# National Endowment for Democracy

> **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: "National Endowment for Democracy," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-endowment-for-democracy/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*U.S. federally chartered organization characterized by John Kiriakou as a proxy for CIA propaganda — the funding vehicle by which the agency promotes pro-U.S. political leaders in foreign countries; explicitly not an operational entity in the boots-on-the-ground sense.*

- **Role (per Kiriakou):** Propaganda proxy for the [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)
- **Funded by:** [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) — *'many millions of dollars'*
- **Function:** Cultivation of foreign political leaders likely to be knee-jerk supporters of U.S. foreign policy
- **Not:** An operational or paramilitary entity

The **National Endowment for Democracy** (NED) is a U.S. federally chartered nonprofit characterized by [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) as a propaganda proxy for the [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia). *"The National Endowment for Democracy has taken many millions of dollars from the CIA to promote American propaganda — mainstream American government propaganda. So when it talks about things like nation-building, it's not really talking about nation-building. It's talking about encouraging the development of leaders in foreign countries that are going to be knee-jerk supporters of the U.S. and U.S. foreign policy."*[1]

## Operational character

Kiriakou is explicit that NED is not an operational or paramilitary entity: *"It's mainly a propaganda sort of machine for lack of better term. It's not actual boots on the ground type operations."* The closest analogue in his framing is the use of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee as ostensibly party-political instruments through which the same cultivation work proceeds in foreign settings, as he observed personally in Kuwait following the 1991 liberation (see [Kuwait Liberation Day](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kuwait-liberation-day) and [John Rendon](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-rendon)).[2][3]

## See also

- [Operation Mockingbird](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/operation-mockingbird)
- [John Rendon](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-rendon)
- [Kuwait Liberation Day](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kuwait-liberation-day)
- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)

## Sources

1. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:49:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6557s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
2. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:50:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6620s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
3. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:51:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6682s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-endowment-for-democracy/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt