For the past 50 years, the US foreign policy establishment has relied on methods both overt and covert to express its interests abroad, often involving the destabilization and removal of democratically elected governments, frequently resulting in outcomes that end up worse than their precedents.

Stephen Kinzer, a veteran foreign correspondent, author, and academic, joins Robert Amsterdam on the Departures podcast to discuss this fascinating history of US misadventures abroad, the exploits of the CIA obsession with "mind control" and human experimentation under Sidney Gottlieb, and how this history of coups and regime change has almost always ended up harming the countries involved and weakening overall US interests in the world.