After graduating from West Point in 1972, Eiva served in the US Army in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, first with the 82nd Airborne Division, then with Special Forces where he pioneered early UAV delivery systems.
With the support of the right-wing, Mormon lobbying group Free the Eagle, Eiva was able to influence opinion in Congress in favour of the Afghan resistance.
In 2005, as the executive director of the Federation for American Afghan Action, Eiva reported that this organization had 'found up to 70% slippage' in supplies to Mujahideen forces.
[7] Leslie Gelb of the New York Times says that Eiva, in 1983, counted the score of American support for liberation movements since World War II as "0 to 12, with Afghanistan as lucky 13".
The other such ventures supported and then dropped by Washington he lists as Lithuania, Albania, Ukraine, Poland, Tibet, China, Cuba, Kurdistan twice, Angola, the Hmong tribe in Laos and Sumatra.