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This template was considered for deletion on 2016 January 21. The result of the discussion was "keep". |
The allied involvement in the Russian civil war is complex. There was a covert phase followed by a overt "boots on the ground" phase. It's muddier than most cases, but there absolutely were covert attempts to favor the White movement over the Reds.
To paraphrase and cite the research another wikipedian already did on this question:
Should we just include 1918 Russia in with covert, or would it be better to group all "boots on ground" style interventions together as their own template? -- HectorMoffet ( talk) 08:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Wavehunter, Thank you for your note. In Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Tony Judt said that US government and CIA took active role in the relative happenings of Italy, Greece and gave the Solidarity of Poland about 50 million US dollars. During my reading of this book, I somewhat got the impression of these but forgot the precise pages. So I'm still refinding the references. The Cambodian coup d'etat is related with Cambodian Civil War in which the US supported General Lon Nol to overthrow Sihanouk so as to have a better position to bomb Vietcong's sourthward attacks through secret routes in Cambodia. I think this is qutie obvious. But if the evidence is extremely lacking, just delete it.
Further, I even hear about a conspiracy theory that the CIA Chief of the Soviet/East European Division Milton Bearden launched a covert operation codenamed Genius of the Carpathians to overthow Ceausescu regime in 1989. But this is truly a conspiracy theory waiting for evidence to surface.-- Aronlee90 ( talk) 13:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
While the US/NATO intervention in Libya was certainly an attempt at regime change can it fairly be called 'covert'? I mean covert implies at least an attempt at maintaining plausible deniability, right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.21.117 ( talk) 02:56, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
You're right. the US' involvement was anything but covert. they even sent warships and planes to assist in the UN-mandated blockade. Emigdioofmiami ( talk) 01:57, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I have deleted Libya from the list as there is tons of obvious evidence of US active involvement and obviousness. here's a video they published showing the USS Barry (DDG-52) firing the first Tomahawk missiles in the intervention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztTyfl1-NXI — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emigdioofmiami ( talk • contribs) 02:16, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Why is this template on the side and not at the bottom? The sidebar takes too big a role on articles like 1980 Turkish coup d'état, as if the coup d'état is mostly defined by US support, ignoring the domestic reasons. -- Pudeo ' 16:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Why does the US have a sidebar but not anybody else? Russia literally just regime changed Crimea, why no sidebar for them and their history. Gotta be fair wiki. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.106.131.250 ( talk) 18:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Crimea was not 'regime changed' -> Its parliament voted to secede. The parliament was unchanged from the Ukrainian coup after maidan until the secession vote, so one cannot talk about a regime change. What US did in Ukraine, however, what Stratfor called 'the most blatant coup in history', was a regime change action. And it wasn't covert either. -- unity100 '
Like the Crimea "vote" was totally a fair election. And you'd have to be spoonfed the worst of Russian propaganda to believe Euromaidan was some CIA-backed coup. --kbigg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.93.99 ( talk) 01:35, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
The article says that it was plotted by Argentines, and that the U.S. was merely alerted to the plot. It mentions no physical support from the U.S. I don't think it should be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.116.126.28 ( talk) 20:40, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
And what remains is merely links as compared to excellent summaries of CIA involvement in the listed regime overthrow operations.
The Poland affair is not even linked.
This deletion and redirection, and glaring lack of consistency and omission of information looks more like the deletion was done to remove the information from sight than any reasonable move.
Because there is absolutely no case in which a coup is launched without at least some local support, I am including some regime change actions in which the United States knew of the coup and provided secrecy, military or logistical support. Demanding that coups be wholly without any local political initiative demands an unrealistic appraisal of regime change actions.
