Objectives and operative philosophy of the
Covert Actions programme during
the Reagan Administration

Containment of Soviet expansion was one of the principal pivots around which the Reagan Administration’s foreign policy rotated (6) .
This strong ideological component within the Administration contributed to identify, in the rise to power of the Sandinista Liberation Front in Nicaragua in 1979, and in the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the same year, the signs of a growing ‘red threat’ in Central America and of a renewed Soviet expansion in Central Asia (7) . Reagan, like Eisenhower and Kennedy before him, saw in the American intelligence community the most suitable instrument to realize an effective policy of containment and, consequently, was the promoter of a vast allocation of resources in favour of the CIA, with the objective of putting into operation a widespread and ambitious programme of covert actions (8) .
In general, it is possible to say that when these operations were characterized by a well-defined budget, small scale, clear aims and responsibilities, the results were able to relatively satisfy the pre-established objectives. For example, the CIA support to the Polish Solidarnosc movement in 1982, or the co-operation with the Iranian intelligence, finalized both to the suppression of the clandestine communist party, Tudeh, and to the neutralization of the network of KGB and GRU agents operating in Iran (9).
On the contrary, as a great expert in Intelligence, Mark Lowenthal, reminds us, when these premises are lacking, as in the case of the two operations under examination, then, inevitably, the results vary from immediate failure to long-term problems for the United States(10) .


The Iran-Contra Affair

The Iran-Contra Affair began, in reality, from the interlacing, in 1985, of two originally distinct covert actions: the CIA support in favour of the Contra Movement in Nicaragua (11) , started in 1981, and the attempt by the National Security Council to secretly negotiate with the Iranian Government to obtain the liberation of American hostages kidnapped by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, in 1984.

The CIA in Nicaragu
Since 1979, the year in which the Sandinistas took power in Nicaragua, President Carter had authorized the CIA to furnish financial and logistic support (defined "non-lethal" or rather, not of an offensive nature) in the amount of circa 75 million dollars, to the local opposition movements (12) . Subsequently, with the instalment of the Reagan Administration, the Government of Managua became a primary source of insecurity for the United States, given the "domino effect" potential which it could exercise with respect to the other governments of the Central-American region. As a consequence, parallel to a strong diplomatic offensive and an economic embargo against the Sandinistas (13) , President Reagan approved the NSC Decision Directive 17, on the 23rd November, 1981, which authorized, on the one side, an increase in the assistance programme to the Contras, already approved by Carter; on the other side, the supply of real and proper military support through the CIA (14) " .
This more decided involvement in the Nicaraguan question was presented to the Congress Commission for the control of intelligence activity under the cover of a 19 million dollar programme aimed at blocking presumed arms shipments of Soviet make, which were thought to be furnished by the Sandinistas to the anti-government guerrillas in El Salvador.
In reality, from March, 1981, the CIA had organized a systematic programme of equipment and training of the paramilitary forces of the Contras based in Honduras and El Salvador; a programme with the clear intent of overthrowing the Sandinista government. To be more exact, after an initial training period in Argentina, principally furnished by local military instructors, and financed thanks to the help of the community of exiled Cubans, the Contras were sent back to Honduras and El Salvador for the pre-operative training phase, before going into action in the neighbouring Nicaragua. Furthermore, numerous sources affirm that personnel of the special American forces and American pilots (15) " (who flew aeroplanes with the Honduran insignia) (16) were involved in combat action.

