The geopolitical position of Albania, isolated from the other states of the communist bloc, and its small size, made it the ideal "guinea pig" for testing "Operation Rollback." The implementation of the operational plan was undertaken in 1949 jointly by the British and the Americans with programs that had the codenames "Valuable" and "Fiend" respectively.

The ultimate goal of the operation was to overthrow the Albanian government of Hoxha, a government completely controlled by the USSR, and to install a new government that would be accepted by the Albanian people while not being hostile to the interests of the USA. Additionally, one of the key objectives was to eliminate the risk of Greek communists using Albania as a base for guerrilla warfare, as had happened during the Civil War.

Dimitris-Mercurius Kontis