A damning classified document has been uncovered that reveals how the CIA plans out and set off riots to destabilize governments.
In a 92-page 'playbook' written in 1983, officials mapped out how they would pay criminals and other 'agitators' to ramp up anger among ethnic minorities and students with the goal of having them riot in the streets.
This declassified document was recently brought to light on social media, amid claims that protesters in Los Angeles were being paid thousands of dollars to riot against the Trump Administration.
Several people on X have posted images of Craigslist ads promising to pay between $6,500 and $12,500 for 'tough bada--es' to enter the city during the protests.
The CIA guide entitled 'Psychological Operations' served as a manual for starting antigovernment movements in other countries, although conspiracy theorists have claimed that those tactics are being used against the White House as well.
However, no evidence has been revealed that directly connects CIA operatives with triggering violence during protests here in the US.
Originally, the CIA used this strategy of teaching guerrilla fighters how to influence people's minds to take down the Nicaraguan government, which the US viewed as a communist ally of the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The document specifically detailed how the agency would hire criminals and train professional protesters in order to make mass riots look like spontaneous uprisings against an allegedly unpopular government.
The CIA document, declassified in 2023, explained how agents would take control and organize mass gatherings and steer them towards violence against governments believed to be acting against the interests of the US intelligence community.
'The control of mass meetings in support of guerrilla warfare is carried out internally through a covert commando element, bodyguards, messengers, shock troops (incident initiators), poster carriers (also used to give signals), and slogan shouters, all under the control of the external commando element,' CIA officials wrote.
Intelligence officials broke down this plot into several steps, starting with a 'front organization.'
Guerrillas infiltrate groups like labor unions or student organizations, secretly controlling them to push anti-government ideas.
Next, guerrillas used 'armed propaganda,' acting friendly, helping communities, and showing that their weapons protect the people, not control them, in order to gain their trust.
Slogans and speeches would then provide simple, emotional sayings to excite crowds and focus their anger on the government.
The manual then suggested using small groups of trained agitators to stir up crowds at protests, making it look like a big, spontaneous movement. This could also involve paying criminals to march along with normal protesters.
These instigators would provoke violence and create 'martyrs' in the crowd to turn people against the government the CIA was hoping to bring down.
In the 1980s, the goal of this plot was to weaken the Nicaragua's Sandinista government by turning the public against it.
By winning people's hearts and minds using these tactics, the CIA hoped to create chaos through protests that undermined government control.
The guerrillas would then aim to overthrow the regime and replace it with a government friendly to US instead of the Russians.
The CIA rioting manual was aimed at the general population, especially peasants, workers, and students, pushing them to rally them against the government while avoiding being seen as terrorists.
However, the CIA's plans failed in Nicaragua. The CIA-backed Contra rebels were never able to achieve a decisive victory, despite significant funding from the US government.
The agency tried to paint the Sandinista government as an oppressive and foreign-controlled regime, but the plan to set off riots and support the rebel movement never paid off. The Sandinista government was eventually voted out of office in 1990.
The 1983 document was kept a secret for nearly 40 years, before it was eventually released into the CIA's archives.
While the plan failed in Nicaragua, it gave the agency a guidebook for how to justify violent uprisings around the world for decades.
'When the cadres are placed in or recruited from organizations such as labor unions, youth groups, agricultural organizations or professional associations, they will begin to manipulate the groups' objectives,' the document detailed.
'The psychological apparatus of our movement, by means of these internal cadres, will prepare a mental attitude which, at the crucial moment, could become involved in a fury of justified violence,' the CIA stated.
This wasn't the first uncovered CIA plot that used public violence to influence people around the world.
Host of The Why Files, AJ Gentile, revealed during a May 27 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that US intelligence agents worked to frame the Soviet Union for a series of deadly car bomb attacks after World War II.
The information, which Gentile said he feared to make public, was all part of a plot called Operation Gladio.
Gladio is believed to have begun shortly after the end of the war in 1947 or 1948, but the operation allegedly kept going until at least 1990, when the Italian government revealed its existence to the world.
According to Gentile, approximately 110 civilians throughout Italy were killed between the 1960s and 1980s in a scheme designed to create opposition against communist Russia in case they ever invaded Europe.
As for civil unrest here in the US, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed on Monday that demonstrators in Los Angeles were being paid and that the ongoing riots were part of a professional operation.
'These are organized. These are people that are being paid to do this. You can follow how they behave, the signals they give to each other in these crowds and these protests to instigate violence,' Noem told Fox News.
Noem claimed the Trump Administration now has evidence that the Los Angeles riots are an organized plot against the US government but did not reveal what they had found out.
