On January 3, 2026, a Delta Force commando carried out an operation that changed the future of Venezuela. We’re going to hear that sound again; it’s what was happening this morning in Caracas, minutes before, in the early hours of the Venezuelan capital. But the key to this operation was not thanks to the weaponry of the United States, but to its intelligence.
Donald Trump announced that he had authorized the SIA to participate in covert operations against Venezuela. Few people paid any attention to these statements by Donald Trump. However, the CIA is responsible for Nicolás Maduro sleeping in prison today. The 20-man ground force advances deliberately, not aggressively, not hastily.
Every hallway, every staircase, and every access point exactly matches what they trained on. This is not improvisation, it’s execution. Nothing like this had been seen since the Cold War. Guatemala, 1954. The Central Intelligence Agency launches an operation codenamed Pay Access to overthrow the government that threatens US interests in the region.
Is the CIA back? Can we really say that it is the most powerful intelligence agency in the world, or is it actually the opposite? What are their successes and what are their failures? I’m going to tell you about it in this video. The CIA is one of the most famous spy agencies on the entire planet. There’s practically a Hollywood movie about every operation they’ve done.
There are the most realistic ones, such as Bridge of Spies, and those that are pure fantasy and pure action like Mission Impossible. But not even the writers of Mission Impossible imagined that the CIA would be able to capture Nicolás Maduro as it did. As we will see in this video, the Absolute Resolve operation is, without a doubt, among the best operations of the agency.
Also because the bar is set very low. In any case, this will be one of the operations that will go down in history books. But what did this operation consist of? First, I have to introduce you to the Paradox Battalion. First up we have the popular one in the class, the CIA. Second is the one who checks his boyfriend’s mobile phone, the NSA, experts in intercepting signals and communications.
And finally, the one that plays competitively in Geogear, the NGA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency . Basically, the CIA recruited informants, the NSA tapped military communications, and the NGA monitored everything from space. The result is what we’ve been saying on the channel ever since Trump approved the CIA to act in Venezuela.
In the months leading up to the operation, U.S. intelligence agencies built a granular portrait of Maduro’s daily life, tracking how he moved, where he lived and traveled, what he ate and wore, and even details about his pets, Kan said. Thanks to all the information gathered by the Paradox Battalion, the operation was an unprecedented success .
And I say unprecedented because we will later see that the rest of the CIA’s operations have not been so successful. That night, a dozen helicopters appeared in the skies over Venezuela , but the operation was also supported by a huge air force made up of more than 150 aircraft. Uncle Sam went to Olim to capture Maduro.
That night the Venezuelan skies looked like a game of War Thunder. B1B Lancet bomber, F22 Raptor F35 fighters, electronic warfare aircraft like the EA18G, early warning aircraft like the E2 Hawkai and our favorite reconnaissance aircraft, the RQ170, also known as the Flying Dorito. With all this support, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known by the nickname Supercool of The Night Stalkers, boarded their MH60 Black Hawks and departed for Venezuela.
These men were piloting the helicopters, and inside was Delta Force, which, as you know, is one of the elite units of the U.S. Army. The raid began at 2:01 a.m. local time and ended at 4:29 a.m. The result is what we all already know. Between 23 and 47 Venezuelan military personnel, 32 Cuban bodyguards with super mustaches, and two civilians were killed.
And of course, the super-mustache himself and his wife on their way to New York. On the US side, only seven soldiers were reported injured and one helicopter damaged. But according to LinkedIn, the mastermind behind this operation was Nike with the sole objective of promoting its tracksuit. Okay, jokes aside, do you know what was the most surprising thing about this operation? Well, the CIA was behind it, and yes, I know what you’re going to say.
As? But didn’t you say it’s one of the CIA’s most successful operations? That’s exactly why. A successful CIA operation is as rare as a Latin American country without corruption. Because unlike the Israeli Mossad, which was a success from the start, the CIA is what happens when you have a lot of money, but you don’t know what to do with it.
Therefore, in today’s video I ask myself the following questions. One, when was the CIA created? Second, why do I say it’s not as successful as we think? Three, what were your biggest failures? Four, have you had any achievements apart from the Maduro thing? Today we’re going to answer these questions, but first, would you like to delve deeper into the wonderful world of geopolitics? Well, don’t miss my summit geopolitics course.
Okay? Well, actually it’s not just mine, I did it together with my good friend Borja from Memorias de Pez and Memorias de Tiburón. In other words, the two biggest international political communicators on YouTube have teamed up to teach a geopolitics course. For just €99 you will have access to more than 50 geopolitics lessons, where we cover all the theory you need to know to be able to do a good analysis.
It’s not a subscription, it’s a course you can enjoy whenever you want. Furthermore, it is the perfect gift for all lovers of international politics. So I’ll see you all at cumbgeopolitics.com. And now, let’s look at a little history. I am Fonseca. Welcome to my channel. As you know, the reason the United States entered World War II was the attack on Per Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Before the attack, Uncle Sam already had all the information to know that the Japanese were going to attack there. The problem is that the information was scattered across different army units and did not reach the people who had the ability to prevent this attack. Conclusion: Two hours of bombing that changed the course of World War II.
Sunken ships, shot-down planes and thousands of dead at the US naval base of Pel Harbor, in the Hawaiian archipelago, were the result of an attack that deeply shocked Americans. Seven months later, then- President Franklin Roosevelt created the OSS, also known as the Office of Strategic Services.
This was the precursor agency to the CIA. And what were their objectives? Spying, sabotaging, and supporting resistance movements against the Axis powers was the first time the United States created an intelligence service. The problem, then, was that its first and only director, Mr. William J. Donovan, liked Mission Impossible movies more than Bridge of Spies movies.
At the end of World War II, Colonel Park, along with the director of the FBI, sent the new president, Mr. Harry Truman, a devastating report on the OSS. The report stated that he had not contributed to winning the war and that the British viewed American spies almost as their own. Washington relied almost exclusively on the information supplied by London.
Furthermore, this report concluded that OSS operations had cost more Allied soldiers their lives than they had saved. Do you want examples? Well, I’ll give you some examples. The information provided after the fall of Rome, in June 1944, led thousands of French soldiers into an ambush on the island of Elva.
The result: about 100 French people dead. Another example: OSS agents tried to steal the Japanese codebooks from their embassy in Lisbon. The problem was that the Japanese found out and changed all the codes, rendering everything they had already deciphered useless. And to top it all off, in the last year of the war, Donoman launched 21 two- person teams over Germany.
Come on, how many do you think survived? zero. Based on that report, Truman ordered the OSS to be dissolved within 10 months. This news completely destroyed the morale of Uncle Sam’s spies. However, the president decided to backtrack . Because? Well, we’re going to see it right now. The Red Terror. After the fall of Berlin and the surrender of Japan, Americans believed that everyone would hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
The problem was that while they didn’t know what to do with West Germany, the Soviets were already taking control of half of Europe. Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, i.e., Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, the Balkans. The fear that Stalin would fulfill Hitler’s dream spread throughout Washington, and it was quite reasonable.
Not only that, they also realized that he knew nothing about the Soviet Union. That is why Truman decided to cancel the elimination of the OSS. After much pressure, Truman decided to create the C and G, the central intelligence group. Truman’s idea was not to create an agency like the OSS, but something more like what this channel is.
In other words, an agency that will be responsible for gathering all the information and sending summaries to the president of what is happening in the world to prevent another one at the Harbor. However, they weren’t as fun and stylish as the ones on this channel. No covert operations. However, the CIG was not created by law, but by a presidential order.
What does all this mean? Well, they had no legal backing or authority, so the army and navy ignored them and didn’t share their information. Furthermore, they also lacked a budget, meaning they had to beg for money from other departments. The hard one for the boat. Give me a little whiskey. I remind you that you owe me 6000 pesetas worth of whiskey.
However, Harry Truman didn’t care . When it became clear that Stalin was no longer an ally, but an enemy, that’s when they realized that the IGC was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle. So in 1947 the National Security Act was passed, which finally created the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency.
Now they had a solid legal basis and, above all, a stable budget with which to operate. However, Truman still held the idea that the CIA should be just his own personal Fonseca, but without the bald men. The problem was that the last sentence of the law assigned the CIA the task of correlating, evaluating, and disseminating intelligence information, as well as performing other intelligence-related functions and duties that affect national security.
In other words, this ” other functions” basically meant that they were giving him carte blanche to carry out all kinds of covert operations. However, they would always be supervised by the National Security Council , which in turn was made up of the President of the United States, the Secretaries of State, Defense, Army, Navy and Air Force.
And what was the first thing the CIA did? Well, we’re going to see it right now. First missions. Before we continue, if you’re new to this channel, let me remind you that we release new videos every week. The news programs give you the news. I’ll tell you the story. If you’re interested in geopolitics, international politics, economics, and all of it with a bit of sarcasm and dark humor, this is the place for you.
So, you know what to do: subscribe and hit the bell so you don’t miss any of our updates. And now, let’s continue with today’s story. When the CIA was created, Uncle Sam’s biggest concerns were Italy and Greece. The Soviet Union was funding communist guerrillas in Greece to overthrow the monarchy, and in Italy they were also funding communist parties.
Obviously, Italy was the most worrying case because it is a larger country . Polls predicted that the communists would beat the Christian Democrats in the 1948 elections. Washington could not allow Rome to fall into Moscow’s hands. If it fell, the Americans expected a domino effect to occur in the rest of Europe. Conclusion.
The National Security Council gave the CIA the mission of supporting Christian Democratic parties in Italy. This mission was coordinated with the Italian secret services and the Vatican to channel aid through NGOs, cultural associations, parishes, and other front companies.
But the real breakthrough came with the Marshall Plan in 1948. The United States sent $13.7 billion (in 1948 dollars) to rebuild Europe. This is the equivalent of about 150 or 180 billion dollars today. In each country, the CIA could use 5% of the aid sent for its covert operations supporting Christian Democratic parties throughout Europe. And for that purpose, the OPC, the Office of Political Organization, was created under the command of Frank Wisner, and it worked.
In fact, that’s how the old continent stopped turning red. But the warmest demonstration is for Prime Minister Gasperick, as official results announce the success of his Christian Democratic party . With a coalition majority secured against the communists, Italy has cast its vote for freedom. But Wisner was not content with just financing political parties in Europe.
Not at all. This man was a man of action and was convinced that the only thing the Soviets understood was force. So, what do you think he did? Well, invent Fortnite. As you hear, he began recruiting exiles from the Soviet Union as agents, and they were given basic training, so to speak, and were parachuted into the Soviet Union to organize sabotage and anti-communist networks.
The result: almost all of them were captured. When they reached land, the KGB gave them a choice between the woló or the gulag. We’re talking about between 300 and 500 people. Worst of all, the CIA chiefs created the Geglen organization, an intelligence network made up of former Nazi officers that was responsible for providing information on these types of operations.
And you might say, “But why Nazis?” It’s simple, because they were the ones who had the most information about Eastern Europe and its infrastructure. But this is not the worst of it. Most of these former Nazi officers were already working for Moscow. And you might say, “How come nobody stopped these operations?” Because the CIA’s organizational system was a complete mess.
