Examples of dictators supported by both the West AND the Soviet bloc

[Tooting Carmen]

N.B. If you know of any other examples besides these, you are free to add them.

Idi Amin, Uganda (1971-1979)

Initially came into power through a British-backed coup, in order to overthrow the Socialist Milton Obote. Amin immediately re-privatised several companies (many of them British) that Obote had nationalised. However, as a populist move he decided to expel the Ugandan Asian population a year later, leading the West to disown him. Therefore, he sought support from the USSR and Libya instead, adopting more general Afro-nationalist social and economic positions (along with his extreme corruption and persecution of political dissidents and rival ethnic groups, of course).

Anwar Sadat, Egypt (1970-1981)

He initially became President following Nasser's death - a year after which, Sadat carried out the so-called "Corrective Revolution" to erase traces of Nasserism in the country, thus breaking ties with the USSR and instead warming to the US and even making peace with Israel. He opened up the economy considerably and wanted to move it away from the Socialist policies of Nasser.

National Reorganisation Process, Argentina (1976-1983)

Came into power through a coup to overthrow Isabel Peron, who was perceived as weak and useless, and launched an all-out assault on the Argentine Left. Nevertheless, while in many ways a conventional right-wing and pro-Western dictatorship - its free-market reforms were almost as radical as Pinochet's, and like the latter it had the strong support of Henry Kissinger - the regime did maintain close economic and diplomatic ties with the USSR, Cuba and Libya. (Most of the USSR's soya and starch were imported from Argentina at the time). The regime's good relations with the Socialist nations were to prove especially useful in the Falklands War, with all three aforementioned countries sending arms to Argentina, while conversely of course the US - along with most other Western nations - backed Britain.

Saddam Hussein, Iraq (1979-2003)

A year after becoming Leader of the Baath Party, Saddam launched an invasion of Khomeini's Iran, and was duly armed and funded by both the West and the USSR, as they all believed he could overthrow the Islamist regime and thus prevent the Revolution from spreading. The Iraq-Iran War lasted throughout the 1980's, eventually terminating in a stalemate with no clear winner.

[Asten]

Yugoslavia received money from both east and west as well.

[Tooting Carmen]

Yugoslavia received money from both east and west as well.

But diplomatically and militarily it was never really aligned with either. Actually, Ceaucescu's Romania might be an example - after he denounced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the West became friendlier towards him than to most other Warsaw Pact regimes.