I'm not including the 1970 Cambodian coup because it is not clear the US knew of it before it occurred. - Darouet ( talk) 16:57, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
Our article on CIA activities in Indonesia states that Suharto was able to defeat Sukarno and take power with the help of the United States. Is that incorrect? - Darouet ( talk) 21:14, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
Even without being an expert on Bolivia, claims of American involvement in the 1964 coup collapse under the barest scrutiny. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 08:53, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
The article you cite by RO Kirkland (2005, Int. J. Intelligence CounterIntelligence) argues that the US and CIA did not back the coup, but also explicitly states that most historians believe that the United States and CIA were involved:
"Historians and political scientists who have examined this coup d’etat have concluded that the coup received 'the unmistakable support of the Pentagon.' In particular, they have zeroed in on the role of U.S. Air Force attache Colonel Edward Fox, his close relationship with General Barrientos, and the encouragement he supposedly gave the general to overthrow Paz."
— p.473
"Scholars who have looked at this incident have flatly stated that Fox worked for the CIA and aided Barrientos in the coup."
— p.479
"Unfortunately for the U.S., and for Fox himself, Barrientos’s coup has been portrayed as a U.S. undertaking. Although this is false, the U.S. can, nevertheless, be accused of underestimating the general and unwittingly helping him."
— p.480
Kirkland's article doesn't seem to be cited many places (which does not mean he's incorrect), but it is cited by the book you linked, "From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era," by Thomas C. Field, 2014. Field states that most historians implicate the United States and the CIA in the coup:
"Many historians, including James Dunkerley and Kenneth Lehman, contend that US officials, namely, Embassy Air Attache Edward Fox, gave the green light to General Barrientos... Until now, conspiratorial accounts have also dominated the nonspecialist literature on the coup, including popular histories of the CIA and broader Latin American studies. Similarly, most Bolivian authors pin the blame squarely on Colonel Fox..."
— p.191
Field also writes that some historians have contended that the US did not back the coup:
On the other hand, historians James Malloy and Herbert Klein describe the Barrientos coup in purely domestic terms... Political scientist William Brill also believes the military takeover emerged from within, basing his analysis on dozens of interviews with key actors before and after the coup. A similar line has been taken by Bolivian historian Luis Antezana Ergueta, who argues that MNR dissidents played the central role in their own party's downfall. Military historian Robert Kirkland, the only other scholar to my knowledge who has interviewed Colonel Fox, claims tha tthe air attache intervened to stop his friend General Barrientos from overthrowing Paz in May 1964, arguing that Fox was eventually disenchanted with Barrientos when the general failed to heed his advice in November. Finally, at least one CIA memoir suggests that the agency was firmly behind Pax and even tracked [his] exiled political enemies in Uruguay and Buenos Aires."
— p.191
This concurs with what some of the diplomats and CIA officials in Bolivia at the time state now:
Fox: "As far as giving Barrientos orders to stop a coup, that's ridiculous. I would never have gotten into Bolivian politics like that, and I certainly wouldn't have treated my friend in that way. Barrientos and I never had a rift. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I arrived back in La Paz [in 1962], I told him, 'You do what you have to do, Rene, and I will try to support you when I can. But we can't bullshit each other.' I always knew Barrientos would go through with it, and I knew he would succeed. That's why I tried to convince [Ambassador Douglas] Henderson to support him. I failed, and was not able to give Barrientos any material support... November 4th wasn't our show. They thought they had what they needed, and didn't want to get too many people in on it. Sometimes you get too many people in on these things, and they get all screwed up."
Ambassador Henderson: "Ed Fox was the no. 1 freelancer in the world. But he never went rogue."
CIA station chief Larry Sternfield: "There was no division in US policy; there were just sentiments. Barrientos was a likeable guy, and a lot of us liked him. But as far as supporting a coup, absolutely not. Henderson was very pro-Paz, and that was the policy of our government. Like Ed Fox, we were being asked to carry out a policy we hated - to support Paz."
It seems to me that Field is ambivalent:
"It is tempting to search, but an easy villan of 4 November does not exist. As historian Laurence Whitehead writes, 'The crucial form of American intervention... was not this kind of sinister conspiracy... but the increasingly political trend of American pressures over the previous three or four years - pressures which helped create the conditions for a coup, whether it was consciously intended or not.'"