Each base operated independently without informing their superiors. The CIA director did not control the OPC or the Office of Special Operations. This was done by the National Security Council, and let’s just say they didn’t want to ask too many questions, that’s the way it is . The CIA didn’t want to answer them either.
Basically, everyone was doing whatever the hell they wanted, and to top it all off, the Korean War had just started . Someone needed to straighten things out at the CIA, and there was only one candidate. The Korean War was the first major test for the CIA and provided the agency with its first real leader, General Walter Bedel Smith. When news of the invasion of Korea arrived, he was in Walter Re military hospital , where two- thirds of his stomach had been removed due to an ulcer.
Truman begged him to take the position, but he asked for a month’s grace period to see if he would survive. Walter Bedel Smith had been Eisenhauer’s Chief of Staff during World War II. However, when he was appointed director of the CIA, he discovered that World War II had been, we might say, child’s play compared to organizing the CIA.
The first thing he did was separate the analysts from the special operational agents . And you might ask, why? Because many times they were looking for information to justify their operations instead of discovering what was really happening. In addition, he purged the informants who had made a fortune selling false information to the CIA.
And don’t think they were exactly a minority. At that time Twitter did not exist and somehow they had to make money with hoaxes, but the big problem was the covert operations. He merged the OEPC with the Office of Special Operations and placed them under the supervision of the Deputy Director for Plans, and in this position he put Alan Duls, future director of the CIA and one of the most famous.
Walter’s goal was to control Frank Wisner’s crazy antics. The problem was that he knew Alan Dulls had the same ideas as Whisner, but he was the only one who could control him. As a result, he managed to bring some order, but that did not prevent the Korean War from being a real disaster for the CIA. And it all started with Malpi on the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War, when a Soviet spy had penetrated the nerve center of codebreaking at Arlington Hall.
It was William Wolf Weiseb, a linguist who translated the deciphered messages from Russian to English. Recruited as a spy by Moscow in the 1930s, Wband single-handedly succeeded in destroying the United States’ ability to read secret Soviet dispatches. It is true that in this case part of the responsibility lies with the FBI, which is ultimately in charge of internal security, but the real failure of the CIA came when UN troops were advancing towards the Chinese border on the Yalu River.
The intelligence community failed spectacularly by not warning of the massive entry of Chinese communist forces into this conflict. And look, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, the CIA had already warned that Mao was sending troops to the border. Moreover, some of their agents even interrogated captured Chinese soldiers .
However, for some reason, when they warned General MacArthur that China was preparing to enter the war, he threatened to arrest them. McArthur believed that the Chinese army was weak and would not dare to confront him . The CIA began sending reports that corroborated Macarthur’s claims. As a result, some 4,500 UN soldiers were killed and some 7,500 were wounded.
The mission, which was supposed to be simple and last 5 days with a maximum of 200 casualties, ended up being one of the bloodiest clashes of the conflict with serious losses for the UN side. This is how the Battle of Triangle Hill began. This is one of the most repeated and most serious failures in the history of the CIA.
Trying to please the Washington elites instead of telling them the truth. Although it must also be acknowledged that it is difficult to tell the truth to someone who does not want to hear it. On the other hand, Wisner and Duls released the Kpop version of Fortnite with the same results they had in Europe.
And to top it all off, Bedel Smith resigned as director of Garcia in 1953, a few months before the Korean truce was signed. And what happened? Well, we’re going to see it right now. The King of the Company Walter Bedel Smith’s resignation coincided with Eisenhauer’s arrival at the White House. The new president, this time a Republican, had to appoint a new CIA director.
And I know what you ‘re wondering, what’s the process for appointing a new CIA director? It’s simple. Digital democracy. The president chooses a person by hand, then it is debated in the Senate. That’s true, if he’s suitable for the position. Then a vote is taken and if he obtains a simple majority he becomes the new director of the CIA. Congratulations.
And who did they appoint? Well, to Alan Duls. This didn’t surprise anyone. Within the CIA, it was said that Duls was just missing putting his name on the director’s office. Dulce was an elite lawyer born into a prominent American establishment family . His grandfather had been Secretary of State, no less. His father was a Presbyterian minister with a lot of political influence, and his brother had been appointed Secretary of State by President A. Eisenhauer himself.
Come on, he had enough connections, plus he had previously worked in the OSS. Remember the father of the CIA and that he was a fervent anti-communist, just what Eisenhauer was looking for. But Dules was not satisfied with traditional espionage. For him, the Soviets had to be defeated on all fronts, including art.
And you will say, “Art?” But what kind of art? Well, this one. Yes, this is not a joke. The CIA’s preferred art was the abstract expressionism of artists like Jackson Pollock, for example. Because? Because it was the opposite of the socialist realism of the Soviet Union. The CIA covertly funded foundations such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom, Museums, and Exhibitions.
To give you an idea, many of these artists were left-wing and never knew they had been funded by the CIA. One of these artists was Casimir Malevic, known for his work White Picture on White Background. Yes, the title is very descriptive, but they didn’t just stop at art. Almost all of the CIA’s extravagant operations, which you ‘ve surely heard about, were Duls’s doing, such as funding non- Soviet communists like those of the Frankfurt School, or funding Radio Free Europe, or Project MK Ultra, or the famous phrase inscribed at the
CIA headquarters in Langli: “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” from the Gospel of John. But the money wasn’t only spent on artists. What this man will always be remembered for is carrying out the CIA’s first two coups: the one in Iran and the one in Guatemala. In 1951, the Iranian parliament decided to expropriate the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
Expropriate it, Mr. Mayor. This company was vital to the British Navy. Not only were its ships designed to run on Iranian oil, but a large part of them had been paid for with that oil. The problem, then, was that since its creation in 1908, the Iranians received barely 15% of this company’s profits.
