Cold War Covert Action Essay

During the cold war, the US intelligence largely recurred to covert actions against the Soviet Union. These actions were carried out within the Soviet Union, in its satellite and allied states, but also in those countries that were at a risk of infiltration of the USSR, through Communist political parties or trade unions, such as the case of Italy and France. Authorized exclusively by the President of the United States (as Kissinger involuntary had revealed), covert actions in the Cold War have included a wide range of operations, with different levels of violence involved and plausible deniability: (a) propaganda; (b) political activities; (c) economic activity; (d) sabotage; (e) coups d’état; and (f) paramilitary activities.
Speaking in 1999, former DCI Robert Gates highlighted that the Intelligence history of the Cold War experienced large success with covert actions, such as the cases of Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. Most notably, the financial and military support to the Mujahedeen against the Soviets in the Afghan War (1979-1989) urged the Red Army to definitely abandon the country, thus marking the first territorial setback of the vast Soviet Union. Also, covert actions played an influential role in Nicaragua (1980), where paramilitary support was crucial to defeat the local communist surrogates; or in Italy and France in …show more content…
At the same time, the US intelligence also faced severe failures, when carrying out covert actions. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 is the most notable example: the failure in overthrowing the regime of Castro in Cuba exposed publicly the US intelligence and marked permanently the relationships between US and USSR, eventually leading to the Cuban missile crisis in the following