CIA: High Profile Operations

Some of these seem as if they come straight out of a scifi thriller but we assure you, these are all documented cases-that is, all the KNOWN cases.

North America

In the 1950's and 60's, the CIA ran a mind-control research program code-named Project MKULTRA.

Eastern Europe

In its earliest years the CIA and its predecessor, the OSS, attempted to rollback communism in eastern Europe by supporting local anti-communist groups; none of these attempts met with much success. Attempts to instigate revolutions in the Ukraine and Belarus by infiltrating anti-Communist spies and saboteurs met with total failure. In Poland the CIA spent several years sending money and equipment to an organization invented and run by Polish intelligence. It was more successful in its efforts to limit Communist influence in France and Italy, notably in the 1948 Italian election. After WWII, the CIA was instrumental in setting up the Gladio network, a secret government network of organizations in Italy and in other parts of Western Europe. In the 1960s-1980s, Gladio operatives, were involved in a series of "false flag" terrorist actions in Italy that were blamed on the "Red Brigades" and other Left groups in an attempt to discredit the Italian Left — called the strategy of tension).

It has now been firmly established (see references below) that the OSS actively recruited and protected many high ranking Nazi officers immediately following World War II, a policy that was carried on by the CIA. These included, the CIA now admits, the notorious "butcher of Lyon" Klaus Barbie, Hitler's Chief of Soviet Intelligence General Reinhard Gehlen, and numerous less-renowned Gestapo officers. General Gehlen, due to his extensive (if dubious) intelligence assets within the Soviet Union, was allowed to keep his spy-network intact after the war in the service of the United States. The Gehlen organization soon became one of America's chief sources of Intelligence on the Soviet Union during the cold war, and formed the basis for what would later become the German intelligence agency the BND.

Developing World

Further information: Operation PBSUCCESS, Operation Ajax

With Europe stabilizing along the line of the Iron Curtain, the CIA then moved in the 1950s to try to limit the spread of Soviet influence elsewhere around the globe, especially in the Third World. With the encouragement of DCI Allen Dulles, clandestine operations quickly came to dominate the organization. Initially they proved very successful: in Iran in 1953 the CIA successfully overthrew the Mossadegh government to remove perceived communist influence from the strong Iranian Communist Party. In Guatemala in 1954, CIA operations, with relatively little funding, orchestrated the overthrow of these governments and replaced them with and pro-American regimes. However, the instability created in Guatemala resulted in a long period of political instability, which had a destructive impact on the country. According to John Stockwell, former CIA high level operative, no less than six million people were killed in America's Secret Wars in many Third World countries.

Indonesia

In 1958, a CIA-backed coup attempt was made on Indonesia's President Sukarno, while other elements of the U.S. government backed Sukarno. The operation failed when a CIA operative, Allen Lawrence Pope, was captured after his plane was shot down by an Indonesian Air Force fighter and an anti-aircraft gun of the Indonesian Navy ship, and was found to have on his possession his actual identification as a CIA agent.

In 1965 Sukarno was ousted in a coup d'état led by Suharto. There was much violence to take place in Indonesia under Suharto. In a 1968 report, the CIA estimated there had been 250,000 deaths, and called the carnage "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century."

The CIA secretly supplied Suharto's troops with a field communications network. Flown in at night by US Air Force planes from the Philippines, this was state-of-the-art equipment, whose frequencies were known to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Cuba

The limitations of large scale covert action became readily apparent during the CIA organized Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961. The failure embarrassed the CIA and the United States on the world stage, as Cuban leader Fidel Castro used the botched invasion to consolidate power and strengthen ties with the Soviet Union. However, the CIA attempted unsuccessfully several times to assassinate the Cuban head of state as part of its Operation Mongoose.

The CIA became heavily embroiled in the controversy over who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. First, the New Orleans prosecutor tried to prosecute businessman Clay Shaw who had engaged in non-paid CIA data collection assignments overseas as being involved in the Kennedy assassination. Shaw denied any such connection with the CIA or the murder, and was acquitted. Later it was discovered that Shaw was connected to the CIA and his status after years of non-paid work is still not publicly available.

