Declassified: How America Planned to Invade Italy (To Save It from Russia)

‘As accusations fly that Russia manipulated the 2016 American election to put Donald Trump in the White House, some Americans are remembering that the United States also fiddled with elections in numerous nations during the Cold War, including Chile, Iran and Central America.
One of the most notorious examples is Italy, where the CIA mounted an aggressive—and successful—campaign to limit Communist success in the 1948 election, including handing bags of money to conservative Italian political parties (a tradition hardly unknown in American politics). From 1948 to 1968, the CIA gave more than $65 million to Italian parties and labor unions.
But instead of cash, the United States could have sent in the Marines to give Italy the government that America thought it deserved. As late as 1960, America was still contemplating using military force if the Communists took power.’
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