.
"So the first is to use your brain and think, why is a stranger offering you things that you cannot afford? Secondly, don't go to the honey traps of the "transatlantic organizations" - keep your distance from the Council on Foreign Relations, Aspen Institute and so on, as they are all related to the intelligence community," he advised.
