William Proxmire
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William Proxmire was a Democratic senator from Wisconsin. John Kiriakou recounts that he won the special election held after the death of "the notorious Joe McCarthy", dating it loosely to "1956 or 57, 58", and describes him as "a progressive Democrat who just hated, hated, hated government spending."

Proxmire's instrument was the Golden Fleece Award, handed out once a month at a press conference to whichever government entity he judged to be fleecing the American taxpayer.

Collision with the CIA

In Kiriakou's account the award repeatedly landed on the CIA without Proxmire intending it, because of the way the agency's budget is hidden. Proxmire would see a line item such as "$12 million to study gay monkeys in Guatemala", declare it an outrage, and award the Golden Fleece to whichever State Department office or USAID programme appeared to be handling it. "Well, there's no $12 million program to study gay monkeys in Guatemala, that was the cover story. That line item was $12 million from the CIA budget that had been embedded there." The result, Kiriakou says, was that "the CIA was just apoplectic every month when Proxmire would do his Golden Fleece award." See concealment of the CIA budget.

Afterwards

Kiriakou says Proxmire left the Senate in 1998 and that "nobody like William Proxmire has ever been elected since then", while the agency "is still doing the same thing it did when it was trying to dodge his Golden Fleece award. They're still lying about the budget, they're still embedding covert action programs all over government."

See also

- Concealment of the CIA budget
- USAID as a CIA cover vehicle
- Central Intelligence Agency
