CIA Student Association Scandal and the Origins of the National Endowment for Democracy

Nowadays, instead of having just the CIA going around behind the scenes and trying to manipulate the process secretly by inserting money here and instructions there and so forth, they have now a sidekick, which is this National Endowment for Democracy.

Oh, yeah. NED. Yeah. And, uh, this organization dates from 1967.

A lot of people don't realize because it was just established in, I think, '83, uh, or so.

But the idea, uh, emerged from a series of scandalous revelations in 1967, the worst ones to that point to hit the CIA.

And I was, um, in headquarters at the time that these, uh, scandals broke, and the gloom there was something you could, you could touch almost.

Because what happened was, uh, the, the long-running CIA's control and manipulation of the international program of the National Students Association in this country, which was the national organization of university students,

uh, came out. It was revealed. Uh, and that led to revelations of a lot of other CIA operations because they were using the same bogus and real foundations to channel money into all these different org- overseas organizations.

Because in 1984, uh, we established this National Endowment for Democracy, which is nothing but a mega conduit.

And the millions or the tens of millions that, uh, are set aside for the meddling in the internal affairs of other countries goes to this conduit