The Freedom of Information Act has allowed archived documents from the Cold War era to understand different aspects of it and what roles the US and politics played in it. The CIA played a great role in the Cold War and the aftermath of the Cold War. This includes the “Special Group” that approved covert operations alongside Presidents Kennedy and Johnson during the years following the Cold War. After the Cold War, the US government created an alliance with Latin America in order to combat the threat of social revolution. The United States did this by providing weapons, money, troops, and special agents (Wood, Chapter 9). From 1964 to the 1980s, the United States declared its support for the temporary suspension of civilian democratic regimes for hot spots of guerilla conflict even. The CIA focused on these covert missions including the bugging of the soviet military communications. But later under Kennedy switched focus to Latin America, particularly Cuba. Plausible Deniability was legal and used by US government officials to basically deny these operations. President Kennedy had to take on many operations when he entered office in 1961 that were started by President Eisenhower. Operations with Cuba involved Fidel Castro but ended during the “Bay of Pigs” after a few months. A President had to become involved in these covert operations when the operations carried very high risk, or when they were judged as moderate risk but the high command was divided on whether or not to approve them. The president would have to meet with the Special Group members in the CIA to discuss the proposals, and in this case, President Kennedy had to meet with 5412 members in Cuba (Prados, Jimenez-Bacardi, The High Command of the Secret War). This is how US government officials used the CIA during and mainly the years following the Cold War with Latin America. We see how an alliance was formed, but also the covert operations done by the CIA to prevent further war and social revolution.
“Chapter 9.” Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Interpretations, by James A. Wood and Anna Rose Alexander, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
Prados, John, and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. “Understanding the CIA: How Covert (and Overt) Operations Were Proposed and Approved during the Cold War.” National Security Archive, 5 Mar. 2019, nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2019-03-04/understanding-cia-how-covert-overt-operations-proposed-approved-during-cold-war.
Document link: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2019-03-04/understanding-cia-how-covert-overt-operations-proposed-approved-during-cold-war