This extensive programme was seriously compromised in 1982, when revelations of the United States and the foreign press, denouncing the real extent of the American involvement in Nicaragua, pushed the Senate Special Commission on Intelligence to adopt what was define as "The Boland Amendment" (from the name of its promoter). The amendment prohibited United States funds to be utilized for the scope of overthrowing the Sandinista regime. In the same way, the CIA secret programme of prohibition against the Nicaraguan supplies to Salvador was decisively re-dimensioned (17) . However, the definitive ‘stop’ to the CIA activities in the region was sanctioned on the 24th March, 1984, when a further leak of information revealed to public opinion the use of magnetic mines, by the CIA paramilitary personnel, in certain Nicaraguan ports (an action which had been authorized by Reagan himself). In the wake of this last scandal, the United States Congress approved the so-called "Boland II" Amendment, which explicitly prohibited, in no uncertain terms, any form, whatever, of support in favour of the Contras, on the part of the CIA, the Defence Department or any other federal agencies involved in intelligence activities (18).
The "Arms for Hostages"
negotiations with Iran
From the time of their kidnapping in April, 1984, the liberation of the American hostages detained in Lebanon by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia was probably the other question which principally obsessed the Reagan Administration. Many testify to remembering the profound emotional involvement with which the President himself followed the entire affair. Nevertheless, as the ex-CIA agent, Robert Baer recalls, at that time the United States Intelligence did not possess a solid operative network in Lebanon, neither did it have fully reliable sources to assist it (19) . If then, we add the probable role of Iran in the negotiations which led to the release of the hostages of the TWA flight 847, hijacked at Beirut in June, 1984 (20), Reagan’s motivations to establish a secret line of contact with the Teheran Government seem quite plausible. Some members of the NSC, guided by Robert McFarlane and Lt.Col. Oliver North, were authorized to carry-out the plan.
Reagan’s motivations appear further founded, in light of certain contacts through the Israeli Intelligence and "moderate" exponents of the Teheran Government, who seemed to wish for dialogue between the United States and the Ayatollah (21) . In this regard, it is useful to remember that Iran was facing a particularly unfortunate phase in its conflict with Iraq.
In the attempt to persuade the Iranian interlocutors, Reagan authorized, in favour of Iran, the sale, divided into several blocks between August, 1985 and October, 1986, of U.S.-made military supplies (2008 TOW anti-tank guided missiles, various spare parts for batteries of HAWK anti-aircraft missiles), officially belonging to the Israeli arsenal.

The Iran-Contra connection
The two previous undercover actions, described previously, became inter-connected when, towards the end of 1985, probably on the initiative of Lt.Col. North and with the approval of the Security Adviser of the President, Admiral John Poindexter, the profits of the arms sale to Iran (circa 20 million dollars) after having undergone a re-cycling process, thanks to certain Swiss banks, were used to buy military supplies to send to the Contras. Therefore, in a certain sense, the Boland II Amendment was by-passed, insofar as funds were utilized which, officially, did not exist.
However, this ingenious system collapsed between October and November of 1986 when, in rapid succession, three particularly unfortunate episodes for the outcome of the operation were verified. It all started the moment an air cargo of American pilots (signed on by the CIA), which transported military equipment for the Contras, was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinista forces. Subsequently, three American businessmen involved in the money transaction, but dissatisfied over the delayed payments from the North group, revealed the details of the operation to the press.
Finally, towards the middle of November, 1986, a well-known Lebanese newspaper, closely connected to the Syrians, published a detailed report on the clandestine meetings between the members of the NSC and their Iranian interlocutors, which had taken place several times in a Teheran hotel (22) .