To give you an idea, there were years when the British share was greater than all of Iran’s public revenue. And that’s not to mention the complete lack of transparency. Tehran barely knew what his oil company was doing, so many of his workers earned a mere $25 a day in today’s money. And those of you who have seen Landman know that’s very little money for working in the oil industry.
In short, the Iranian government asked the British to renegotiate the agreement . Tehran was asking for a 5050 deal. This was the agreement that London and Riyadh had recently reached . However, Churchill told them absolutely not . In short, expropriate, Mr. Mayor. MI6 immediately organized a coup to overthrow Mossadegh, the then-president of Iran.
However, these wannabe James Bonds were caught and sent packing. After this failure, MI6 asked for help. to the CIA. However, Eisenhauer initially opposed it. He believed the best course of action was to give Mossadegh a loan to stabilize Iran and maintain it as an ally, which, as we can now see, would have been a very good thing.
Moreover, Mossadegh himself also wanted to improve relations with Uncle Sam. The problem was that when they met face-to-face, the Iranian president told his counterpart in Washington that he was very worried about a possible attack from Moscow. Why? Because he expected the United States to send him aid in droves. The problem was, they did send money, but to overthrow him.
And you might ask, why this change of heart? Well, because in Washington they began to fear that if the Soviet Union exerted even a little pressure, Mossadegh might switch sides, and this would mean that all Iranian oil would go to Moscow. And that’s how Operation Ajax began, the cleanest of them all, and one that also smells of lemon.
The CIA established a base in Iran and began recruiting generals for a coup. The most important was Zahedi, who was chosen by the British. He was given $5,000 to prepare the coup. In addition, the CIA spent another $50,000 to buy off the press and public opinion. Suddenly, messages like these began appearing in Iran: Mosadegh favors the TD party and the USSR. Mosadegh is an enemy of Islam.
Mosadegh is deliberately destroying the morale of the army. Mosadegh is deliberately leading the country to economic collapse. Mosadegh has been corrupted by power. The TUEG party was the Iranian Communist Party, and the CIA tried at all costs to link Mosadegh to this party. However, he belonged to the National Front of Iran, which was more similar to Perón in his early days than to Stalin.
Furthermore, to undermine Tueg’s credibility , the CIA hired gunmen to carry out false flag attacks. Moreover, they even asked the then-Isyatollah to declare a holy war against Mosadegh. Basically, they wanted to unleash chaos in Iran before the coup. On August 14th, the green light was given to launch the coup.
The problem was that Mosadg had already heard about it and closed the maglis, which is the Iranian parliament. Only the parliament could impeach him. So he neutralized all the senators and deputies the CIA had bought off and, just in case, staged a tank display at his own house. When the Shah’s guards went to arrest him, Mosadg made this move.
One. Block you, block you, block you, block you, block you, block you, block you. Reverse, reverse, reverse, reverse, reverse, reverse, reverse. Plus two, plus two, plus two, plus two, plus two. Eat four, eat four. One, eat four. Two days later, Radio Terán announced that the coup was over, and badly for the CIA, because the SA had to go into exile in Rome, where he planned to spend the rest of his life.
However, the CIA didn’t give up. Coincidentally, Alan Duls was vacationing at the same hotel and apparently convinced SA to revive the idea of a coup. So, on August 19, CIA-hired mobs started a riot in Tehran. The best part? The protest was started by some CIA-hired Jim Bros. Yes, some strongmen started chanting anti-Osadeg and pro-Mossad slogans, and the crowd stormed the president’s cabinet building, burned four newspaper offices, and stormed the headquarters of a pro-Mossad party.
Just to give you an idea of what the Jim Bros are capable of. And do you know who would join this revolt? None other than the then Ayatollah Ahmed Casani, accompanied by his 51-year-old devoted follower, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini. Yes, we’re talking about the future leader of Iran. After several days of protests and violent street clashes that left 300 people dead, the capital city was in turmoil.
plunged into chaos. On August 20th, Mr. Mosadeg finally surrendered. As you can see, this marked the beginning of one of the CIA’s great traditions: funding people who will later become their enemies. Mosadeg was placed under house arrest, and the SAS took complete control of the country. Obviously, this boosted the CIA’s morale because they were no longer just the inventors of Fortnite, but an agency capable of overthrowing governments. Quite something.
I mean, they were on top of the world . Now I’ve just gotten 40 mentions telling me I’m not going to turn the tables. I’ll make the tables, idiot. I’ll smoke four joints. Barely a year later, the CIA repeated the same move in Central America, more specifically in Guatemala, where the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arz, said, “Expropriate it, Mr. Mayor.
” This Guatemalan seized the agricultural lands that weren’t being used. Keep in mind that many of these lands belonged to the company. United Freet Company. This was a very important company for Uncle Sam at that time. The problem was that, in order to pay less taxes, they had declared their land to be worth practically nothing.
In conclusion, the government said it was fine, even offering compensation based on the price they themselves had declared. As a result, the agrarian reform set off alarm bells about communism at the CIA, and the final straw was when they learned that Arvent was about to receive a ship full of weapons coming from Czechoslovakia, which, remember, was part of the Soviet empire at that time.
Legend has it that an American spy posing as an ornithologist discovered this while in the Polish city of Stettin, on the Baltic coast—the same city where Churchill gave his speech—birdwatching. Washington confirmed this because the Bank of Guatemala had transferred $4.86 million to a Czech arms depot through a Swiss bank account.
