I just finished reading John Stockwell's first hand account of the CIA's brief operation in Angola from 1975-1976. Previously, I've researched Henry Kissinger's foreign policy in Argentina during the Junta years of '76-'81. I found Stockwell's account an interesting parallel to the changes in American foreign policy that occurred during the Congressional investigations of the American intelligence community by the Church Committee (Senate) and the Pike Committee (House) in '75 and '76. His book, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story is written as a first hand account and journalistic history of the Angolan War of Independence and its subsequent civil war - much like George Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia written about his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Above all, John Stockwell's story is a scathing condemnation of the Central Intelligence Agency's foreign operations and argues that its tactics do more to harm national security than to protect it.
Beginning in 1964, John Stockwell spent 12 years in the CIA, while serving in the Congo, Burundi, Vietnam, and Angola. He is utterly embarrassed and disgraced by the Central Intelligence Agency's exit from Vietnam. According to his account, informants and contacts were abandoned, documents revealing the names of informants and other classified information were left behind, while local police and military were encouraged to engage in torture and extrajudicial killings of suspected Viet Cong sympathizers. Later discussing the operation in Angola, a team member recounts his experience during the Congo Crisis as he drove a car with Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's body in the trunk - National Security Archive documents reveal that the Agency plotted to poison him, whereas Stockwell claims that they gave the green light to Belgian and Kataganese forces to murder him. Eventually, Stockwell was assigned Chief of the Angolan Task Force due to his childhood background in the Congo and CIA experience in the region.
The initial strategy of Henry Kissinger and the CIA was to escalate the conflict in Angola to prevent an easy "Soviet" victory - to neither win or lose. The Portuguese empire crumbled in 1974 after a military coup overthrew the regime of Estado Novo, coupled with an eruption of civil resistance. Three factions vied for supreme influence in the power vacuum that suddenly opened in Angola: the ostensibly Marxist-Lenninist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the anti-Communist National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), and the ideologically vacillating National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) - each with a base of support in rival ethnic groups. The Soviets and Cubans backed the MPLA, whereas a hodgepodge of nations supported UNITA, such as China, North Korea, South Africa, and the United States. American operatives worked most closely with the FNLA along with the Portuguese colonials. Angola proved no strategic value to the United States. It was surrounded by the right-wing dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko in the North and President Kaunda of Zambia to the west - conspicuously sovereign, but they were forthrightly cooperative with the United States through local CIA stations. Still hounded by the humiliating defeat in Vietnam by a third world liberation movement, American officials were more than cautious in avoiding another entangling conflict. Nonetheless, Henry Kissinger instructed William Colby and the CIA to make an MPLA victory costly for the Soviets and Cubans; they were instructed NOT to win.
A constant echo, John Stockwell reminds us of the poor intelligence and communications provided by the Central Intelligence Agency. Stockwell visits leaders Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi of UNITA in Angola - with scant Agostinho Neto and the MPLA. He discovers that the FNLA is racked by a multi-sided internal power struggle and truly possess only a tiny fraction of their supposed manpower. UNITA on the other hand, possesses a charismatic and popular leader, a modest base of support, but an extreme lack of weaponry and supplies needed to combat the Soviet arms and Cuban troops of the MPLA. Even so, communications was overlooked as UNITA and FNLA troops attacked their comrades mistakenly. CIA stations in Zaire and Zambia were oblivious to the changing battle lines and military capabilities of their "allies."
The logistical operations of the program - the use of funds and transportation of equipment proved more disastrous and even less effective. Much equipment was left in Mobutu's warehouses in Zaire. Even when it was transported to FNLA and UNITA bases, the equipment had little way of getting to the front. The more complex equipment that really mattered, such as surface to air missiles, helicopters, armored vehicles and radio equipment, was given to troops who were not sufficiently trained and could rarely use it. CIA funds were spent on a multi-million dollar ice packing plant, a yacht, and defective weapons. All of which proved no use. In addition, hundreds of mercenaries were given months of free pay and saw little combat during their time at the front. Psychotic mercenaries were hired by CIA contractors. Men such as "Colonel Tony Callahan" executed fourteen FNLA troops for supposedly deserting, killed two Angolan civilians, and tortured many more Angolans for intelligence information. He was later captured and executed for his crimes by the MPLA. Regular South African troops were brought in on the side of UNITA with the help of American intelligence commanders, a policy so ignorant that it brought many African heads of state in line with the MPLA. No African leader could retain his credentials in the domestic arena while he was allied with the racist apartheid nation of South Africa. Whereas Central Intelligence operations in Angola were an embarrassing failure, testimony from high CIA and State Department officials to Congress and the American public was shrewd and calculating.
