Reply #11: CIA Covert Propaganda Capability [View All]

CIA Covert Propaganda Capability

By Sean Gervasi
Covert Action Information Bulletin
Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980

Sean Gervasi is an economist and author and expert on African affairs. This article is one chapter of a lengthy work in progress.

The series of articles on CIA media activities published in TNYT at the end of 1977 gave some indication of the Agency's global reach. It revealed that an extensive network of assets had been established for carrying out covert propaganda around the world. Unfortunately, however, the Times articles were impressionistic rather than systematic. They contained much valuable information. But the wealth of detail was essentially unconnected and incoherent. The articles did not provide any clear account of covert propaganda operations as a whole.

The principal flaw of the series, which received relatively little attention, was that it left readers with almost no idea of the overall scale of CIA media activities. In this article, a rough estimate of CIA covert propaganda capability will be made. Such an estimate is essential if we are to begin to analyze the problems posed by covert propaganda within the present global information order.

The Central Intelligence Agency does not publish figures which would help to shed light on its capabilities in the sphere of propaganda. Nonetheless, information which has become available in the course of Congressional investigations and private research can provide the basis for a tentative estimate of the amount of expenditure on covert propaganda and of the number of people engaged in that activity.

The starting point for any such estimate must be the size of the current overall CIA budget.

The official figure for total CIA expenditure, of course, remains a secret, even to the U.S. Congress. Nonetheless, there is enough fragmentary evidence available to permit a reasonable estimate. In their book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Victor Marchetti and John Marks gave a figure of $750 million for the CIA budget. That figure may be taken to refer to the year 1973, the year before the publication of the book.

(According to the LA Times, we now know the CIA budget is $5-8 billion out of a total Intel budget of $43.5 billion -- Octafish)

At this stage one might estimate expenditure on covert propaganda anywhere from 15 to 40 percent of the total for covert action, that is, at between $75 million and $200 million. Such an estimate would appear to be consistent with the notion that covert propaganda is one of three important activities in a covert action program costing more than $500 million. This would be a very crude estimate, but certainly better than nothing.

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http://covertaction.org//content/view/179/75/