Following the end of the Second World War, fears of the spread of communism

increased in Italy. The Partito Comunista dItalia (PCI), whose members amounted up
to 2 million at its peak, became a threat to the stability of Italian democracy, at least
according to the perceptions of the CIA.
Communism was eventually defeated during the 1948 elections with the effort of
the United States using covert operations to influence the said election. However,
communism did not completely banished from the Italy. In fact, communist activities
still prevailed. After the United States effort in going against Communism for the 1948
elections, the CIA had settled for a long run plan with less blaring but more insidious
operations (The CIA A Forgotten History, Pp. 130).
The CIA spent an unspecified amount of money in supporting magazine, book
publishers and other ways of news and opinion manipulation. One of their methods was
planting news in non-American media that were in contradiction with communism.
After that they would make these stories appear and printed in friendly Italian
publications (The CIA A Forgotten History, Pp. 131).
The CIA did not only fund the propagation of anti-communism through media
but it also funded certain organizations. It can be found in the Internal Agency
Documents of 1972 that there are contributions of some $ 10 million that went to
political parties, affiliated organizations, and 21 individual candidates in the
parliamentary elections of that year. In January 1976 it was also disclosed that the CIA
had funded at least $6 million to political leaders in Italy during December of the
previous year for the coming June elections. Furthermore, Exxon Corp, which was the
largest oil company in the United States, admitted that it had made political

contributions from 1963 and 1972 to the Christian Democrats and several other Italian
political parties that summed to about $46 million to$49 million dollars (The CIA A
Forgotten History, Pp. 131).
Subsequently, Mobil Oil Corp.s contribution for the system of free and open
elections amounted to around $500,000 every year from 1970 to 1973. Although there
have been no reports yet that these corporate payments were derived from persuasion
by the State Department or the CIA, it still seems very unlikely that these firms would
participate lavishly in this peculiar sideline with complete spontaneity (The CIA A
Forgotten History, Pp. 131).
William Colby, later Director of the CIA, arrived in Italy in 1953 and spent his
next five years in helping right-wing organizations for the expressed purpose of
encouraging the Italian people to turn away from the Communist Party and keep it from
taking power. In his experience of that period he justifies the program on the grounds of
supporting democracy and preventing Italy from becoming a Soviet Satellite (The CIA
A Forgotten History, Pp. 132).
The CIA has done a lot of things to preserve and advance their principles into
other countries. In the case of what has happened in Italy, the CIA took measures of
using covert operations that involve money to influence certain events for their own
causes and justifying their decision with their fight for democracy and most importantly
avoiding the spread and growing power of Communism at that time to Italy.
Radio Free Europe (Enrico)

The CIA defines its covert operation as Any clandestine operation or activity
designed to influence foreign governments, organizations, persons or events in support
of the United States foreign policy. (The Agency, 216) [Pasingit para sa definition
of covert operations ng CIA]
Propaganda against communism was present and especially in books, but the
most prevalent propaganda penetration of the socialists were the ones by means of
airwaves with numerous transmitters and round-the-clock programming brought by
Radio Liberty and Radio Free Russia to the soviet Union, Radio Free Europe and Radio
in the American Sector to Eastern Europe. According to Victor Marchetti, a former
senior official of the Agency, the primary value of the radios was to sow discontent in
Eastern Europe and, in the process, to weaken the communist governments. (The CIA
A Forgotten History, Pp. 128)
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty started in 1950 and 1951 respectively. They
beamed news and propaganda into Eastern Europe from bases in Western Europe.
These radio networks were technically managed and owned privately they still received
the bulk of their combined yearly budgets amounting to $30-$35 million a year from the
CIA. The CIA eventually stopped funding these two Radio Programs on 1971 when the
Congress instituted open governmental financing of the stations because of the exposure
of the Agencys role on 1967. (The Agency, 216)
One of the successful propaganda of Radio Free Europe was on January 1952.
After learning that Czechoslovakia had a plan to devalue its currency, Radio Free
Europe warned the population and resulted into a nation-wide buying panic. Blanche
Wiesen Cook wrote in her study of the period that Radio Free Europes commentaries

about various European Communists contained a wide range of personal criticism and
slanderous attacks that ranged from rumors of brutality, to corruption, and to madness
and perversion and that everything imaginable was used to make communists, whether
in England of Poland, look silly, insignificant, and undignified. (The CIA a Forgotten
History 62)
The CIA did anything that they could to stir up trouble and nuisance from
supporting opposition groups in Rumania to setting up an underground station in
Bulgaria to dropping propaganda from balloons over Poland, Czechoslovakia, and
Hungary. In one day in August 1951 alone, they dropped 11,000 balloons that were
carrying 13 million leaflets. (The CIA a Forgotten History, 62)
In 1956, CIA paramilitary specialists at a secret installation in West Germany
were training hundreds of Hungarians, Poles, Rumanians and others. When the
uprising of Hungary occurred in October of 1956 the trained men were not, at least
according to the CIA, were not used because they were not yet ready but they did send
their agents in Budapest to join the rebels and help organize them. While this was
happening, Radio Free Europe was encouraging the Hungarian people to continue their
resistance. (The CIA a Forgotten History, 63)
The Radio Free Europe together Radio Libery and the other radio networks that
were funded by the CIA played a major role in carrying out their anti-communist
propaganda. Although it can never be proven that the CIA indeed contributed to the
Hungarian uprising or to the others in Poland and East Germany their massive effort in
their anti communist propagandas cannot be overlooked.