there were times where the US funded groups that were leftists as means of countering, to their perception at the time, even more radical communists.

it was more in the way of ‘enemy of my enemy, might still be an enemy, but they’re not the current problem’ than anything else. I don’t think it ever ended the way we wanted it to, or the way that it should have.

As an example, we funded FSLN against the Samoza family, in Nicaragua. we also supported the Derg- an ML military junta- in ethiopia against the Eritrean independence peeps (who were at the time even more communist.