The long history of the U.S. interfering with #elections elsewhere
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13/the-long-history-of-the-u-s-interfering-with-elections-elsewhere
In the late 1940s, the newly-established #CIA cut its teeth in Western Europe, pushing back against some of the continent’s most influential leftist parties and labor unions. In 1948, the U.S. propped up Italy’s centrist Christian Democrats and helped ensure their electoral victory against a leftist coalition, anchored by one of the most powerful communist parties in Europe. CIA operatives gave millions of dollars to their Italian allies and helped orchestrate what was then an unprecedented, clandestine propaganda campaign: This included forging documents to besmirch communist leaders in fabricated sex scandals, starting a mass letter-writing campaign from Italian-Americans to their compatriots, and spreading hysteria about a Russian takeover and the undermining of the Catholic Church.
“We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets,” recounted F. Mark Wyatt, the CIA officer who handled the mission and later participated in more than two-and-a-half decades of direct support to Italy’s Christian Democrats.