Washington quickly began claiming that the Soviet Union was planning to plant weapons of mass destruction in Guatemala. However, when the shipment arrived, CIA agents discovered that they were indeed weapons, but weapons from the time when the Austrian painter was still a painter. Many even bore swastikas, but it was too late to turn back because Operation I Am Success was already underway.
That’s right, Operation Success. I’ve already told you I was very high up. And what did Operation Success achieve? Well, the CIA recruited and financed a group of exiled military officers led by Carlos Castillo Armas. They trained a small rebel army in Honduras and Nicaragua. And, well, Castillo Armas, what can I say? The casting of names was perfect because in June 1954 the group began its invasion of Guatemalan territory.
Although the force was modest, the CIA supported them with psychological warfare. Clandestine radio stations, such as Radio Voice of Liberation, broadcast false news of advances, of relentless rebels, but then there were also planes piloted by mercenaries that bombed the capital to sow discord. Panic.
The Guatemalan high command, with direct US intervention , pressured President Arent to resign, and he did so on June 27, 1954, when the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power. In “Waving Anti-Communist Banners,” jubilant soldiers celebrate their victory after their two-week rebellion in Guatemala. This coup ended a decade of democracy in Guatemala, ushering in decades of repressive military regimes .
For the CIA, it was another success in preventing the red flag from flying in its backyard. However, the cold shower came with Fidel Castro. In April 1961, the CIA, under the command of Alan Duls and with the approval of newly elected President John F. Kennedy, attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba through an invasion of Cuban exiles.
Some 100 men from Brigade 2506, trained and equipped in Nicaragua and Guatemala by the CIA, landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. The CIA expected the incursion to be a complete success once again, triggering an internal anti-Castro uprising to overthrow the communist regime. But none of this happened.
Castro reacted swiftly, mobilizing the army and militias, and in less than 72 hours annihilated and captured the invading force. The key to Castro’s victory was that he was always aware of the movements of Brigade 2506. Fidel had at least two dozen agents within the brigade. There was nothing secret about Brigade 2506. And I know what you’re wondering, but were Fidel Castro’s agents really that good? Well, not necessarily, but to find out that the CIA was planning to overthrow Castro, all you had to do was go out partying in Miami,
because, let’s face it, almost the entire city knew about the plan. You tell me what was so secret about it. The CIA’s own Cuban agents had told them. to the whole world. So Kennedy, who was afraid of open warfare, canceled the supporting air strikes at the last minute and decided not to involve American troops, at least not directly.
As you can imagine, this doomed the operation to failure. Kennedy was internationally humiliated and blamed the CIA leadership for all the problems. He forced Duls and his deputy, Charles Cabell, to resign, as well as other high-ranking officials. Moreover, internally, a report by Inspector General L.A. Kirkpatrick pointed to the CIA’s incompetence and disconnect from reality .
This fuels many of these conspiracy theories that say the CIA was behind Kennedy’s assassination , although they probably would have failed if they had been, given what happened. But after the Bay of Pigs disaster, and seeing that they couldn’t trust their informants too much, the CIA created the Science and Technology Directorate.
This department was the agency’s Flying Tiger , what you imagine in James Bond movies when he goes to see his Friend Q and he gets all the inventions out of him. This department provided the spies with, well, hidden cameras, tiny microphones, low-energy transmitters—basically, everything a real-life James Bond needs for a Tinder date.
But they didn’t just make small gadgets; they also started creating satellites and spy planes. The most important was the famous U2, the one that gives the group its name. As a curious fact, Kodak, the camera company you all know, participated in its creation, and they didn’t take long to get them up and running.
But the secret lasted until October 14, 1962. On that day, an American spy plane flew over Cuba and took hundreds of photos. The CIA verified these images and identified that components for medium-range ballistic missiles were being prepared in San Cristóbal, in the western province of Pinar del Río, Cuba. Thanks to these planes, the U2s or the U-planes, the CIA was able to detect that Moscow was planting nuclear missiles in Cuba.
During the crisis, Kennedy didn’t understand that the then Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev intended. What would be the point of putting nuclear missiles next to the United States that could trigger a nuclear war? Who would even think of such a thing? And then one of his generals raised his hand and said, “Well, we may have done the same thing in Turkey.
” And that’s how the missile crisis ended . Russia removed its missiles from Cuba, and the United States did the same in Turkey. In 1966, the then US president, Lyndon B. Johnson, appointed Richard Helms as the new director of the CIA. For both Kennedy and his successor, Helms was the responsible adult within the agency.
He had been there since its creation, and now his mission was to prevent another Bay of Pigs disaster. The first thing he did was cancel all the crazy programs from the Duls era: Fortnite, the pointless clandestine operations, Project MK Ultra. Surely those involved in that program couldn’t have guessed they were going to be out of a job, much less use their superpowers to convince Helms to back down.
in his decision. They weren’t just canceled because he thought they were crazy, but because he knew that if they came to light, they would definitively ruin the CIA’s reputation. And to that end, he ordered the destruction of all the files. The problem was Nixon’s rise to power in 1969, or as Ávalos would say, mm 69.
Nixon didn’t trust Helms and unofficially put Kissinger in charge of the CIA. Enrique Singer actively used the agency for secret missions that aligned with Nixon’s Realpolitik. And what was the most famous? It was 11:52 a.m. on September 11, 1973, when the Chilean Air Force began bombing the presidential palace. These images from La Moneda marked the beginning of a military regime that would govern the country for the next 17 years under General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.
However, this would be the last coup d’état sponsored by the CIA. Why? They punished it when they realized that Chile didn’t have Oil. No, the punishment came with Watergate. And you might say, “Was the CIA involved in the Watergate scandal?” Well, no, quite the opposite. Nixon had tried by all means to involve Helms in spying on his political enemies.
