Editing Conspiracy BBS Archive/cia info (section)

===POLITICAL ACTION===
Another type of influence that may be exerted through
covert means is political action.  Such action may be defined
as attempts to change the power structure and policies of
another state through secret contacts and secret funds by
means which are stronger than mere persuasion (propaganda)
and less severe than military action.  Following the Korean
War and the shift in the perception of the Soviet threat as
more political and less military, the CIA concentrated its
operations on political action, particularly in the form of
covert support for electoral candidates and political
parties.
     
Covert political action may be carried out in the form
of support of a friendly government or against its domestic
opposition, a type of covert action known as subversive.  It
may also manifest itself in the form of support to a group
that is the domestic opposition of an unfriendly government. 
The latter type of covert action is known as benign.
     
Another and somewhat darker form of covert political
activity is assassination.  From time to time, a dictator
unfriendly to the United States or its interests will take
control of a country that the U.S. deems to be of vital
significance.  Perhaps the leader has a heavy Marxist bent
like Fidel Castro or a somewhat unpredictable tendency to
cause turmoil in the world like Moammar Gadhafi.  In cases
where such a person has seized power, the U.S. is often
interested in removing the dictator by any means available. 
In cases where the leaders in the United States feel that the
immediate removal of an unfriendly dictator is absolutely
necessary if the U.S. is to enjoy continued security, U.S.
leaders may resort to the unpleasant option of assassination.
     
In 1975, in light of questions about the conduct of the
CIA in domestic affairs in the United States, the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, headed by Senator Frank
Church of Idaho, began hearings on the CIA and its
activities.  The Church Committee (as it become known) issued
a report in 1975 entitled "Alleged Assassination Plots
Involving Foreign Leaders" which provided a unique inside
account of how such plans originate.  The CIA was allegedly
involved in assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba,
Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, and Ngo Din Diem of South
Vietnam.  The Agency also allegedly schemed to assassinate
President Sukarno of Indonesia and Francois "Papa Doc"
Duvalier of Haiti.  The Agency had provided arms to
dissidents within Indonesia and Haiti, but witnesses before
the Church Committee swore that those weapons were never
given for the purpose of murdering either man.
     
In addition to plotting to assassinate foreign leaders,
the CIA often supplied dissidents within foreign countries
controlled by unfriendly governments with arms and
ammunition.  In Chile, the CIA passed three .45 calibre
machine guns, ten tear-gas grenades, and five-hundred rounds
of ammunition.  For Castro dissidents, the Agency prepared a
cache composed of a rifle with a telescope and silencer and
several bombs which could be concealed in a suitcase. 
Finally, in the Dominican Republic, where the United States
disliked Rafael Trujillo, the CIA prepared to drop twelve
untraceable rifles with scopes.  That drop was never
executed.
     
In all of the plots in which the Agency was involved, it
made sure that its role was indirect.  Never once did an
American CIA agent actually make any of the assassination
attempts.  According to Loch Johnson in A Season of Inquiry: 

In no case was an American finger actually on the
trigger of these weapons.  And even though the
officials of the United States had clearly
initiated assassination plots against Castro and
Lumumba, it was technically true--as Richard Helms
had claimed--that neither the CIA nor any other
agency of the American government had murdered a
foreign leader.  Through others, however, we had
tried, but had either been too inept...or too late
to succeed.