— p.193
Anyway I'll try to read more about it and see if there have been any other commentaries on this in the last 10 years. - Darouet ( talk) 11:48, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
wouldn't it belong in this list? The CIA's involvement has been officially recognized by Bill Clinton in the 90s during a visit of his in Greece.
Here's the related wiki article: /info/en/?search=Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%9374 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:7E8:D36F:6D01:B974:6202:BC2E:F3C5 ( talk) 14:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Hello,
The scope of this template is Covert United States involvement in regime change. Therefore, I am not sure that all intelligence activity occuring during major open conflicts really belongs here.
Specifically, the current links to 2001 Afghanistan, 2011 Libyan civil war and 2011–2017 Syria are imho not really within the scope of the template, even though they point specifically to CIA involvement. Otherwise, we should also mention intelligence activity that undoubtedly occurred during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the invasions of Grenada or Panama, the interventions in Somalia, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Albania, and so on, maybe even including WWII, maybe even before. There could be exceptions, such as a specific covert action linked to a regime change, within the larger context of an open conflict (the toppling of Diem in 1963 comes to mind), but I do not think that the links mentioned qualify.
@ TheTimesAreAChanging: as you are one of the most active contributors to this template, I'd like your opinion. Place Clichy ( talk) 16:43, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
In 1950s before the rebellion broke out in Tibet, US government, specifically CIA, has supported several guerillas to intensify the riot and assault PLA. Moreover, the shadow of US government can also be seen throughout the whole Tiananmen Incident in 1989. Hence, I suggest the addition of these 2 links into the sidebar. Johnson.Xia ( talk) 07:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Several of the examples in this template are actually quite controversial, as their actual articles note. In these cases (such as 1949 Syria and 1991 Haiti), the evidence linking the United States to the coups is often circumstantial or based on potentially unreliable sources. I feel that leaving it as is is wrong, as it misleads readers unless they examine every article. Should the list remove these particular items, or note that they are controversial? Jogarz1921 ( talk) 03:30, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||
|
This template was considered for deletion on 2016 January 21. The result of the discussion was "keep". |
The allied involvement in the Russian civil war is complex. There was a covert phase followed by a overt "boots on the ground" phase. It's muddier than most cases, but there absolutely were covert attempts to favor the White movement over the Reds.
To paraphrase and cite the research another wikipedian already did on this question:
Should we just include 1918 Russia in with covert, or would it be better to group all "boots on ground" style interventions together as their own template? -- HectorMoffet ( talk) 08:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Wavehunter, Thank you for your note. In Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Tony Judt said that US government and CIA took active role in the relative happenings of Italy, Greece and gave the Solidarity of Poland about 50 million US dollars. During my reading of this book, I somewhat got the impression of these but forgot the precise pages. So I'm still refinding the references. The Cambodian coup d'etat is related with Cambodian Civil War in which the US supported General Lon Nol to overthrow Sihanouk so as to have a better position to bomb Vietcong's sourthward attacks through secret routes in Cambodia. I think this is qutie obvious. But if the evidence is extremely lacking, just delete it.