However, Helms knew that this was going too far. Conclusion: The head of the agency dodged the Watergate bullet, but not the suspicion that the CIA was involved. Conclusion: In 1975, the Senate formed the Church Committee to investigate what the CIA had done since its creation. Did they find it guilty of Watergate? No, but they did find it guilty of plots to assassinate foreign political leaders, domestic spying on dissidents and journalists, infiltration of hippie groups, and the MK Ultra thing.
And you might say, “But didn’t they erase the MK Ultra evidence?” That’s what they thought. The problem. Do you remember when I told you that in its early days it was a mess? Well, many of the informants in that damned MK Ultra had kept the Information. What was destroyed was only a small part, but the rest was lost in the CIA’s gigantic warehouses .
The main investigation carried out by the Church Committee on CIA activities had focused primarily on a plot orchestrated by the CIA to collaborate with the Mafia and assassinate Fidel Castro. They can’t even erase their own information. After the committee, assignments to politicians were prohibited, clandestine operations were ended, or they were placed under the supervision of the Senate and Congress, and for that purpose, the Senate and Congressional intelligence committees were created . And to top it all off, in 1977,
the Great Halloween Purge took place. Yes, that’s what it’s called, the Great Halloween Purge. The new CIA director, Stanfield Turner, fired most of those responsible for the abuses, giving way to a new CIA that was finally going to comply with the law. Revenge. Until the 1960s, the relationship between the C
IA and the KGB had been such that… You could see the Assassin. Tell me, what do you look like? She’s white, with eyebrows. Scar. Maybe she looked like that. What? What a good joke, son. So, none of this was real. Shot. Yes. One of the CIA’s first big successes in the 1950s was Operation Gold. Uncle Sam’s agents tapped the telephone wires of the Soviet military.
For the first time, they had information about the movements of Russian troops, the police, even their nuclear arsenal. However, all that information was fake. Why? Well, because Moscow found out about the operation before they tapped the wires. How? Well, thanks to George Blake, an MI6 agent who turned out to be a Soviet mole.
But this is nothing. For years they used the Agent Dangle technique. And what did that technique consist of? Well, first they would send someone posing as a defector. Once recruited by the intelligence services, they would be offered the opportunity to create a spy network. And through this network, Moscow would leak The information that the Soviets gave to Western countries was whatever they wanted.
But not only that, they paid these double agents and in many cases asked to expand the network, thinking it was good information. Basically, they were completely taken in . Completely exposed . However, that ended with Ronald Reagan’s rise to power. In 1981, French intelligence managed to recruit a KGB colonel, Vladimir Petrov, alias Farwell.
Petrov handed over to the West some 4,000 top-secret documents detailing the Soviet network dedicated to stealing Western technology. This became known as the Farwell dossier, which, by the way, is the subject of an excellent film, and it contained the names of hundreds of agents and Moscow front companies involved in these operations.
The French shared this information with the other allied countries, as usual . And what do you think they did? Complain to the UN. Come on, please, we’re talking about the CIA. Along with other allied agencies, they devised an anti-theft strategy. What was it? Well, to let themselves be robbed, but in a big way.
And You might say, “What?” Okay, relax, this time it was a good strategy. Since they already knew how the Soviet Union was stealing from them, they started flooding them with defective technology. The most spectacular case r was an industrial software for the control of gas pipelines. The KGB managed to obtain, through an agent in Canada, a program to automate valves and pumps for a new Siberian gas pipeline.
But this software contained an EASEG, that is, an Easter egg. When Soviet engineers installed it in 1982, everything seemed to work until, after some time, the software that was supposed to control pumps, turbines, and valves was designed to fail. After functioning normally, it automatically readjusted the pump speed and valve position.
generating pressures far above what the pipeline could withstand. The result was a massive explosion, the largest non-nuclear fire ever observed from space. The CIA made the KGB pay, and with interest. Donkey, huh. Oh my God, this is going to happen. Do you want to marry Ah, you fell for it. In other words , it was all a lie.
We’re not getting married. But the revenge didn’t stop there. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the United States decided to turn this country into the Soviet Vietnam. The CIA launched Operation Cyclone, one of its longest and most expensive campaigns, which lasted from 1979 to 1989. And what did it consist of? It was primarily through Pakistan’s secret service that more than $3.
2 billion in weapons, equipment, and money was channeled to the Afghan Mujahideen guerrillas fighting against the Soviet army. But they weren’t the only ones. Saudi Arabia and even China also sent money to the mujahideen. The CIA sent them advanced weaponry, such as the famous Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that, starting in 1989, destroyed the Soviet air force. The result.
In 1989, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, and two years later the Soviet Union abandoned the server. What might seem like a success turned out to have caught the CIA completely off guard. Because? Well, by one name only: Aldrich Ames. He was a member of the CIA’s counterintelligence office. Basically, those who dedicate themselves to hunting Soviet moles.
The problem was that he had been a mole for Moscow since 1985, so he gave the Russians the identities of the most important CIA spies. All were captured and 12 of them were executed. That is why, in the late 1980s, US intelligence was completely blind, unaware of what was happening in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, their satellites and spy planes had focused on monitoring Soviet weaponry, but not its economy.
Moreover, throughout the Cold War, the CIA predicted that the Soviet economy, get this, would surpass the American one. Because? Because they used official Soviet statistics that Moscow leaked through its double agents. Come on, the fall of the Soviet Union was quite a surprise. And you might ask, “Would they celebrate it?” No.