The Iran-Contra Affair – Costs and Ben
It is fair to say that from a costs/benefits viewpoint, the Iran-Contra Affair can be held as the worst undercover operation ever managed by the United States Intelligence.
Without taking into account the enormous amount of invested money, the real repercussions of the Iran-Contra Affair came in terms of international and national public opinion. In fact, in 1986, when the entire operation lost the protective umbrella of secrecy, it became clear that the Reagan Administration had deliberately lied to Congress and the American citizens. To be more exact: on the one side, it was evident that the Administration had hidden the real nature of the American intervention in Nicaragua by continuing, in complete violation of the Boland I & II Amendments, its initial project to overthrow the Sandinista regime - first, through the CIA and subsequently, through the NSC.
On the other side, the credibility and coherence of the Administration was seriously compromised by the evidence that not only the United States Government was involved in negotiations with a State, Iran, which had been vehemently condemned on more than one occasion by the same Administration, for its connections with numerous terrorist groups, but above all, this Administration had by-passed the normal institutional process for the control and management of undercover actions, transforming the NSC from a strictly consultative body to an operative agency (23) .
Besides, it was an even more illegal procedure if one takes into account the fact that the NSC, in organizing the sale of armaments to Iran, had deliberately violated the United States Arms Control Act (24) . In addition, the disastrous management of the scandal itself by the White House staff (25) ; accentuated, if possible, the shock and indignation over that “Secret Government”, which brought back frightening memories of the times of the Church Commission of 1975 (26) . In fact, at the very moment the documents which proved North’s decision to channel the profits of the arms’ sale towards the Contra cause became public, the improvised strategy of the White House staff consisted in throwing the entire responsibility on the NSC members, accusing them of conducting the transactions without the President’s knowledge. However, when, in November of 1986, the Attorney General, Edwin Meese, presented Congress with a report containing obvious falsifications, among which presidential authorizations signed post-facto (27) , the attempt to protect the President against an accusation of unconstitutional conduct became clear.
With regard to the costs/benefits report specific to the US intervention in Nicaragua, the majority of the studies now available clearly show that the CIA embarked on a war which was lost before it started. In fact, the Contras never possessed real capacity in terms of means, expertise and, above all, of support from the local population to overthrow the Sandinista Government (28) . To this we have to add the fact that by openly supporting the cause of the Contras, with the CIA and the NSC involved in pro-Contra lobbying activities (more often than not through Edgar Chamorro, the official spokesman for the Contras in the U.S.A.) (29) , the Reagan Administration was subsequently held co-responsible for the equally well-documented war crimes of the Contras. A responsibility which was difficult to deny when, in 1984, the press revealed the existence of a CIA manual entitled “Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare”, in which it explicitly recommends the adoption of terrorist strategies, as well as the use of torture, with the aim of ‘bending’ Sandinista supporters (30).
In general, it would not be too daring to say that the original objective of the USA intervention in Nicaragua, i.e. the containment of a presumed Soviet/communist threat in Central America was, more or less, nonsensical. Above all, in light of the extremely vague and, moreover, discontinuous ties which existed between the Sandinista and Soviet governments (31) .
Instead, numerous analyses indicate that it was this very influx of military equipment and expertise, furnished by the United States, which ultimately deteriorated the precarious stability of the region, contributing to an insecurity spill-over which involved almost all of the Central American countries for many years to come (32) .
As far as the other front of this operation was concerned, that is, the secret negotiations with Iran, it is evident that right to the end, the Reagan Administration did not realize it had fallen into a veritable trap set by the Iranian Intelligence.

This happened principally due to the incompetence and inexperience of the members of the NSC (among whom the figure of Oliver North (33) stands out for his amateurishness and naîveté in managing the operation).
In fact, on one side, the ‘contacts’ established by North and McFarlane were exclusively comprised of medium rank officials and questionable businessmen like Manucher Ghorbanifar or Albert Hakim, in their turn controlled, in reality, by the Iranian Intelligence, (ironically, already in previous years, an internal report of the CIA cautioned against trusting Ghorbanifar (34) . On the other side, as soon as the negotiations were exposed by the press, the Iranian Government exploited the occasion to its own advantage and, thwarting the clumsy attempts of the White House to cover up the whole business, confirmd the entire story, revealing almost farcical particulars of the affair (among which, the gift of two bibles, inscribed by Reagan himself, to the Iranian interlocutors from the NSC delegation), and in this way exposing the President and his staff to ridicule (35) .
The only positive outcome of these negotiations was the liberation of two American hostages (out of a total of 12, among which were people kidnapped between 1984 and 1986).


The CIA support to the Afghan rebels

Characteristics of the programme
The impressive mass of documentation available today allows us to sustain that the CIA involvement in Afghanistan was the largest covert action ever realized in terms of invested resources (circa 3.2 billion dollars).
Although starting from 1979, the Carter Administration had already authorized limited supplies of military equipment to the anti-communist rebels (36) , it was with Reagan that the USA involvement had a decided quantitative and qualitative escalation.
In fact, it was under this Administration that the CIA started to invest funds, both from internal and foreign provenance (particularly in the form of substantial donations from Saudi Arabia), with the principal objective of buying war material of Chinese, Israeli or Egyptian make, outside of Afghanistan (37) .
Subsequently, these arms were shipped by sea towards Karachi or by air towards Islamabad in Pakistan. At this point, the management passed exclusively into the hands of the Pakistan Secret Service, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which organized and handled the distribution of the arms to the Afghan Resistance (38).
The contribution of the CIA had a dramatic escalation in the April of 1985, when Reagan authorized the National Security Decision Directive – 166, which explicitly affirmed the priority of the US foreign policy, to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan by "all means available".
It was on the basis of this Directive that it was decided to supply to the Mujahidin (always through the ISI), the most advanced armaments, among which the sophisticated shoulder-portable anti-aircraft missiles, the Stingers (39) . The Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 and the CIA support to the Afghan Resistance (which now opposes the pro-Soviet regime of Najibullah), continued, albeit on a reduced scale, until 1992.

