> Employees of so‑called CIA “proprietaries.” During the past twenty‑five years, the Agency has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers—both English and foreign language—which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives. One such publication was the Rome Daily American, forty percent of which was owned by the CIA until the 1970s. The Daily American went out of business this year,
As a consequence a lot of such activities were instead moved over to special operations forces, as detailed by Seth Harp in his recent book The Fort Bragg Cartel.
"Proprietaries" are also known as "cutouts", and the CIA uses those extensively in order to do things they really aren't allowed to do and to provide plausible deniability. Mike Benz [0] is a good introduction to how the CIA (and, by extension, the state department and Pentagon) work.
I promise "The History of the Intelligence State" is worth your time.
An interesting tidbit I found, somewhat related:
> Employees of so‑called CIA “proprietaries.” During the past twenty‑five years, the Agency has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers—both English and foreign language—which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives. One such publication was the Rome Daily American, forty percent of which was owned by the CIA until the 1970s. The Daily American went out of business this year,