It’s amazing that this gets any downvotes at all.

Washington Post 1991: Innocence Abroad: the New World of Spyless Coups

"A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA," agrees [NED cofounder Allen] Weinstein.

New York Times, 1997: Political Meddling by Outsiders: Not New for U.S.

The National Endowment for Democracy, created 15 years ago to do in the open what the Central Intelligence Agency has done surreptitiously for decades, spends $30 million a year to support things like political parties, labor unions, dissident movements and the news media in dozens of countries, including China.