While most famous for its signature brand of anti-heroism, the Suicide Squad was actually formed for political reasons because Ronald Reagan was afraid of Amanda Waller. This revelation came in the 1986 series Secret Origins. This particular story, in issue #14, was written by John Ostrander and drawn by Luke McDonnell.
The issue details the long and convoluted history of not just the Suicide Squad but also of Amanda Waller herself. Waller had a tough life, losing both of her children and her husband while living in a crime-ridden, low-income neighborhood. But Waller's iconic determination drove her to get a degree in political science and become a campaign manager for an underdog congressman. Waller stayed on this congressman's staff after he won his election and became a thorn in the side of the Reagan administration and Ronald Reagan himself, who notoriously wanted to cut funding to many social programs.
When Waller approached Reagan with the idea of reactivating the unit known as Task Force X, the president showed interest in Waller’s plan based on her argument of prisoner rehabilitation. After she left the room, however, Reagan said privately that “Mrs. Waller has been a bit too effective” in her work for the congressman. The hope was that, with Waller distracted with the Suicide Squad, she wouldn’t have the energy or focus to stop some of Reagan’s “problem” programs.
This means that the Suicide Squad’s very existence was very much just a calculated political maneuver based on Reagan’s fear of Waller’s congressional activities as it was a way to create a government-sponsored super team. In an ironic (or perhaps, purposeful) twist of real-world politics, at the time of the issue's release, the Reagan administration was embroiled in the Iran-Contra Affair. This scandal showcased how Reagan and the people working around him weren’t shy about off-the-books and shady political maneuvering. So green lighting a controversial team of supervillains in the hopes of undermining a political opponent is precisely the type of tactics the real Ronald Reagan would possibly have partaken in.
Both Marvel and DC have had stories like this in the past that rewrote the untold history of their universes. Infamously, Marvel’s Ultimate Origins revealed that mutants in the Ultimate Universe didn’t evolve naturally but were part of a government program. DC’s Secret Origins ran for fifty issues and was used primarily to rework the post-Crisis origins for a wide variety of DC Comics heroes and villains. Mainstream characters weren’t the only ones featured. It also showcased the backstories of lesser-known DC characters such as The Creeper, Plastic Man, and Rocket Red, as well. Still, it's likely that the Suicide Squad and the unexpected way Amanda Waller got the team created that really stands out.