Records from the CIA’s declassified CREST archives shows how Efraín Ríos Montt’s coup first took the Agency by surprise, with the U.S. government later embracing his violent counterinsurgency campaign, with Secretary of State George Shultz praising it as “impressive progress in human rights.”

Mexico’s “Dirty War,” nestled in the middle of what the Central Intelligence Agency called a period of “stability” for the country was carried out in part by their asset Miguel Nazar Haro and his secret police. Nazar would later be arrested for his role in the “disappearance” of 1,200 dissidents, and investigated for torture, murder, and even genocide, all while working with, and protected by, the CIA.

As the centennial of the Armenian genocide loomed in 2014, a rug became on of the more bizarre examples of how far the US government will go to attempt to both appease Armenian Americans’ desire for acknowledgment of the genocide and avoid offending powerful military ally Turkey, which has long denied that its founding involved the massacre of at least 1.5 million Armenians.