Further, I even hear about a conspiracy theory that the CIA Chief of the Soviet/East European Division Milton Bearden launched a covert operation codenamed Genius of the Carpathians to overthow Ceausescu regime in 1989. But this is truly a conspiracy theory waiting for evidence to surface.-- Aronlee90 ( talk) 13:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
While the US/NATO intervention in Libya was certainly an attempt at regime change can it fairly be called 'covert'? I mean covert implies at least an attempt at maintaining plausible deniability, right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.21.117 ( talk) 02:56, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
You're right. the US' involvement was anything but covert. they even sent warships and planes to assist in the UN-mandated blockade. Emigdioofmiami ( talk) 01:57, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I have deleted Libya from the list as there is tons of obvious evidence of US active involvement and obviousness. here's a video they published showing the USS Barry (DDG-52) firing the first Tomahawk missiles in the intervention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztTyfl1-NXI — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emigdioofmiami ( talk • contribs) 02:16, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Why is this template on the side and not at the bottom? The sidebar takes too big a role on articles like 1980 Turkish coup d'état, as if the coup d'état is mostly defined by US support, ignoring the domestic reasons. -- Pudeo ' 16:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Why does the US have a sidebar but not anybody else? Russia literally just regime changed Crimea, why no sidebar for them and their history. Gotta be fair wiki. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.106.131.250 ( talk) 18:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Crimea was not 'regime changed' -> Its parliament voted to secede. The parliament was unchanged from the Ukrainian coup after maidan until the secession vote, so one cannot talk about a regime change. What US did in Ukraine, however, what Stratfor called 'the most blatant coup in history', was a regime change action. And it wasn't covert either. -- unity100 '
Like the Crimea "vote" was totally a fair election. And you'd have to be spoonfed the worst of Russian propaganda to believe Euromaidan was some CIA-backed coup. --kbigg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.93.99 ( talk) 01:35, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
The article says that it was plotted by Argentines, and that the U.S. was merely alerted to the plot. It mentions no physical support from the U.S. I don't think it should be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.116.126.28 ( talk) 20:40, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
And what remains is merely links as compared to excellent summaries of CIA involvement in the listed regime overthrow operations.
The Poland affair is not even linked.
This deletion and redirection, and glaring lack of consistency and omission of information looks more like the deletion was done to remove the information from sight than any reasonable move.
Because there is absolutely no case in which a coup is launched without at least some local support, I am including some regime change actions in which the United States knew of the coup and provided secrecy, military or logistical support. Demanding that coups be wholly without any local political initiative demands an unrealistic appraisal of regime change actions.
I'm not including the 1970 Cambodian coup because it is not clear the US knew of it before it occurred. - Darouet ( talk) 16:57, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
Our article on CIA activities in Indonesia states that Suharto was able to defeat Sukarno and take power with the help of the United States. Is that incorrect? - Darouet ( talk) 21:14, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
Even without being an expert on Bolivia, claims of American involvement in the 1964 coup collapse under the barest scrutiny. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 08:53, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
The article you cite by RO Kirkland (2005, Int. J. Intelligence CounterIntelligence) argues that the US and CIA did not back the coup, but also explicitly states that most historians believe that the United States and CIA were involved:
"Historians and political scientists who have examined this coup d’etat have concluded that the coup received 'the unmistakable support of the Pentagon.' In particular, they have zeroed in on the role of U.S. Air Force attache Colonel Edward Fox, his close relationship with General Barrientos, and the encouragement he supposedly gave the general to overthrow Paz."
— p.473
"Scholars who have looked at this incident have flatly stated that Fox worked for the CIA and aided Barrientos in the coup."
— p.479
"Unfortunately for the U.S., and for Fox himself, Barrientos’s coup has been portrayed as a U.S. undertaking. Although this is false, the U.S. can, nevertheless, be accused of underestimating the general and unwittingly helping him."
— p.480
Kirkland's article doesn't seem to be cited many places (which does not mean he's incorrect), but it is cited by the book you linked, "From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era," by Thomas C. Field, 2014. Field states that most historians implicate the United States and the CIA in the coup:
"Many historians, including James Dunkerley and Kenneth Lehman, contend that US officials, namely, Embassy Air Attache Edward Fox, gave the green light to General Barrientos... Until now, conspiratorial accounts have also dominated the nonspecialist literature on the coup, including popular histories of the CIA and broader Latin American studies. Similarly, most Bolivian authors pin the blame squarely on Colonel Fox..."
— p.191
Field also writes that some historians have contended that the US did not back the coup:
On the other hand, historians James Malloy and Herbert Klein describe the Barrientos coup in purely domestic terms... Political scientist William Brill also believes the military takeover emerged from within, basing his analysis on dozens of interviews with key actors before and after the coup. A similar line has been taken by Bolivian historian Luis Antezana Ergueta, who argues that MNR dissidents played the central role in their own party's downfall. Military historian Robert Kirkland, the only other scholar to my knowledge who has interviewed Colonel Fox, claims tha tthe air attache intervened to stop his friend General Barrientos from overthrowing Paz in May 1964, arguing that Fox was eventually disenchanted with Barrientos when the general failed to heed his advice in November. Finally, at least one CIA memoir suggests that the agency was firmly behind Pax and even tracked [his] exiled political enemies in Uruguay and Buenos Aires."