Well, yes, but it was a bitter celebration. Because? Because without the Soviet Union, the CIA no longer had a clear purpose. Many of its agents began packing their bags, and as the Cold War ended, the Bill Clinton administration implemented its peace dividend policy. He basically cut the defense budget, and that included the CIA.
The agency’s budget went from $34.5 billion to $26.7 billion. However, the cuts did not last long. The war on terror. In 1982, the United States had decided to get involved in Lebanon to stop the civil war. However, as soon as he entered, he was greeted by Hezbollah. It was his first encounter with a terrorist group.
It was the largest non-nuclear explosion recorded since the end of World War II. It was so massive that absolutely everyone in Beirut heard it. And what was the ceiling 40 feet high was now on the ground. This terrorist group not only killed Americans, but also kidnapped them. This is the same thing Iran did when it seized the US embassy during the 1979 revolution.
So, in this case, Ronald Reagan was desperate to save the hostages. In a meeting with the CIA director, William J. A. Cassy asked him to send them home and to look into what could be done to continue supporting the Nicaraguan Contras. Congress had recently expressly prohibited giving money to Nicaraguan guerrillas.
Conclusion: Casey mixed the CIA’s two favorite topics. Through a liaison, he arranged with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard to sell them weapons in exchange for the release of the hostages. And with the money from this arms sale, Keasing financed the Nicaraguan Contras. And that’s how the Iran-Contra scandal came about. Obviously all of this was illegal and committees were formed and further changes were made to limit the CIA, but the important thing is that in Langli they realized that they had a new enemy, the terrorist groups. The terrorist threat
became the absolute priority on September 11 at 8:46 a.m. when the Boeing 757 hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. Chaos invaded the city. Nobody knew what was really going on. That day the world changed forever, and so did she . Another Per Harbor incident had occurred and the agency was unable to prevent it.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that many measures could have been taken to prevent it from happening. So, what were the biggest failures? Well, since the year 2000, the CIA knew that two members of Al-Qaeda had entered the United States, Khalid Almigar and Nawaf Alhazmi. However, they did not notify the FBI in time .
That same day, then- President George W. Bush declared war on terror and ordered the CIA to move heaven and earth to find Osama bin Laden. And where did they go? Afghanistan. Eh, eh eh Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal, CIA agents in Afghanistan saw the arrival of Saudis in the country, including Osama Bin Laden. With his father’s million-dollar inheritance, he bought the loyalty of many Taliban and founded Al-Qaeda.
After 9/11, Uncle Sam demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama Bin Laden, but they refused. Conclusion. Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war. The Northern alliance was fighting the Taliban, so the United States sent troops to support them. Once in Afghanistan, the CIA realized that it wasn’t the only one after Alcaeda.
The Iranian Kuds forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had also declared war on Osama bin Laden. Remember, they are Shiites, the others are Sunnis. In one of life’s ironic moments, CIA and Iranian intelligence agents agreed to work together to take down the terrorist group. And you might say, “But why would the Ayatollah want to get rid of Alcaeda?” Besides the fact that Iran is predominantly Shia, Al-Qaeda is Sunni, and the group had also attempted to attack Iran.
Moreover, in 1998 Teeran seriously considered invading Afghanistan after several of his diplomats were assassinated. However, the collaboration lasted only a few months because in the middle of the invasion of Afghanistan, the famous invasion of George Wush, the one we all know, the one of Iraq, took place.
There is no justification for invading Iraq. Yes, maybe. But what we forget is that everyone who doesn’t want to go to war is gay. I want war. The CIA played a key role in the invasion of Iraq . Which? Cararla’s. The president had gotten it into his head that Saddam Hussein was supporting Alcaeda. Furthermore, he was certain that the Iraqi regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.
And the truth is that George Bush was right, but I’m referring to George Bush, the father. During his term he defeated Iraq in the 1990 Gulf War, and one of the peace conditions was that Baghdad destroy its biological weapons arsenal, which it did. Yes, these kinds of weapons are also considered weapons of mass destruction like nuclear weapons, so you can dismiss the idea that the invasion was based on a lie, but Busijo was adamant that Saddam had only hidden them.
Furthermore, the Iraqi dictator did not deny Washington’s accusations. Because? Because that way he could deter other countries from attacking him. However, the exact opposite happened. When Iraqi exiles learned that the CIA was looking for information about weapons of mass destruction, what do you think happened? So they started telling 20,000 stories that the weapons did indeed exist in order to receive money from the CIA.
The most famous was the Curvall report, by an Iraqi refugee in Germany who claimed to know about Saddam Hussein’s mobile biological laboratories, which explained why it was so difficult to detect these weapons. With this information, taken with a grain of salt, Bush justified the invasion of Iraq. And you’ll say, “Did they find the weapons?” No, father.
At the trial, Saddam Hussein said he hoped the CIA would realize that he had eliminated the weapons of mass destruction in a timely manner and lift the sanctions, and once the Iraqi economy recovered he would replenish, excuse me, his biological arsenal. In conclusion, the CIA was completely humiliated, but not defeated.
As with No Man’s Sky, the agency delivered on its promise, but late. I’m talking about one of their most successful operations. Gaddafi started a secret weapons of mass destruction program, but after years of sanctions and broken diplomatic ties with the US, it finally happened. In 2003, Libya renounced its weapons of mass destruction program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and finally allowed British and American officials into the country to help with the destruction of its chemical and nuclear research. In the late 1980s, Aku Khan, the
father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, decided to start a business and began selling nuclear weapons on the black market. Okay, it’s true that he didn’t sell the nuclear bombs themselves, but he did sell the machinery needed to produce them. They were like IKEA nuclear bombs . Its buyers included Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
And you might say, “How could they have allowed him to do something like that?” Because this man was a national hero in his country and had the protection of the Pakistani government. In the late 1990s, Western intelligence services realized the danger this man posed. Conclusion: They started mapping their shell companies, their routes, their intermediaries, and so on.