CIA director William Colby and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger knowingly lied in their to Congress and the American people. This is remarkable, given the Church and Pike The 40 committee - an advisory group of the Executive Branch under President Ford - explicitly ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to keep Americans out of fighting. American policymakers sought to avoid the escalation of a Vietnam-type conflict. Nonetheless, CIA advisers were on the ground, coach and fighting alongside FNLA and UNITA troops. Second, the 40 Committee forbade the Central Intelligence Agency from sending weapons and equipment directly to their Angolan counterparts. The CIA's cover was that they were giving military equipment to Mobutu in Kinshasa and President Kaunda in Lusaka (Zambia). The reality is that an American naval ship was directly transporting weapons to the Angolan coast. Third, FNLA diplomats were brought to the US by the CIA to create a propaganda campaign in US. CIA public relations campaigns directed against American citizens are explicitly illegal. policy and illegal. John Stockwell argues that Henry Kissinger and William Colby had direct knowledge of these activities as they reported doctored information to the American public.
What all this means is that when the Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 its aim was not to protect Americans at home and abroad. It was meant as a means for the executive branch to achieve questionable strategic and economic foreign policy goals that the American public might normally find abhorrent. This is not something that is unique to any period. Jeremy Scahill's book Dirty Wars exposes that the same types of illegal operations in Stockwell's In Search of Enemies are still being carried out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Moreover, Moreover, investigations into American intelligence operations will fail to hold anyone accountable. Stockwell's account proves that as the Angola operation IAFEATURE continued it's illegal operations right as they were being interrogated by the Church and Pike Committee hearings. I agree with John Stockwell's ultimate conclusion. As long as the covert operations branch of the CIA exists, mafia-style hits will be carried out for the goals of the Executive branch, in our name.
Beginning in 1964, John Stockwell spent 12 years in the CIA, while serving in the Congo, Burundi, Vietnam, and Angola. He is utterly embarrassed and disgraced by the Central Intelligence Agency's exit from Vietnam. According to his account, informants and contacts were abandoned, documents revealing the names of informants and other classified information were left behind, while local police and military were encouraged to engage in torture and extrajudicial killings of suspected Viet Cong sympathizers. Later discussing the operation in Angola, a team member recounts his experience during the Congo Crisis as he drove a car with Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's body in the trunk - National Security Archive documents reveal that the Agency plotted to poison him, whereas Stockwell claims that they gave the green light to Belgian and Kataganese forces to murder him. Eventually, Stockwell was assigned Chief of the Angolan Task Force due to his childhood background in the Congo and CIA experience in the region.
The initial strategy of Henry Kissinger and the CIA was to escalate the conflict in Angola to prevent an easy "Soviet" victory - to neither win or lose. The Portuguese empire crumbled in 1974 after a military coup overthrew the regime of Estado Novo, coupled with an eruption of civil resistance. Three factions vied for supreme influence in the power vacuum that suddenly opened in Angola: the ostensibly Marxist-Lenninist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the anti-Communist National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), and the ideologically vacillating National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) - each with a base of support in rival ethnic groups. The Soviets and Cubans backed the MPLA, whereas a hodgepodge of nations supported UNITA, such as China, North Korea, South Africa, and the United States. American operatives worked most closely with the FNLA along with the Portuguese colonials. Angola proved no strategic value to the United States. It was surrounded by the right-wing dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko in the North and President Kaunda of Zambia to the west - conspicuously sovereign, but they were forthrightly cooperative with the United States through local CIA stations. Still hounded by the humiliating defeat in Vietnam by a third world liberation movement, American officials were more than cautious in avoiding another entangling conflict. Nonetheless, Henry Kissinger instructed William Colby and the CIA to make an MPLA victory costly for the Soviets and Cubans; they were instructed NOT to win.