A costs/benefits analysis
The CIA action in favour of the Afghan Mujahidin, if analyzed from a brief-term perspective, could appear as the perfect example of an accurately conceived undercover action; well carried out and successful. However, if the analysis adopts a wider time perspective, then the consequences of this programme transform the costs/benefits balance from positive to a decided failure.
Undoubtedly, it is permitted to believe that the CIA contribution was an important factor for the survival and success of the Afghan Resistance against the Red Army. Nevertheless, to sustain that it was precisely this support, especially after 1986 with the advent of the Stingers, which represented the key and basic factor of the Soviets’ decision to abandon Afghanistan, does not appear to find confirmation in the testimonies available today. In fact, without entering too far into the details, it is well to remember that already in March, 1985, after Gorbachev’s rise to power, he expressed on numerous occasions his firm intention to withdraw the Soviet troops from Afghanistan (40) .
If we pause to look at the operative aspect of the entire programme, the CIA’s decision to subcontract the final phase leaps immediately into evidence; i.e. to pass the management of the distribution of the arms to the Afghans, to the ISI. This decision was principally motivated by the necessity to conserve the element of "plausible deniability", which had been dramatically missing in the Iran-Contra affair. As a consequence, the CIA never possessed complete control of the operation and since the ISI was the real manager of the funds and equipment for assignment to the Mujahidin (which, it must be remembered, are not a single entity, but rather, a number of factions), it was the same ISI which decided the priority and modality of the distribution itself. Inevitably, more than 65-70% of the material actually
distributed was assigned to the pro-Pakistani fundamentalist faction of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, which, in 1994, became one of the most important allies of the Taliban regime (41).
Furthermore, it is necessary to consider that due to the widely spread corruption within the ranks of the ISI, 20% to 80% of the military supplies was ‘creamed off’ even before reaching the Afghan guerrillas, thereby increasing that phenomenon known as "warlordism"; that is, the birth or the consolidation of "lords of the war" or in any event, other types of criminal organizations " a phenomenon which is still endemic in all of the Central Asian region.
With regard to the question of the proliferation of light arms, it is significant to note that between 1986 and 1989, the CIA consigned to the Pakistani ISI, approximately 1200 Stinger Missiles, of which only 340 were actually used in combat by the Afghan guerrillas. Therefore, excluding those missiles which the CIA were able to buy back through a programme started in 1993 (and cost 65 million dollars) (42) , numerous estimates speak of, at least, 350 Stingers of which all trace has been lost, and most likely have been sold on the black market.
To substantiate what has been said, it is known that in 1987, a United States helicopter was hit, fortunately, it was not brought down, by a Stinger missile fired from an Iranian motor launch. In the same way, on the 3rd of September, 1992, it was most probably two Stingers which brought down an Italian military aeroplane G-222, over the skies of Bosnia. Ironically, it is equally well known that also the Soviets were able to obtain some Stinger models from which, through a ‘reverse-engineering’ procedure, they obtained the SA-7 Strela, in its turn, precursor of the most effective SA-14 Gremlin: today, in the hands of numerous terrorist groups, from Iraq to Cechenia (43) .
More generally, there is an agreement of opinion in sustaining that the consequence of the longest negative period of the United States is - that this covert action could have contributed, unwittingly, to the phenomenon of Islamic terrorism. Without wishing to go into the numerous analyses which already exist regarding this problem, it is important to keep in mind that for the best part of the 80’s, the CIA furnished widespread support to the ISI and to the Saudi Secret Services, with the purpose of constituting and training an army composed of volunteers, coming, mostly, from the world Islamic community.
Therefore, in this way, the funds supplied by the CIA were used to promote and nourish Islamic fundamentalism in anti-Soviet terms: ignoring or, however, under-evaluating the very nature of this fundamentalism which, besides being anti-Soviet, was becoming more and more anti-western (44). In synthesis, it would not be incorrect to consider that those same individuals who were trained by the Saudi and Pakistani Intelligence Services, with the blessing of the CIA, would have become, subsequently, part of the terrorist network of Al-Qaeda.

In this respect, it is sufficient to remember that among the most important allies of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman - the same person who, in 1993, was arrested
and accused of conspiracy and preparation of terrorist attacks on American soil and, Osama Bin Laden (45) .
Finally, the absence of farsightedness in the entire Afghanistan programme, or if it existed, it focussed exclusively on the containment of Soviet expansion. This fact constituted the basis of an extremely serious strategic disadvantage, which limited the United States intelligence community in its fight against international terrorism.
To be more exact, in light of the considerable resources invested in the entire operation, the CIA on the one side, did not want (with an end to preserving the "plausible deniability") and was not able to establish a real and independent lasting intelligence network within Afghanistan, preferring to rely on the ISI: on the other side, it deemed the development and maintenance of a specialized ‘know-how’ in Central Asia, unnecessary.
Consequently, when, at the beginning of 1998, the US Intelligence identified, with relative security, Bin Laden and the Al-Quaeda network as the responsible parties for the attacks in Kenya, Tanzania and, subsequently, attacks on American soil, the following efforts to hit the structure and neutralize the members were, to an extent, thwarted due to the very lack of local assets (agents, informers etc.,) of the CIA in Afghanistan (46).

A common outcome:
the increase in the traffic of narcotics

Before concluding this brief analysis, it is interesting to note how both the cases under examination although they represent examples of covert actions decidedly different one from the other, they are, however, characterized by a common consequence: a dramatic increase in the traffic of narcotics within and outside of the United States.
As far as the Iran-Contra Affair is concerned, much evidence shows that the Reagan Administration continued to actively support the Contras although irrefutable proof exists that the Contra leadership, among whom Norwin Meneses, the head of their intelligence service, the head of the paramilitary operations, Enrique Bermudez were involved in the smuggling of cocaine to the United States, with the objective of further financing their own activities (47). More precisely, it was not just instances of tolerance towards the narcotics trade, but in certain cases the CIA and the NSC actively helped to impede or to put the investigations of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) off course, together with those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice: this, in order to protect their ‘local assets’ in Nicaragua, Honduras and even in the United States.
The Director of the CIA, William Casey, himself, interceded on behalf of Enrique Bermudez who, as well as being a military leader, was also the key man for cocaine traffic in the Miami area, and obliged the DEA to take no decisions in investigations which concerned the activities of Bermudez in the United States.
In short, during the period of the United States clandestine intervention in Nicaragua, the CIA and the NSC worked actively to ensure that the Central American narco-traffic network enjoyed legal immunity within the United States (48) .
Such involvement was even more serious when account is taken of the numerous occasions that aircraft belonging to the CIA private fleet, with pilots employed by the CIA, were, in effect, utilized to transport the refined cocaine from Central America to the United States (49) .
Therefore, it is not incorrect to say that: excluding those cases in which the motivation was simple profit for the corrupt elements of the Agency, the smuggling of cocaine, in fact, represented for the CIA, another way of supporting the Contras, bypassing the Boland I & II Amendments.
In the case of Afghanistan, it was rather the CIA’s lack of control over the enormous flow of money and arms originally assigned to the Mujahidin, which progressively transformed the Afghan-Pakistani border into the most important world black market.
Inevitably, the various Mujahidin leaders re-invested the major part of these funds in what was, traditionally, one of the most important economic resources of the region: the cultivation of the opium poppy, the production of which tripled between 1979 and 1982. In exact terms, the money supplied by the CIA and the logistics support of the ISI, permitted Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to become the most powerful Afghan ‘drug lord’.
Under his supervision, circa 40% of the arable territory in Afghanistan was assigned to the cultivation of the opium poppy. This land was mainly concentrated in the valley of Helmand, where an irrigation structure could be exploited. The structure had been financed by the USAID, under CIA pressure. Subsequently, the raw opium was sent to refining laboratories in Pakistan, which were controlled and protected by the General of the Armed Corp, Fazle Huq. Once the heroin left Pakistan, it was, principally, the Italo-American mafia which dealt with its transit and distribution. Figures furnished by the ONU and the DEA, show that in 1981, the Afghan heroin producers had cornered 60% of the West-European and North American markets.
In summary, it is possible to affirm that in both cases discussed, the clandestine role of the CIA had, more or less unwittingly, a catalyst effect for the increase of the local production of narcotics. In the long term, this led to an enormous flow of cocaine and heroin to the United States itself.


