The 1948 general election was greatly influenced by the Cold War that was underway with the Soviet Union against United States and Britain. After his defeat in the election communist leader Togliatti stated on April 22 that, "The elections were not free...Brutal foreign intervention was used consisting of a threat to starve the country by withholding ERP aid if it voted for the Democratic Front... The menace to use the atom bomb against towns or regions" that voted pro-communist. The US government's Voice of America radio began broadcasting anti-communist campaign pleased Italy on March 24, 1948. The US Central Intelligence Agency, by its own admission, gave $1 million () to what they referred to as "center parties" and was accused of publishing forged letters in order to discredit the leaders of the Italian Communist Party. The National Security Act of 1947, that made foreign covert operations possible, had been signed into law about six months earlier by the American President Harry S. Truman.