CIA influence on public opinion
At various times, under its own authority or
in accordance with directives from the Pres-
ident of the United States or the National Se-
curity Council staff, the Central Intelli-
gence Agency has attempted to influence
domestic and international public opinion,
and sometimes law enforcement. This article
does not address, other than incidental to in-
fluencing opinion or actions reasonably asso-
ciated with CIA security, possibly illegal do-
mestic surveillance.
It also does not address narrowly focused
psychological warfare in support of covert or
military action. The focus of this article is on
long-term influence on opinion leaders, in-
cluding journalists, artists,
labor leaders,
etc., rather than starting rumors to assist in
supporting a coup.
This is an area with many shades of gray.
There is little argument, for example, that
the CIA acted inappropriately in providing
technical support to White House operatives
conducting both political and security invest-
igations, with no legal authority to do so.
While there is an established history of as-
signing responsibilities for international psy-
chological operations to various organiza-
tions, depending if the operation is overt or
clandestine, there are also questions of the
wisdom of a particular operation.
Things become much more ambiguous
when law enforcement may expose a clandes-
tine operation, a problem not unique to intel-
ligence but also seen among different law en-
forcement organizations, where one wants to
prosecute and another to continue investiga-
tions, perhaps reaching higher levels in a
conspiracy.[1]
Not all inappropriate activities were initi-
ated or conducted by the Central Intelligence
Agency, but by other members of the United
States Intelligence Community. In particular,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation took a
very broad view of its mandate to collect in-
formation to protect against domestic subver-
sion. In other cases, the National Security
Agency intercepted electronic communica-
tions without