Concluding remarks

On the basis of what has been previously stated, it does not seem incorrect to consider the Iran-Contra Affair and the clandestine intervention of the CIA in Afghanistan as two almost perfect examples of what the United States intelligence scholar, Alfred McCoy, defines as "Mission Miopia".
In fact, in both cases, undercover actions with the aim of reaching brief/medium term objectives were harbingers of extremely negative consequences for their initiator, that is, the United States of America.
In the Iran-Contra case, a number of factors resulted in the situation that the few benefits reached were almost immediately outclassed by the operation costs and their negative consequences. All this, added to the disastrous management of the crisis, in the moment when the entire operation lost the protective umbrella of secrecy, confirms that the Iran-Contra Affair can be held to be the worst US covert action, in terms of cost/benefits relations.
With regard to the CIA involvement in Afghanistan, it is interesting to note the net contrast existing between the undeniably positive results obtained in the short-term and the extremely negative consequences generated in the long-term period of this operation.
To elucidate: with the aim of obtaining the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States was co-responsible for the further development and organization of that already existing Islamic fundamentalism, which not only has become the primary threat for the United States itself, but continues to represent the principal destabilizing factor for the most important Islamic allies of the United States, such as Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in the present ‘war on terror’. In brief, the CIA intervention in the Afghan conflict permitted the United States to win a ‘tactical victory’ against the Soviet Union, at a price of an enormous danger for their future strategic interests.
Finally, it is important to remember that the ‘covert programmes’ of the Reagan Administration, both in Central America and in Central Asia, generated a common collateral effect, which is the substantial increase in world traffic of narcotics: an increase which was the reason for that ‘drugs boom’ which was verified in Europe and in the United States, between the 80’s and 90’s.
From this brief analysis, it is likewise possible to identify, at least, four ways of reasoning which have determined such a failure with regard to a costs/benefits balance in both the Covert Actions that we have examined.

" The presence of excessive conditioning of an ideological or emotional character, which contributed decisively in determining the priority of the objectives of the covert actions, as well as, influencing the relative analysis of feasibility. Both Reagan and Casey over-estimated the threat of Soviet expansion and, therefore, a counter-intervention in Nicaragua or in Afghanistan was considered an indispensable action to preserve the security of the United States, and the strategic balance with respect to the Soviet Union.
In the Iran-Contra case: if on the one side, this ideological component led to over-estimating the true capacity of the Contras, on the other side, the emotional involvement led the Reagan Administration, in particular, the President, to delude himself about the intentions of the Iranian interlocutors.
More generally, in deciding both of the covert programmes, neither Reagan nor Casey took into consideration opposing analyses or opinions, even though they existed. It is sufficient to cite, for example, the lack of confidence that the Vice-Director of the CIA, Robert Gates, had with regard to the consequences of the clandestine intervention in Nicaragua. Likewise, no importance was given to the perplexities of the CIA over Gorbanifar or to the negative opinions of the Pentagon concerning the supply of Stingers to the Mujahidin

" The lack of alternative strategy in the event that the protective umbrella of secrecy should be lost. In the Iran-Contra Affair, this lack became extremely grave, insofar as both the operation fronts became public dominion, almost simultaneously. Ironically, in the case of Afghanistan, the meticulous search for the "plausible deniability" element, led to an almost complete delegation in favour of the Pakistani ISI, consequently, thwarting CIA control in the entire process. On the whole, an important conclusion can be drawn from the analysis of these two operations: in conceiving a covert action, especially, if it is on a large scale, the intelligence bodies must assume that at a certain stage the protective umbrella of security could be, partially or entirely, lost.
Undeniably, a clandestine programme requires that the promoting body take the opportune measures until all information is properly compartmentalized and that the different personnel involved answer to the concept of ‘need to know’, that is; acting exclusively on the basis of strictly necessary information.
Nevertheless, the prevision of ‘worst-case scenarios’ is naturally fundamental and on this basis, therefore, alternative strategies must be established. To take into account such possibilities and, if they occur, to re-dimension the original programme, is infinitely better than improvising a strategy of ‘containment of damage’. In general, as Mark Lowenthal reminds us, the more an undercover action remains limited (in terms of both invested resources and prefixed objectives), the easier it will be for its promoter to maintain secrecy (50).
It follows that where the extent of such operations grows, as in the case of paramilitary operations, the possibility of conserving the secrecy. As had already been shown by previous experience of the US intelligence community, e.g. in the Bay of Pigs episode, in 1961, paramilitary operations on a vast scale are difficult to place in the category of covert actions.

" The absence of clarity regarding the personnel involved, their qualifications and relative responsibilities, their relations in hierarchical terms, and the institutional-political framework into which is placed the clandestine programme. Above all, in the case of the Iran-Contra Affair, a good part of the operation’s management was entrusted to NSC personnel " often inexpert in questions of intelligence and unprepared in working with classified information "
thereby violating the constitutional procedure relative to the management of covert actions, traditionally restricted to the CIA.
Not only did Oliver North lack the necessary experience in the field of international relations, in the problems relative to covert actions, and in questions relative to Central America, but thanks to the personal support of Casey, he had unlimited access to the resources and expertise of the CIA, without having to follow the usual hierarchical scale, and was also outside of the reach of the control mechanisms of Congress (51) .
On the whole, it is possible to say that at the bottom of this failure was an evident inconsistency between the official policy of the Reagan Administration and its clandestine actions. In fact, as the US intelligence scholar, Gregory Treverton reminds us that an alarm signal regarding the possible risks of a covert action is represented by the reply to the question of whether or not such clandestine actions are in total contrast with the official policy of its promoter (52) . If they are, as in the case of the sale of arms to Iran by the United States, then it is highly improbable that the entire operation can survive the loss of the protective umbrella of secrecy. The Reagan Administration showed to national and international public opinion its nature of multiple contradictions, by sustaining a certain type of policy publicly and, at the same time, promoting a totally different one secretly. It is significant to remember that on the 30th June, 1985, Reagan publicly declared that "The United States gives terrorists no rewards and no guarantees" (53) . Ironically, three weeks later he authorized the sale of arms to Iran, a state denounced on more than one occasion by the US Department of State, itself, for having ties with international terrorism.

" The complete lack of control of the programme, from the first phase of conception to the final phase of implementation. Particularly in the case of clandestine action in Afghanistan, the recourse to ‘third parties’ resulted counter-productive, above all, in terms of invested resources. One remembers, in fact, that once the CIA funds were withdrawn from the Swiss accounts, and passed over to the ISI management, the Agency lost total control over their real utilization. Consequently, by not having control of the actuation phase of the covert action, the CIA could not receive any type of useful fee-back, either for the evaluation of the real effectiveness of the entire operation, or for the elaboration of possible future scenarios. More generally, from this analysis a dichotomy, already individualized by Lowenthal, is confirmed: If, on the one hand, the political decision makers who are responsible for deciding the actuation of particular undercover actions, tend to have a restricted vision at the end of their mandate, on the other hand, it is equally true that the intelligence bodies of a State must, by necessity, operate with much longer time perspectives.

In conclusion, it is absolutely indispensable to keep in mind such problems of the intelligence decision-makers and operators, in order to avoid that an undercover action, which is a versatile instrument at the disposal of the discretional power of the State " complimentary and absolutely not ‘in place of’ traditional actions " be changed into a dispersive process, ineffectual and often, extremely counter-productive in the long term period.