— p.191
This concurs with what some of the diplomats and CIA officials in Bolivia at the time state now:
Fox: "As far as giving Barrientos orders to stop a coup, that's ridiculous. I would never have gotten into Bolivian politics like that, and I certainly wouldn't have treated my friend in that way. Barrientos and I never had a rift. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I arrived back in La Paz [in 1962], I told him, 'You do what you have to do, Rene, and I will try to support you when I can. But we can't bullshit each other.' I always knew Barrientos would go through with it, and I knew he would succeed. That's why I tried to convince [Ambassador Douglas] Henderson to support him. I failed, and was not able to give Barrientos any material support... November 4th wasn't our show. They thought they had what they needed, and didn't want to get too many people in on it. Sometimes you get too many people in on these things, and they get all screwed up."
Ambassador Henderson: "Ed Fox was the no. 1 freelancer in the world. But he never went rogue."
CIA station chief Larry Sternfield: "There was no division in US policy; there were just sentiments. Barrientos was a likeable guy, and a lot of us liked him. But as far as supporting a coup, absolutely not. Henderson was very pro-Paz, and that was the policy of our government. Like Ed Fox, we were being asked to carry out a policy we hated - to support Paz."
It seems to me that Field is ambivalent:
"It is tempting to search, but an easy villan of 4 November does not exist. As historian Laurence Whitehead writes, 'The crucial form of American intervention... was not this kind of sinister conspiracy... but the increasingly political trend of American pressures over the previous three or four years - pressures which helped create the conditions for a coup, whether it was consciously intended or not.'"
— p.193
Anyway I'll try to read more about it and see if there have been any other commentaries on this in the last 10 years. - Darouet ( talk) 11:48, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
wouldn't it belong in this list? The CIA's involvement has been officially recognized by Bill Clinton in the 90s during a visit of his in Greece.
Here's the related wiki article: /info/en/?search=Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%9374 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:7E8:D36F:6D01:B974:6202:BC2E:F3C5 ( talk) 14:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Hello,
The scope of this template is Covert United States involvement in regime change. Therefore, I am not sure that all intelligence activity occuring during major open conflicts really belongs here.
Specifically, the current links to 2001 Afghanistan, 2011 Libyan civil war and 2011–2017 Syria are imho not really within the scope of the template, even though they point specifically to CIA involvement. Otherwise, we should also mention intelligence activity that undoubtedly occurred during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the invasions of Grenada or Panama, the interventions in Somalia, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Albania, and so on, maybe even including WWII, maybe even before. There could be exceptions, such as a specific covert action linked to a regime change, within the larger context of an open conflict (the toppling of Diem in 1963 comes to mind), but I do not think that the links mentioned qualify.
@ TheTimesAreAChanging: as you are one of the most active contributors to this template, I'd like your opinion. Place Clichy ( talk) 16:43, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
In 1950s before the rebellion broke out in Tibet, US government, specifically CIA, has supported several guerillas to intensify the riot and assault PLA. Moreover, the shadow of US government can also be seen throughout the whole Tiananmen Incident in 1989. Hence, I suggest the addition of these 2 links into the sidebar. Johnson.Xia ( talk) 07:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Several of the examples in this template are actually quite controversial, as their actual articles note. In these cases (such as 1949 Syria and 1991 Haiti), the evidence linking the United States to the coups is often circumstantial or based on potentially unreliable sources. I feel that leaving it as is is wrong, as it misleads readers unless they examine every article. Should the list remove these particular items, or note that they are controversial? Jogarz1921 ( talk) 03:30, 11 September 2018 (UTC)