National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy (referred to by critics as the National Endowment for Regime Change) which was set up in 1983 at the initiative of the U.S. Congress resolution H.R. 2915 to fund projects that "promote liberal democracy in the world" after a series of scandals undermined both the credibility and the public image of the CIA. The organization was established as a cutout doing much of the agency’s dirtiest work. “It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,” Gershman himself said, explaining its creation. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” NED cofounder Allen Weinstein told The Washington Post in 1991.

NED is almost entirely funded by Congress and is staffed largely by ex-national security state leaders. Its president as of 2022 is Damon Wilson.

Chile

Main article: 1988 Chilean national plebiscite

Sí and No logos of the 1988 Chilean national plebiscite.

Augusto Pinochet's firm decision to hand over the presidential command was not broken either by his own will or by the terrorist actions that since 1983 had been accentuated, causing deaths and serious damage to public and private property. President Pinochet was nominated by the Military Government Junta as a candidate to continue as President of Chile for another few years, and a plebiscite was called for the people to accept or reject such nomination. On October 5, 1988, Pinochet was defeated in the vote to decide the continuity of his government. On that occasion, the "Yes" option obtained 44.01% and the "No" 55.99%, so the President had to call elections for the following year.

The "No" Campaign and the Concertación were supported by George Soros and the National Endowment for Democracy which helped the center-left with propaganda on television, newspapers, radio and magazines. Soros is a friend of the Chilean politician Máximo Pacheco who thanked the him for "his contribution in the recovery of our democracy, and we do not forget that in Chile" and also said that Soros was crusial "in conducting studies and obtaining data that gave us information that had been hidden from us for 17 years." "What we learned there was crucial for the preparation of the famous television program of the No campaign and for the victory in the plebiscite".

The "Sí" option would have probably won if the election was in 1987, but the majority verdict changed due to the enormous flow of money from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy and the millionaire European subsidies for a majority of anti-government print media that subsisted thanks to the prevailing freedom of the press (although each year the Inter-American Press Association maintained that there was none, which wasn't true due to the existing opposition magazines containing the worst criticisms to the military government).

The NED financed numerous leftist entities like trade unions, academic and journalistic organizations. Pinochet knew this and described it as "an act of intervention that cannot be viewed with pleasure by the majority of Chileans, including broad sectors of the opposition". The US ambassador, Harry Barnes, who systematically contradicted the good omens that President Reagan expressed to the military government, pointed out that the aid to the opposition does not imply an intervention in Chile's internal affairs, but rather "to promote participation and civic education, processes that correspond to any real democracy".

The international organizations ignored the historical truth to the same degree as the majority of Chileans, who did not know, because of that deceitful propaganda, that democracy would return the same whether the "Sí" or "No" vote won, because there were going to be the same elections, the same institutions and the same individual guarantees for all, after 1990. Because the "Sí" government so provided in the Constitution, which improved the country for all, including those who voted "No".

Ukraine

Main article: Ukraine#Maidan coup

The NED published a video of Wilson at a rally outside the White House, declaring "Glory to Ukraine" – the salute used by Nazi collaborator Stephan Bandera's OUN-B, which carried out mass murder of Jews and Poles during World War II. Other top officials pepper NED’s board of directors, including Biden regime CIA Director William Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and 2014 Ukrainian Maidan revolution mastermind Victoria Nuland, as well as veteran national security official Elliott Abrams. Its private non-profit status means that its affairs do not fall under the same legal scrutiny as those of government organizations like the CIA. It has no congressional oversight. It is harder to acquire documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), meaning that the group’s actions remain shrouded in secrecy.

Studying the NED grants database reveals that the organization has approved 334 separate grants to Ukraine, a country the group’s 2019 annual report identified as its “top priority,” owing to “its size and importance for the Europe region.” The report notes that NED is focused on “counter[ing] foreign [i.e., Russian] malign influence, particularly disinformation and corrosive capital.” Of the European nations, only Russia itself has been the target of more NED money ($37.7 million to Ukraine’s $22.4 million). NED is rather hazy about where its money is going, yet scrutinizing the vague project outlines, it becomes clear that NED has two major objectives in Ukraine:

Pushing through a mass privatization of the country’s state-owned businesses.

Building up political parties that will represent elite U.S. interests.

Of the $22.4 million, over $2.9 million has been awarded to the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an offshoot of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. One NED grant to the CIPE — worth $500,000 described the project’s goal as “enhanc[ing] the role of leading business associations and the private sector in public policy decision-making, and improv[ing] the capacity of the private sector and officials to cooperate to develop and implement economic reforms.” In other words, to hand over government decision-making to big business, something many might argue is the antithesis of democracy.

The post-2014 government, installed after the Maidan Revolution, has already implemented a course of economic shock therapy, selling off many of the country’s state-owned assets, in the process turning Ukraine into, by quite some margin, the poorest nation in Europe (although it has also helped create many new billionaires). Nevertheless, the U.S. wants to see further privatizations, along the lines of what it helped implement in Russia in the 1990s.

NED has also been key in building up pro-U.S. political forces in Ukraine, notably awarding the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) nearly $2.2 million towards this endeavor. Congress established NDI in tandem with NED; and NDI, like its sister organization, claims to be a non-governmental organization, despite being affiliated with the Democratic Party. Its chairperson is Madeline Albright, secretary of state under the Clinton administration.

In tandem with the support of political blocs also comes the grooming of young political and social activists who NED hopes will become the leaders of tomorrow. To this end, it has given at least $385,000 to the European Institute for Democracy in Warsaw, in order to, in its words, “support a new generation of political leaders in Ukraine,” by conducting training courses for their handpicked proteges, flying them out of the country to provide lessons in “election campaigning, women empowerment, effective governing, and crisis management,” among other skills.

See also

• Church Committee
• Central Intelligence Agency
• 1988 Chilean national plebiscite
• Orlando Letelier, Carlos Prats & Bernardo Leighton Cases
• Kennedy Amendment
• Salvador Allende#The truth about CIA involvement