A constant echo, John Stockwell reminds us of the poor intelligence and communications provided by the Central Intelligence Agency. Stockwell visits leaders Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi of UNITA in Angola - with scant Agostinho Neto and the MPLA. He discovers that the FNLA is racked by a multi-sided internal power struggle and truly possess only a tiny fraction of their supposed manpower. UNITA on the other hand, possesses a charismatic and popular leader, a modest base of support, but an extreme lack of weaponry and supplies needed to combat the Soviet arms and Cuban troops of the MPLA. Even so, communications was overlooked as UNITA and FNLA troops attacked their comrades mistakenly. CIA stations in Zaire and Zambia were oblivious to the changing battle lines and military capabilities of their "allies."
The logistical operations of the program - the use of funds and transportation of equipment proved more disastrous and even less effective. Much equipment was left in Mobutu's warehouses in Zaire. Even when it was transported to FNLA and UNITA bases, the equipment had little way of getting to the front. The more complex equipment that really mattered, such as surface to air missiles, helicopters, armored vehicles and radio equipment, was given to troops who were not sufficiently trained and could rarely use it. CIA funds were spent on a multi-million dollar ice packing plant, a yacht, and defective weapons. All of which proved no use. In addition, hundreds of mercenaries were given months of free pay and saw little combat during their time at the front. Psychotic mercenaries were hired by CIA contractors. Men such as "Colonel Tony Callahan" executed fourteen FNLA troops for supposedly deserting, killed two Angolan civilians, and tortured many more Angolans for intelligence information. He was later captured and executed for his crimes by the MPLA. Regular South African troops were brought in on the side of UNITA with the help of American intelligence commanders, a policy so ignorant that it brought many African heads of state in line with the MPLA. No African leader could retain his credentials in the domestic arena while he was allied with the racist apartheid nation of South Africa. Whereas Central Intelligence operations in Angola were an embarrassing failure, testimony from high CIA and State Department officials to Congress and the American public was shrewd and calculating.
CIA director William Colby and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger knowingly lied in their to Congress and the American people. This is remarkable, given the Church and Pike The 40 committee - an advisory group of the Executive Branch under President Ford - explicitly ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to keep Americans out of fighting. American policymakers sought to avoid the escalation of a Vietnam-type conflict. Nonetheless, CIA advisers were on the ground, coach and fighting alongside FNLA and UNITA troops. Second, the 40 Committee forbade the Central Intelligence Agency from sending weapons and equipment directly to their Angolan counterparts. The CIA's cover was that they were giving military equipment to Mobutu in Kinshasa and President Kaunda in Lusaka (Zambia). The reality is that an American naval ship was directly transporting weapons to the Angolan coast. Third, FNLA diplomats were brought to the US by the CIA to create a propaganda campaign in US. CIA public relations campaigns directed against American citizens are explicitly illegal. policy and illegal. John Stockwell argues that Henry Kissinger and William Colby had direct knowledge of these activities as they reported doctored information to the American public.
What all this means is that when the Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 its aim was not to protect Americans at home and abroad. It was meant as a means for the executive branch to achieve questionable strategic and economic foreign policy goals that the American public might normally find abhorrent. This is not something that is unique to any period. Jeremy Scahill's book Dirty Wars exposes that the same types of illegal operations in Stockwell's In Search of Enemies are still being carried out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Moreover, Moreover, investigations into American intelligence operations will fail to hold anyone accountable. Stockwell's account proves that as the Angola operation IAFEATURE continued it's illegal operations right as they were being interrogated by the Church and Pike Committee hearings. I agree with John Stockwell's ultimate conclusion. As long as the covert operations branch of the CIA exists, mafia-style hits will be carried out for the goals of the Executive branch, in our name.
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