
When the CIA Interferes in Foreign Elections - chvid
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-06-21/cia-interferes-foreign-elections
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cycomanic
Call me sceptical, but the article takes what the intelligence officials way
too much at face value. The whole that during the cold War the purpose of the
CIA meddling was to support free democracies against communism is just plain
wrong. The CIA was involved in overthrowing several democratic governments to
install dictators who were more favourable to US interests.

Also the thesis that the CIA would not do election meddling anymore because
its antithetical to the ideas of spreading Liberal democratic values, is
laughable. This is the same CIA who ran black prisons and torture operations.

~~~
chvid
I do not disagree with you.

This article does not cover current campaigns nor does it cover
"controversial" campaigns. For example the bugging of Angela Merkel and
similar interferrence in the politics of allies. The article is interesting
none the less - in a from the horse's mouth sort of a way.

Also the numbers are interesting: Spending 40 mio usd in Serbian politics.
Given what Serbia's GDP was in the year 2000, that would correspond to a
foreign government spending billions of dollars trying to sway US politics.

~~~
cycomanic
I also agree with you that the article is interesting. It would have been nice
if the journalists would have asked some tougher questions though.

Your point about the spending in Serbia is a good one, I had not thought about
it that way.

~~~
082349872349872
Not a journalist, but an author. I would not be surprised if he'd softballed
this piece to get it into FA, as the tone of the book (judging solely by its
cover) appears darker[1]. (there's also a question of access, _and_ he has CIA
endorsement blurbs...)

I've seen claims on Runet (from, I'm guessing, ER voters) that Yeltsin had
been a "Washington Consensus" puppet. On the other hand,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin_1996_presidentia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin_1996_presidential_campaign#Team_of_Americans)
minimises the Americans' role. We might hope to know the truth sometime before
2096. (there are JFK files which are _still_ classified)

[1] then again, election finessing is actually mild compared with Operation
Condor, which only came out around the turn of the century.