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations believed there was some link between Lee Oswald and certain bizarre right-wing fanatics who purportedly worked with the CIA on its anti-Castro projects in New Orleans and were linked to organized crime figures. The HSCA identified David Ferrie as a possible link because of his associaton with Oswald that may have taken the form of a personal friendship. Ferrie himself was associated with organized crime figures and anti-Castro groups. Oswald's uncle was involved in organized crime in New Orleans.

Documents obtained and disclosed by the Assassination Records Review Board indicate that the CIA concealed documents for over 30 years regarding its knowledge that someone was impersonating Lee Oswald and tried to contact a "hit man" in Mexico City at the Cuban Consulate less than two months before Kennedy was assassinated. PBS's news show, Frontline, stated that this information that was already known by the CIA, was found out by Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover within hours after Kennedy was assassinated and "electrified" top Washington insiders.

Vietnam

CIA operations became less ambitious after the Bay of Pigs, and shifted to being closely linked to aiding the U.S. military operation in Vietnam. Between 1962 and 1975, the CIA organized a Laotian group known as the Secret Army and ran a fleet of aircraft known as Air America to take part in the Secret War in Laos, part of the Vietnam War.

The CIA's Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War was described by a former official as a "a sterile depersonalized murder program. Equal to Nazi atrocities, the horrors of "Phoenix" must be studied to be believed." -Bart Osborne, 1971 Congressional testimony

Chile

Further information: Project FUBELT

After the election of Socialist President Salvador Allende in 1970, the CIA covertly worked to prevent Allende from taking office by bribing Chilean officials, which failed. Afterwards, an attempted coup was plotted by the CIA with anti-Allende factions, but it eventually was forced to abort the project.

Three years later, Allende was overthrown by military leader Augusto Pinochet. Allegations have been made that the CIA was behind the coup, although none have been completely confirmed or contradicted. The Church Committee, which investigated U.S. involvement in Chile during this period, stated that "There is no hard evidence of direct U.S. assistance to the coup, despite frequent allegations of such aid. In 2000 the CIA also denied that it assisted the coup.

The Church Report also showed that the CIA played a prominent role in Chile after the 1973 coup: The goal of covert action immediately following the coup was to assist the Junta in gaining a more positive image, both at home and abroad, and to maintain access to the command levels of the Chilean government. Another goal, achieved in part through work done at the opposition research organization before the coup, was to help the new government organize and implement new policies. Project files record that. CIA collaborators were involved in preparing an initial overall economic plan which has served as the basis for the Junta's most important economic decisions.

Iraq

According to certain authors the CIA supported the 1963 military coup in Iraq against the democratically-elected Qassim government and supported the subsequent Saddam Hussein-led government up until the point of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Support from the U.S. was predicated on the notion that Iraq was a key buffer state in relations with the Soviet Union. There are court records indicating that the CIA gave military and monetary assistance to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. The CIA was also involved in the failed 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein.

The CIA also supported the 1968 coup against the goverment of Rahman Arif by the Ba'ath Party, with Sadam Husein eventually taking the helm.

According to former U.S. intelligence officials, the CIA orchestrated a bomb and sabotage campaign that included civilian and government targets in Baghdad between 1992 and 1995. The civilian targets included at least one school bus, killing schoolchildren, and an movie theater, killing many people. The campaign was directed by CIA-asset Dr. Iyad Allawi, the man later installed as prime minister by the U.S.-led coalition following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and according to at least one official.

In 2002 an unnamed source, quoted in the Washington Post, says that the CIA was authorized to undertake a covert operation, if necessary with help of the Special Forces, that could serve as a preparation for a full-scale military attack of Iraq.

The unreliability of U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been a focus of intense scrutiny in the U.S. In 2004, the continuing armed resistance against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the widely perceived need for systematic review of the respective roles of the CIA, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency are prominent themes. On July 9, 2004 the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq of the Senate Intelligence Committee stated that the CIA described the danger presented by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in an unreasonable way, largely unsupported by the available intelligence.