# CIA political action group

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "CIA political action group," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-political-action-group/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The CIA's most secretive clandestine propaganda arm — successor to the Cold War 'active measures group' — which John Kiriakou says places and funds propagandists worldwide; no officer of it has been publicly identified since 1982, and he encountered its work funding the DNC's and RNC's international arms in post-war Kuwait.*

- **Function:** Clandestine propaganda; placing and funding propagandists
- **Formerly:** The 'active measures group'

The **CIA political action group** is, in [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s description, the agency's lead clandestine propaganda arm — the successor to the Cold War *"active measures group,"* renamed when the Berlin Wall fell. It places propagandists around the world, keeps them funded, and supplies the propaganda they release.[1][2][3] It works through or finances entities like the National Endowment for Democracy and the international arms of the Democratic and Republican National Committees — which Kiriakou encountered, *"flush with money,"* in Kuwait weeks after the 1991 war ended, *"when there wasn't even any food and half the country was on fire."*[4] He notes it long had to stay outwardly focused, until the [2011 NDAA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/operation-mockingbird) made it legal to propagandize Americans.[5][6]

Kiriakou has offered a hypothetical, Cold-War-era example of the group's work to illustrate how it operates: an officer overseas receiving a cable warning that communists were projected to win an Italian election, with instructions to *"steal the election for the conservatives."* The response, in his telling, would be to spend roughly $150,000 recruiting journalists, planting stories, and engineering a conservative win.[7]

## Active measures, and their hit rate

Asked whether he saw the propaganda machine at work at the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia), Kiriakou answers *"every day"* and supplies the term of art: *"There's even a word for it. It's called active measures."* His illustration is deliberately unglamorous — *"something as stupid as a pirate radio station in Yemen playing jazz so that young Yemeni men will say, 'Wow, what cool music. That makes me want to be pro-American.'"* He confirms it was a real operation, and gives the practice's success rate as he saw it: *"99 times out of 100, it's a stupid idea."*[8][9]

## The division of labour with the overt agencies

Kiriakou draws a line between what the agency does and what is done in the open, and then argues the line does not matter. Officers overseas were told to keep away from the [National Endowment for Democracy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-political-action-group) and comparable bodies — *"we were always told to stay away from those people when we were overseas"* — and not only those tied to the State Department, but the overseas arms of both major political parties, which, *"and I'm using air quotes here, they encourage democratic reforms overseas."* His own description of that work is blunter: *"really what it is, it's propagandization of people overseas."* He says he ran into them in Kuwait, in Pakistan and elsewhere.[10]

The reason for the separation is that *"the CIA is not in the business of overt regime change … everything that the CIA does is covert."* The overt half is left to the State Department, USAID and the Broadcasting Board of Governors with the Voice of America — *"all the stuff that you see with your own eyes."*[11]

The irony he then draws is the point of the passage: the objective on both sides of the line is identical. If the agency is *"running around the world trying to very secretly and discreetly overthrow government, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's doing something any different from what the State Department is doing or USAID is doing when the goal is the same. It's to overthrow a foreign government."*[12]

## See also

- [Operation Mockingbird](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/operation-mockingbird)
- [National Endowment for Democracy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-endowment-for-democracy)

## Sources

1. John Kiriakou on CIA Propaganda, War with Iran and Going Viral (2026-02-19), at 25:36. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfEX7MK0Rrw&t=1536s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-19-american-conservative-cia-propaganda-going-viral/
2. John Kiriakou on CIA Propaganda, War with Iran and Going Viral (2026-02-19), at 26:06. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfEX7MK0Rrw&t=1566s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-19-american-conservative-cia-propaganda-going-viral/
3. John Kiriakou on CIA Propaganda, War with Iran and Going Viral (2026-02-19), at 26:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfEX7MK0Rrw&t=1598s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-19-american-conservative-cia-propaganda-going-viral/
4. John Kiriakou on CIA Propaganda, War with Iran and Going Viral (2026-02-19), at 27:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfEX7MK0Rrw&t=1629s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-19-american-conservative-cia-propaganda-going-viral/
5. John Kiriakou on CIA Propaganda, War with Iran and Going Viral (2026-02-19), at 27:40. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfEX7MK0Rrw&t=1660s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-19-american-conservative-cia-propaganda-going-viral/
6. John Kiriakou on CIA Propaganda, War with Iran and Going Viral (2026-02-19), at 28:11. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfEX7MK0Rrw&t=1691s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-19-american-conservative-cia-propaganda-going-viral/
7. John Kiriakou: THEY Really Did THIS — Jay Dyer Show (2026-04-29), at 1:12:18. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqx0uSr1yYk&t=4338s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-29-jay-dyer-they-really-did-this/
8. The Third Way - Orthodox T (2026-06-26), at 2:36. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgtnG9v_5bU&t=156s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-26-the-third-way-orthodox-t-the-third-way-orthodox-t/
9. The Third Way - Orthodox T (2026-06-26), at 3:06. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgtnG9v_5bU&t=186s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-26-the-third-way-orthodox-t-the-third-way-orthodox-t/
10. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 33:05. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1985s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
11. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 33:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=2022s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
12. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 34:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=2056s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-political-action-group/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt