CIA’s Hidden Hand in ‘Democracy’ Groups
Published on Friday, January 09, 2015
by Consortium News
CIA’s Hidden Hand in ‘Democracy’ Groups
by Robert Parry
Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy stress their commitment to freedom of thought and democracy, but both cooperated with a CIA-organized propaganda operation in the 1980s, according to documents released by Ronald Reagan’s presidential library.
One document showed senior Freedom House official Leo Cherne clearing a draft manuscript on political conditions in El Salvador with CIA Director William Casey and promising that Freedom House would make requested editorial “corrections and changes” – and even send over the editor for consultation with whomever Casey assigned to review the paper.
In a “Dear Bill” letter dated June 24, 1981, Cherne wrote: “I am enclosing a copy of the draft manuscript by Bruce McColm, Freedom House’s resident specialist on Central America and the Caribbean. This manuscript on El Salvador was the one I had urged be prepared and in the haste to do so as rapidly as possible, it is quite rough. You had mentioned that the facts could be checked for meticulous accuracy within the government and this would be very helpful. …
“If there are any questions about the McColm manuscript, I suggest that whomever is working on it contact Richard Salzmann at the Research Institute (an organization where Cherne was executive director). He is Editor-in-Chief at the Institute and the Chairman of the Freedom House’s Salvador Committee. He will make sure that the corrections and changes get to Rita Freedman who will also be working with him. If there is any benefit to be gained from Salzmann’s coming down at any point to talk to that person, he is available to do so.”
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/09/cias-hidden-hand-democracy-groups
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks for posting this, JL. It's a good followup piece to his Murdoch, Scaife and CIA Propaganda.
Speaking of followup pieces .. the following might make a good companion piece to the op ..
By Mark Taliano
Posted on January 9, 2015
The biggest threat to Canada’s national security is internal. It is the offshoot of an extraordinarily successful—because it remains largely undetected—coup that imposed itself on the country with the federal election of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) in 2006, and solidified its impacts with the election of a Conservative majority in 2011.
Author, poet, academic, and former Canadian diplomat Prof. Peter Dale Scott recently disclosed a WikiLeaks cable indicating that the International Republican Institute (IRI), an off-shoot of the CIA, and a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) helped install Stephen Harper as Canada’s Prime Minister. This was the coup.
Point 12 of the cable explains that “In addition to the campaign schools, IRI will be bringing in consultants who specialize in party renovation to discuss case studies of political parties in Germany, Spain, and Canada which successfully carried out the process.”
The “party renovation” referenced in the cable is the “renovation” of Canada’s indigenous Progressive Conservative Party into a Republican-inspired Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) that is largely subservient to the U.S Empire south of the border.
A similar, but more violent, “renovation” process occurred in 2009 when the democratically-elected government of Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a U.S-orchestrated coup. It is also the same illegal “renovation” that is destabilizing Venezuela today, as the US interferes in the internal politics of that country, in what is often described as a “soft coup”...
- See more at: http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/14891
upon the Democratic Party and leftists throughout the country in his "commie" witch trials in Washington. Did not know he also became close to Ronald Reagan but it surely stands to reason he would. I had assumed he had died by the time Reagan staggered into the White House.
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President Reagan meets with publisher Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick, lawyer Roy Cohn and his law partner Thomas Bolan in the Oval Office on Jan. 18, 1983. (Photo credit: Reagan presidential library)
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Roy's head is the little dome on lower left side of the photo.
Creepy knowing Cohn was in the inner Republican circle with Reagan, too. [/center]
The other link by Robert Parry was excellent.
Totally appreciate the chance to have seen your second link. People need to know about this.
Thank you.
