The Jeremiad Over Journalism

―That the Congress‘ activities and journals, as it was disclosed much later – in 1968 – to a
great extent were financed by the American intelligence service CIA, came as just as great a
shock to us at Information, as to the rest of the world.‖ 377
But the CIA did not only fund cultural and journalistic projects in Scandinavia. According to an
account in a Swedish bi-weekly magazine, the CIA actively tried to recruit a freelance journalist,
Arthur Opot, at the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation‘s foreign news desk in 1975, under the
assumption that a journalistic cover was the most effective for agents in the field.
Opot‘s Kenyan roots made him a perfect asset, from a CIA perspective, for gathering information
about conditions on the African continent, as he could blend in and ask questions without raising
undue suspicion. By offering Opot money and the release of his cousin, who was allegedly being
held captive and tortured in East Africa, the CIA thought they had succeeded in recruiting him.
However, being a journalist, the 27 year-old Kenyan also saw an important story. While feeding the
CIA misleading information he concurrently gathered information for an article in Sweden about
the CIA‘s methods, and eventually broke the story making the case that the CIA had conducted
espionage in Sweden with the implicit approval from the Swedish Security Service. 378
Though no evidence has been found in the declassified American archival material concerning
Danish journalists recruited directly by the CIA, there is at least one example of a Danish
journalist‘s information being deemed highly important by United States officials in terms of
assessing the political situation in another country.
In a 1971 confidential telegram from a United States intelligence official in Sanaa to the Secretary
of State in Washington D.C., an American employee described a conversation with the Danish
journalist Jens Nauntofte concerning the Yemeni ex-prime minister Mohsin Al-Ayni. According to
the documents, Nauntofte had contacted the Americans to ―learn ‗other side‘ of US-Ethiopia story.‖
however, that Sølvhøjs participation in SFK was seemingly limited, but that he and Bjarnhof served as an important link
to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.
377 Holmgård, Sket I Livet [Occurences in Life]. Page 148. My translation. Original text reads, ―At Kongressens
virksomhed og blade, som det blev afsløret langt senere - i 1968 - i vid udstrækning var finansieret af den amerikanske
efterretningstjeneste CIA, kom som et lige så stort chok for os på Information, som for resten af verden.‖
378 Jan Guillou and Roger Wallis, "CIA I Sverige [CIA in Sweden]," Folket i Bild: Kulturfront, March 4-17, 1976.
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