In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

Roberto
[tz5]
troops? In Ambriz I counted 25 soldiers, plus a few dozen uniformed
hangers-on; Roberto had claimed 1,500. Equipment? There were
more rifles and mortars than soldiers. Our shipments were arriving.
Foreign advisors? Twenty Portuguese and two Brazilians. Chinese
advisors? I couldn't find a trace of anything oriental; the Chinese
weren't crossing the border into Angola. Leaders and fighting capability?
I withheld judgment. I would have to get closer to the fighting
front to answer all my questions. ·
On the cliffs near the river's mouth I stood for several minutes
looking at the surf. Huge waves were cresting far out to sea, rolling
majestically in to break and surge up the beach. This was world-class
surf, but Ambriz was a long way from being known as a surfing
resort. The waters of the Atlantic are dark and ominous off the West
African coast and have bred fear in African and European minds for
centuries, sparking tales of sea monsters and mysterious currents. No
one was completely immune to that superstition, myself included.
Early 1961, as reconnaissance officer on a navy cruise, which Presi·
dent Kennedy called SOLANT AMITY, I had run covert hydrographic
surveys of beach gradients and sand composition up and down the
western coast of Africa, in Monrovia, Lome, Conakry, Pointe Noire,
and Bathurst. My men and I would take a "Peter"* boat and fake
a beer party while we dived and took soundings. None of us, though
highly trained reconnaissance marines, had much stomach for the
murky depths a hundred yards from the beach.
By habit I noted the Ambriz beach gradient. It was steep, the sand
coarse and bottomless-it would handle amphibious landing craft
badly.
Downtown Ambriz, like Carmona, was deserted and buttoned up.
There were only a few African men in civilian clothes wandering
about aimlessly. After a breakfast of fruit, cheese, and rather good
coffee, I examined the FNLA communications center. My com·
municators were well established, their radios set up and in good
contact with Kinshasa via the relay station in Monrovia. There was
no message from headquarters and I sent a simple "all's well." Given
more time I might have tried to understand why radio waves would
reach fifteen hundred kilometers to Monrovia but not five hundred
direct to Kinshasa.
I walked back across town to a broad field overlooking the ocean
*A Peter boat is an ancient navy landing craft.