CIA Covert Operations Panama And Nicaragua

CIA Covert Operations: Panama And Nicaragua Essay, Research Paper

CIA Covert Operations: Panama and Nicaragua

In the 1950’s, the repression of domestic political dissent reached near

hysteria. In the process the CIA’s covert operations, already in progress in

Europe, expanded worldwide. By 1953, according to the 1970’s Senate

investigation, there were major covert programs under way in 48 countries,

consisting of propaganda, paramilitary, and political action operations. In

1949, the agency’s covert action department had about 300 employees and 47

stations. In the same period, the budget for these activities grew from $4.7

million to $82 million. In this paper I will discuss the United States’ use of

covert actions using Panama and Nicaragua as examples. I had planned on writing

my paper on Manuel Noriega and his connections with the CIA but the more I read

into him I found the major topic outlying him was much more interesting. So

with that I will continue on with this paper showing my findings on the CIA and

thier covert operations.

Covert operations have become a way of life and death for millions of

people world wide who have lost their lives to these actions. By 1980, covert

operations were costing billions of dollars. CIA Director William Casey was

quoted as saying .covert actions were the keystone of U.S. policy in the Third

World..(Agee, 2) Throughout the CIA’s 45 years, one president after another has

used covert operations to intervene secretly, and sometimes not so secretly , in

the domestic affairs of other countries, presuming their affairs were ours.

Almost always, money was spent for activities to prop up political forces

considered friendly to U.S. interests, or to weaken and destroy those considered

unfriendly or threatening.

The friends were easy to define, they were those who believed and acted

like us, took orders and cooperated. Until the collapse of communism in Eastern

Europe, enemies were also readily recognized: the Soviet Union and its allies,

with China having ambiguous status since the 1970’s. But there were other

countries the CIA took actions against who were not associated with the Soviets.

Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia in 1958, Cuba in 1959, Ecuador in

1963, Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1970, Nicaragua in 1979 and Grenada in 1983 to

name a few.(Agee, 2) These governments, and others attacked by the U.S., were

left, nationalist, reform-minded, populist or uncooperative and U.S. hostility

drove some of them to seek arms and other support from the Soviet Union.

Usually, the CIA mounted covert operations to weaken and destroy the programs

supporting communism by leading and advertising anti-Communist solidarity. The

local elites, whose privileged position was also threatened by movements for

social change, were the CIA’s natural allies.(Agee, 3) For more in-depth

examples, I will look at some covert operations in the 1980’s.

Central America was a major focus of U.S. attention during the 1980’s.

Through CIA covert and semi-covert operations, the U.S. tried simultaneously to

overthrow the government of Nicaragua and to destroy the movement for

revolutionary reform in El Salvador. In Nicaragua the means were terrorism and

destruction through a 10,000 man paramilitary force, along with a economic

blockade, propaganda and diplomatic pressures.(Stiles, 346) About 1% of the

population, some 35,000 people, died. In El Salvador, the CIA an U.S. military

expanded local military and security forces, and with the use of death squads,

the U.S backed forces killed over 70,000 people. Although they targeted trade

unionists, student activists, human rights advocates and peasant organizers, the

majority of the deaths were killed to instill terror. The CIA in El Salvador

used demonstration elections as public relations exercises to cover their

atrocities. The military controlled civilian government could then be renamed a

“democracy”.

In the 1980’s, in both Nicaragua and El Salvador, the U.S. introduced a

new way for exporting U.S.-style democracy, the National Endowment for

Democracy(NED). The NED allowed money to flow from the CIA to a bogus

foundation, then to U.S. private organizations like the National Student

Association(NSA), and from there to a foreign government. The money was to flow

to foundations that were fighting the .global ideological challenge.. The

projected beneficiaries were governments, political parties, media, universities,

trade unions, churches and employer associations, all traditional CIA covert

action targets.(Agee, 5) In the Soviet Bloc, the NED money would be used to

promote anti-Communist dissidence through propaganda and would support internal

opposition programs. The NED was also used as a way to spot potential recruits

as sources of intelligence and agents of influence.

Panama was an early examp

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