CIA coup numbers

November 10, 2025

John Menadue’s article “The Dismissal, the role of the CIA, MI6 and Austral Americans” provides strong evidence of US hostility towards the Whitlam Government and efforts to undermine it.

Unfortunately, its own credibility is undermined by claiming that “In the Cold War, the US/CIA attempted to overthrow 72 foreign governments” . This appears based on an 2018 article by Lindsay O’Rourke that listed 72 overt or covert operations of all kinds, including support for anti-communist parties or dissidents that can hardly be called attempts to overthrow governments. Plus hazy plans that were never implemented.

An accurate figure is about 29 – not 72. O’Rourke even lists the UN-mandated action to repel the criminal North Korean invasion of the South in 1950, and itemises support for dissidents in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States as somehow separate from the USSR. Support for dissidents against other Eastern European communist regimes imposed by the Soviets was hardly egregious. Many actions were to support existing Western governments, back sides in a civil war and even perfectly legitimate democracy promotion, or opposition to dictators like Duvalier or Pinochet (later)! A more rigorous approach to fact-checking is recommended, given some readers will assume your claims are well-founded.