What the CIA Was Created to Do — and What It Became
The Central Intelligence Agency was established by the National Security Act of 1947, ostensibly to provide intelligence analysis to the President and coordinate between military and civilian intelligence. Within five years it had evolved into an operational agency conducting covert action — regime change, propaganda, assassination — across the globe without congressional oversight or democratic accountability. Its budget remains classified to this day.
The Church Committee (1975-76 Senate investigation) produced 14 volumes documenting CIA abuses including: assassination plots against foreign leaders, domestic surveillance of US citizens (COINTELPRO / CHAOS), mind control experiments on non-consenting subjects (MKUltra), and extensive collusion with organised crime. The investigation was unprecedented — and the structural reforms it recommended were never fully implemented.
The Coup Portfolio — A Partial List
Operation Ajax — Iran (1953)
The CIA overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh — who had nationalised British oil interests — and restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Confirmed by declassified CIA documents released in 2013. Directly caused the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Operation PBSUCCESS — Guatemala (1954)
The CIA overthrew President Jacobo Árbenz — who had expropriated United Fruit Company (Rockefeller-connected) land for land reform. Replaced with a right-wing military dictatorship that killed 200,000 people over the following decades. Fully documented.
Patrice Lumumba — Congo (1960)
The CIA organised the assassination of the Congo's first democratically elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba — whose crime was seeking Soviet support in nationalising mining interests. The Senate Church Committee confirmed CIA foreknowledge and participation.
Operation FUBELT — Chile (1973)
The CIA spent $8 million (equivalent to ~$50 million today) destabilising the elected government of Salvador Allende — via economic disruption, media manipulation, and military coup support. Confirmed by Nixon-Kissinger tapes and Church Committee investigation.
Drug Trafficking
The CIA's involvement in international drug trafficking is among its most extensively documented and least publicised operations. The pattern is consistent: wherever the CIA operated covertly, drug trafficking escalated, and the CIA's proprietary airlines, banking channels, and intelligence assets were implicated in the logistics. Southeast Asia (the Golden Triangle, Air America), Latin America (Contra drug running, Barry Seal), and Afghanistan (opium and heroin production which expanded 10-fold after the 2001 invasion) follow the same template: the CIA requires off-books funding for covert operations, drug trafficking provides it, and the CIA's operational security protects the trafficking networks from law enforcement interference.
The Kerry Committee — officially the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations — concluded in 1989 that the CIA had directly facilitated drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan Contras into the United States, with knowledge of US government officials who failed to act. The report stated: "It is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking... and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers." This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a published Senate committee report.
Operation Mockingbird — Media Control
The CIA's systematic infiltration of US mainstream media — placing paid assets in major newspapers, wire services, and broadcast networks — was confirmed by the Church Committee and further documented by researcher Carl Bernstein in a 1977 Rolling Stone investigation. (See: Operation Mockingbird)
The "Family Jewels"
The "Family Jewels" was an internal CIA document — 693 pages — compiled in 1973 at Director James Schlesinger's order, listing all activities potentially illegal or outside the CIA's charter. Partially declassified in 2007. The document confirms: domestic mail opening, domestic wiretapping, assassination planning, illegal detention, human experimentation, and surveillance of journalists. It is a partial, internally managed self-indictment — the full record of CIA domestic illegality remains classified.