As a result, in October 2003 they intercepted one of their ships, the cargo ship BBC China, and inside they found nuclear centrifuges that were destined for [unspecified location]. Where do you think? Well, to Livia. Gfi had no choice but to acknowledge its nuclear program and choose between destroying it or ending up like Saddam Hussein.
Although, well, then in 2011 it had an even worse ending. And do you know who else died in 2011? Exact. Osama bin Laden. He did n’t give up, he kept moving. And based on the threat level of him not surrendering and the likelihood that he had a vest, I neutralized him. I shot him twice in the head. fell to the ground. In 2007, the CIA identified Abu Ahmed Albaiti, Bin Laden’s personal courier .
They monitored his movements for 3 years. In 2010, this man was repeatedly seen entering a strange, ultra-secure house in Abotabaz, Pakistan. The house had no registered telephone number and was also surrounded by excessively high walls. It almost looked like a castle, and to increase suspicions, satellite images showed that they were burning the garbage inside, that is, they weren’t throwing it away, they were burning it.
I guess they did n’t have a freezer. That’s a clever trick. The CIA monitored this house for months, however, they never saw Osama Bin Laden leave it. All they knew was that he disappeared from Afghanistan in 2006 and had not been seen again. Langley estimated that the possibility of it being found there was between 60% and 80%.
And you’ll say, “Well, they should ask Pakistan for permission and search the house.” The problem was that relations between Islamabad and Washington had deteriorated considerably. Furthermore, the CIA knew that Pakistani intelligence was collaborating with Alcaeda. Furthermore, Abbottabad is a military city, surrounded by barracks and military housing.
Obama knew that if something went wrong, they could end up shooting at the soldiers of a nuclear power, because Pakistan has nuclear bombs, don’t forget. However, he didn’t back down and gave the green light to the operation. called Neptune’s spear. On the night of May 2, 2011, two Black Hawks and two Shinuks left Afghanistan and landed near Bin Laden’s house.
23 Navy Seals, an interpreter, and a dog named Cairo emerged from the helicopters. I suppose that from that day on he earned the nickname Osama Vin Ladren. There were 22 people in the house: Vin Laden, his three wives, his 14 children, and several of his messengers. The result. Upon bursting into the room, they see two women, Bin Laden’s wives, in a state of shock.
In a corner of the room, the children are crying and huddled together . In front of them, a tall man with a grayish beard is on the ground. They’ve found him. Target removed. In the operation they not only eliminated Osama Bin Laden, they also took numerous hard drives containing vital information from the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.
However, they had to grab him quickly because the Pakistani army was heading to the scene. In total, the United States only lost one Black Hawk upon landing, and that’s it. This was the last major CIA operation until the capture of Nicolás Maduro. As we have seen, the history of the CIA is a continuous succession of great successes and failures.
So now the question is, what will their next operation be? Will it be a success or a failure? Do you think the CIA has changed and is now a more respectable, more efficient agency, in short, more comparable to Mosat? You can leave your answer in the comments, but don’t go yet because now we’re going to the more personal section of this channel.
Let’s go with Only Fonts. Welcome to Only FS, the section where I share my experience, give channel news, and answer the most interesting questions you leave in the comments or on X. Questions like this one. Hello, Fonseca. The question is, in which war did he fare the worst? In Vietnam or in the mother of all wars, aka Iran? That’s Roger’s question.
Very good question, Roger. Well, let’s see, the Vietnam War has become the symbol of America’s failures . It’s the mother of all fiascos. Curiously, it was never legally considered a war. It was a special military operation, wink wink. In other words, Congress never had to pass a law to start the war in Vietnam.
It all started as a conflict between South Vietnam and North Vietnam, where Uncle Sam supported the southern side. They started by simply sending weapons and military instructors, but little by little they got carried away and started sending infantry soldiers, and well, the typical thing about Imelie not coming out.
After 8 years of intense presence, the United States had to withdraw and the northern side won. In this war, more than 58,000 American soldiers died, that is, more than the entire population of a Spanish city like Segovia. It was a generational trauma with thousands of young men who were almost forced to join the ranks, and all for nothing.
However, the Iran war, at least for the moment, has only lasted a few weeks and about 13 soldiers have died. And there has been no need for an invasion, at least not yet. In other words, it is not a trauma comparable to that of the Vietnam War. Yes, it is true that it has many other geopolitical consequences, some of which we cannot yet measure because we cannot predict the future, but for the moment all we have seen is the rise in the price of oil and chaos in the markets which, look, I don’t want to downplay it, but again it is not comparable to what the
Vietnam War was. However, there is another important difference between Iran and Vietnam, and that is, who was to blame for Uncle Sam getting involved in Vietnam? Well, it’s not just one person. Let’s say the decision to go to this war was collective. Uncle Sam’s elites, Democrats and Republicans, thought it was a good idea.
However, in this case there is a clear culprit: Donald Trump. This war has been their gamble, so rather than a fiasco for the United States, we could say it ‘s a fiasco for Donald Trump and it’s going to take its toll on him. So with this I hope I have answered your question, Roger, and to everyone else remember that you can send me all your questions to the channel comments or to my personal Twitter which is @sr/fonseca.
Put the hashagonlyfons so they can find them. And at this point, don’t forget that here at Solo Fonseca we release new videos every week, so subscribe to the channel and hit the bell so you don’t miss any of our updates. If you liked this video, give it a like and we’ll see you in the next one.
Thank you for being there and see you soon.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
