Operationally, CIA had important successes in covert action. Perhaps the most consequential of all was Afghanistan where CIA, with its management, funneled billions of dollars in supplies and weapons to the Mujahhadin, and the resistance was thus able to fight the vaunted Soviet army to a standoff and eventually force a political decision to withdraw. Both the costs of the war and the stalemate had a significant and broad political impact domestically inside the Soviet Union.
Similarly, covert actions in Angola and even in Nicaragua produced sufficient pressure on Soviet clients to buy time for non-communist or anti-Soviet alternatives to emerge.
Throughout the Cold War, in the third world CIA worked successfully with governments friendly to the United States to combat subversion by the Soviet Union and its surrogates. We also waged a war of ideas and covert human rights campaign inside the Soviet Union itself and supported a growing opposition in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland.
CIA carried out a propaganda war against the Soviet regime itself, publicizing to the world the abuses inside the USSR and aggressions and subversion beyond its borders.
snip:
Similarly on occasion our operations, for example in Afghanistan, had limiting and dangerous after-effects. The training and weapons we provided after the conflicts ended sometimes were put to unwelcome purposes and even used in actions hostile to US interests. We at CIA were always conscious of this possibility and indeed warned policymakers about it. For example, during the debate over whether to provide Stingers to the Mujahhadin.
Entire speech is here:
https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/1999/dci_speech_111999gatesremarks.html
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