Political warfare
On 4 May 1948, George F. Kennan, the father of the containment policy, wrote the Policy Planning Staff Memorandum titled "The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare". This National Security Council (NSC) memo established a directorate of political warfare operations, under the control of the NSC, known as the Consultative (or Evaluation) Board of the National Security Council. This directorate fell under the authority of the Secretary of State, while the Board had complete authority over covert political operations. It recognized political warfare as one instrument in the United States' grand strategy. Kennan defined 'political warfare' as "the employment of all means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such actions are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (such as ERP – the Marshall Plan), and 'white' propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of 'friendly' foreign elements, 'black' psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states."
The memo further defined four projects that were activated by the Board to combat growing Communist influence abroad, including:

Liberation Committees: to encourage the formation of a public American organization which will sponsor selected political refugee committees to give support and guidance to national movements gestating in the Soviet World;
Support of indigenous anti-communist elements: within threatened countries of the free world, to include covertly using private intermediaries;
Underground activities behind the Iron Curtain
Preventive direct action in free countries: only in cases of dire necessity. This covert operation involved: control over anti-sabotage activities in the Venezuelan oil fields, American sabotage of Near Eastern oil installations on the verge of Soviet capture, and designation of key individuals threatened by the Kremlin who should be protected or removed elsewhere.

Cold War era: The United States used gray and black propaganda research, broadcasting, and print media operations during the Cold War to achieve its political warfare goals. These operations were conducted against Eastern European targets from Western Europe by two public-private organizations supported partly by the Central Intelligence Agency and the NSC, and partly by private corporations. These organizations were Free Europe, which was launched in 1941 and targeted Eastern Europe, and the American Committee for Liberation (AmComLib) created in 1951 to broadcast information into Soviet Russia. Both were renamed shortly thereafter and combined as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Many RFE/RL recruits came either from European emigrants families who were strongly anti-Communist or from US government agencies, most notably from CIA. Officially, "the US government denied any responsibility for the radios and took care to conceal the channels of funding, personnel recruitment, and policy influence. Obviously, the major support was American, but it was plausibly not official American and it could be excluded from diplomatic intercourse and international legal complication." RFE/RL was considered to be a gray operation until its existence was publicly acknowledged by "activists" in the United States during the late 1960s. The goal of the radios was to present the truth to suppressed peoples behind the Iron Curtain "to aid in rebuilding a lively and diversified intellectual life in Europe which could ... defeat Soviet ... incursions on their freedom".
In addition, Voice of America (VOA) started broadcasting to the Soviet citizens in 1947 under the pretext of countering "more harmful instances of Soviet propaganda directed against American leaders and policies" on the part of the internal Soviet Russian-language media. The Soviet Union responded by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts on April 24, 1949.
In the fall of 1950 a group of scholars including physicists, historians and psychologists from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and RAND Corporation undertook a research study of psychological warfare for the Department of State. The Project Troy Report to the Secretary of State, presented to Secretary of State on 1 February 1951, made various proposals for political warfare, including possible methods of minimizing the effects of Soviet jamming on the Voice of America broadcasts. It can be assumed that the Truman administration tried to implement plans established by the Project Troy in the project Overload and Delay. The purpose of the latter was to break the Stalinist system by increasing the number of input points in the system and by creating complex and unpredictable situations requiring action.
An overt, non-governmental form of political warfare during the Cold War emerged after President Ronald Reagan's 8 June 1982 speech to the British Parliament. In his speech, Reagan appealed for a "global crusade for democracy" and as a result, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in December 1983. The NED was a non-governmental organization (NGO) based on four fundamental foundations:

The National Democratic Institute
The National Republican Institute to dispense funds and training to politicians and political parties;
The Center for International Private Enterprise to provide training, funding and networking opportunities for business associations;
AFL–CIO to assist foreign trade unions.
The NED "funded programs in support of candidates acceptable to the US in elections in Grenada, Panama, El Salvador, and Guatemala throughout 1984 and 1985 in order to prevent communist victories, and create stable pro-US governments". It was also active in Europe, funding groups to carry promote pro-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) propaganda in Britain, as well as a "right wing French student organisation ... linked to fascist paramilitaries". Other notable efforts included anti-Sandinista propaganda and opposition efforts in Nicaragua as well as anti-Communist propaganda and opposition efforts in support of the Solidarity movement in Poland between 1984 and 1990. According to a 1991 interview in The Washington Post with one of the creators of the NED, Allen Weinstein, "a lot of what we (NED) do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA".

21st century: From 2010 to 2012, the United States operated a social media site similar to Twitter in an attempt to instigate uprisings against the Cuban government. The program was overseen by the United States Agency for International Development, but its involvement was concealed in order to ensure mission success. The plan was to draw in users with non-controversial content until a critical mass is reached, after which more political messaging would be introduced. At its peak, more than 40,000 unsuspecting Cubans interacted on the platform.

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References: 

Further reading: 
Bernays, Edward. "Propaganda" (IG Publishing, 1928).
Lawrence W. Bielenson, "Power Through Subversion" (Public Affairs Press, 1972).
Ellul, Jacques. "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes". Trans. Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner. (Random House/Vintage, 1973).
Linebarger, Paul M. "Psychological Warfare". (International Propaganda and Communications, 1948).
Carnes Lord and Frank R. Barnett, eds., "Political Warfare and Psychological Operations: Rethinking the US Approach" (National Defense University Press and National Strategy Information Center, 1989).
Luttwak, Edward. "Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook" (Harvard University Press, 1968).
Janos Radvanyi, ed., "Psychological Operations and Political Warfare in Long-term Strategic Planning" (Praeger, 1990).
Smith, Paul A., "On Political War" (National Defense University Press Publications, 1989).