The way to understand covert action, as practiced by the Central Intelligence Agency, is to realize that the same tricks and schemes are used over and over again. There is the same gradual escalation, the same planting of false news, the same bribery of politicians, the same huffy denials, the same urge to create social chaos that requires an imposition of martial law.

Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Sec…, loc. 58