The CIA and The 1988 Election of Ex-CIA Director Bush I

Former CIA Director Bush's official CIA portrait of 1970s

The CIA spent over $65 million to manipulate Italian voters in Italy between 1948 and 1972. Following JFK’s assassination in 1963, the CIA continued to express a special interest in manipulating the electoral process. According to a House Committee Report, CIA: The Pike Report, from 1965 to 1973, “32 percent” of the CIA’s officially approved covert action programs were "for providing some form of financial election support for foreign parties and individuals” and this was “the largest covert action category.” CIA: The Pike Report also noted that “with few exceptions, financial support has been given to incumbent…party leaders and heads of State” and that “One Third World leader received some $960,000 over a 14-year period.”

Coincidentally, the father of George W. Bush II, former CIA Director Bush I, received the support of the U.S. Establishment’s mass media in 1988 when he decided he felt like moving into the White House in January 1989. According to Television and The Crisis Of Democracy by Douglas Kellner:

“George Bush [I] was elected president largely due to the failure of the mainstream broadcast media to report in any detail on the many scandals in which he was implicated during the Reagan years—including involvement with Panamanian dictator and drug dealer Manuel Noriega, connections to an illegal Contra supply operation also involved in drug dealings, and participating in the illegal arms-for-hostages deal with the Iranian ayatollahs…

“The mainstream media also failed to investigate either Bush [I]’s record as head of the CIA or well-documented allegations that he was in the CIA as early as 1962—a claim denied by Bush’s team but argued in The Nation and other print media sources.”

(Downtown 6/24/92)

Next: CBS News’ Coverage Of The JFK Assassination and Bush I’s Role