When former CIA Director James Woolsey served as chairman of the board for the non-governmental organization (NGO) Freedom House for roughly two and a half years, it was during a particularly turbulent period in the post-Soviet space.

Freedom House’s “Message from the Chairman” in 2003 outlines Woolsey’s direct quotes about what the organization’s goals were. He described how they were working to “bring about democratic transitions within countries,” had “over a dozen field offices and programs in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, East-Central Europe, and Central Asia,” and were working to “promote nonviolent democratic change.”

In Uzbekistan, for example, a training session scheduled for November 21, 2003 was attempted but blocked. According to Freedom House, its staff were followed and blocked from reaching their Namangan office, while around an eighty-person civilian mob confronted and threatened them.

This was only a preview of things to come as revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan all occurred in successive years from 2003-2005.

At a State Department event in November 2003, Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky described Mark Palmer as the “most active member of Freedom House’s board.” Author of Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025, Palmer would later refer to the Rose Revolution as a “prime example” of dictatorships that can be toppled through non-violent resistance.

During his speech, Palmer ultimately concluded that “we should help non-governmental democrats and other dissidents get organized within countries.”

For the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the State Department reported that Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute, and International Republican Institute participated in an election-observation effort involving approximately 1,000 observers during the second round of the 2004 presidential election.

Freedom House and other organizations also supported Znayu and the Freedom of Choice Coalition, whose members included the Pora youth movement. One of Znayu’s founders, Dmytro Potiekhin, later noted how Freedom House provided $50,000 for campaign efforts.

Juhani Grossman from Freedom House’s Kiev office told journalist Mark MacKinnon that “Znayu was one of our larger projects in terms of visibility, but it was really just a small part of our whole work,” and that “the variety of projects we funded was huge.”

Grossman ultimately asked “without the voter education programs, would there still have been a revolution? I don’t know.”

Freedom House also helped train election monitors in Crimea that assisted Yellow Pora with President and Executive Director Adrian Karatnycky describing in the documentary USA: Conquest of the East how a $30,000 grant was provided for the mobilization and training of Ukrainian activists.

Karatnycky even compared its efforts to CIA covert actions in the 1960s and 1970s while stating that now it was “done transparently” and “that is what we do with our foundations.

In its 2004 annual review, Freedom House discussed how the Ukraine election was of “pivotal importance” with the organization serving as a “leading advocate of free and fair elections in Ukraine.” With “numerous interactions” with U.S. government officials, European governments, and the media, Freedom House’s own documentation reveals the importance it played in 2004.

Potiekhin would also reveal that Freedom House helped fund seminars in the region for youth groups. This included meetings with Serbia’s Otpor where discussions over coordination and targeted actions were discussed.

These seminars included the distribution of the revolutionary film Bringing Down a Dictator and the book From Dictatorship to Democracy from Gene Sharp—both significant influences in prior revolutionary movements since Serbia’s 2000 revolution.

6,000 copies of the Sharp book were also printed in Kyrgyz-language copies ahead of the 2005 Tulip Revolution.

Freedom House efforts in Kyrgyzstan went back to November 14, 2003, through their newly established printing press. Brought in with assistance from a U.S. Air Force unit at Ganci Air Base, the State Department reported that Freedom House’s new press was printing up to twenty-eight independent newspapers. In just a few short years, this newly established printing press became a fixture in Kyrgyz political circles.

With “heavy diplomatic lifting” from the U.S. government, this $800,000 to $1 million project was not without controversy. Just a month after starting operations, Victor Zapolskiy of the Delo No newspaper resigned after just one issue was produced through the Freedom House press.

In a letter called “The Role of a Faceless Bystander is Not for Me,” Zapolskiy outlined how the prices were much higher than the state-owned press Uchkun and he would be bringing his business back to the government-owned press.

In January, MSN published an interview with imprisoned opposition leader Felix Kulov about an alleged transcript of a secret meeting involving Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev, regional officials, and election officials. During the interview, Kulov stated there was “no doubt” about its authenticity and warned that the authorities were preparing to violate election laws for the upcoming vote.

Weeks later, during the election campaign, electricity to the Media Support Center’s printing facility was cut after MSN’s February 11, 2005 edition. With 63,000 copies in circulation, the paper published a front page showing President Akayev’s house contrasted with a child having no roof over his head.

Additionally, the paper listed the companies, firms, and real estate alleged to be owned by the Akayev family. This occurred just before February elections, and the U.S. responded by bringing in two generators so printing could continue throughout the night.

The next issue of MSN ran with the headline, “Your Time Has Run Out—Step Down.”

With Refworld noting how independent media in Kyrgyzstan “may be credited with starting events that led to the ouster of President Akayev,” the impact provided by Freedom House’s printing press becomes even more notable in hindsight.

Outside of support for independent media, Freedom House came under further scrutiny after a they held a round table discussion on “Torture In Kyrgyzstan” in March 2004 that included an individual who identified themselves as a member of the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir party.

Freedom House expressed they did not support the ideology of the group and did not “welcome the actions of various extremist groups.” This came after the organization held a second meeting in May 2004 between Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Service and Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In their 2005 “Nations in Transit” review, the organization concluded that “in trying to crush this largely clandestine movement by using extraordinary policing measures, the government of Kyrgyzstan has produced a backlash from some devout Muslims that may prove more destabilizing than Hizb ut-Tahrir itself.”

Chief of the Presidential Administration Viktor Medvedchuk criticized Freedom House’s influence in the country describing how the organization’s findings were “massively circulated with unbridled joy in the opposition’s media.” Medvedchuk also specifically called out James Woolsey and his CIA background—a position Medvedchuk declared as one that “hardly qualifies him to be a defender of human rights.”

When asked about FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev’s allegation that Western intelligence services were operating under the guise of NGOs, Woolsey referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of Freedom House’s work in Ukraine as a “badge of honor.”

Was Woolsey personally overseeing the efforts of Freedom House in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan? Not exactly. Was the situation regarding the NGO turbulent during his years as chairman? Undeniably.