"We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets," according to CIA operative F. Mark Wyatt.[4] In order to influence the election, the U.S. agencies undertook a campaign of writing ten million letters, made numerous short-wave radio broadcasts and funded the publishing of books and articles, all of which warned the Italians of what was believed to be the consequences of a communist victory. Time magazine backed the campaign, featuring the Christian Democracy leader and Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi on its cover and in its lead story on 19 April 1948.[5]