In 1991, NED co-founder Allen Weinstein told the Washington Post: 'A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.' Created in 1983, the NED receives congressional funding to 'strengthen democratic institutions' worldwide — but critics document its role in regime change operations, funding opposition groups, and destabilizing governments unfriendly to US interests. The NED funded groups involved in the 2019 Hong Kong protests, Venezuelan opposition, and Ukrainian civil society organizations prior to the 2014 Maidan revolution.
“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
What they said vs. what the evidence shows
“The implication that NED has a relationship with the CIA is not only utterly false, without a shred of evidence. NED operates transparently and with full congressional oversight.”
— NED Official Statement · Jan 2006
SourceFrom “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
In 1991, Allen Weinstein made a statement to the Washington Post that would have been dismissed as conspiracy theory had it come from almost anyone else. But Weinstein wasn't a fringe critic—he was a co-founder of the National Endowment for Democracy, speaking plainly about his own organization's purpose. "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA," he said. That single sentence contained an admission that explained decades of questions about America's democracy promotion efforts abroad.
The NED was established in 1983, created during Ronald Reagan's presidency with explicit congressional authorization and federal funding. Its stated mission was straightforward: "strengthen democratic institutions" around the world. The organization presented itself as a transparent, above-board alternative to the shadowy operations that had defined Cold War foreign policy. Here was democracy promotion in the open, the thinking went, with legitimate oversight and public accountability.
Critics were skeptical from the beginning. They noted the timing—the NED's creation coinciding with renewed American interventionism in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. They observed the pattern: the organization consistently funded opposition groups in countries whose governments Washington disliked, while showing little interest in supporting democratic movements in allied authoritarian regimes. When the CIA's covert operations were exposed and constrained, the NED seemed to fill that exact vacuum, just with different letterhead.
For decades, those making these observations were labeled conspiracy theorists. Mainstream outlets dismissed concerns about the NED as exaggeration or mischaracterization. Officials defended the organization as a legitimate nonprofit working within legal parameters. The State Department and Congress pointed to NED's transparency and its separation from direct government control.
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Then Weinstein gave his interview, and the central claim moved from allegation to admission. The NED's own founder acknowledged that his organization was essentially conducting the operations the CIA had run covertly, except now with public funding and official sanction. The mechanism had changed, but the function remained identical.
Documentation since then has made this distinction even clearer. Research by William Blum and others has traced NED funding to opposition groups in Venezuela, where the organization supported efforts to overturn the Chávez government. The NED directed resources to Hong Kong civil society organizations during the 2019 protests, with clear intent to shape the trajectory of that movement. Ukrainian civil society groups receiving NED funding preceded and facilitated the 2014 Maidan revolution, transforming a protest into a geopolitical crisis.
This matters for a straightforward reason: it concerns the authenticity of democratic movements and the integrity of America's stated foreign policy objectives. When the United States funds opposition groups in other countries, those movements are no longer purely indigenous or organic. They become, whether intentionally or not, extensions of American foreign policy. Calling this "democracy promotion" obscures what is actually occurring—the strategic direction of political change in foreign nations.
The NED's existence proves that governments can rebrand controversial activities and make them appear legitimate through changed procedures and transparent labeling. It demonstrates how an admitted function—doing CIA work openly—can persist in public view because the public narrative never caught up with the reality. That gap between stated purpose and documented function is where public trust breaks down.
Beat the odds
This had a 0% chance of leaking — someone talked anyway.
Conspirators
~100Network
Secret kept
0.5 years
Time to 95% exposure
500+ years
