In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

[20] IN SEARCH OF E N EMIES
four-by-five-foot map of Angola was propped against a wall, and
took notes as Pat, my intelligence assistant, briefed me on the current
tactical situation inside Angola. She had the information from the
SOG* situation room across the building. It would have been more
~ffici~nt for the SOG officer to brief me personally but he held a
grudge. I had reprimanded him. in Vietnam for being drunk when we
were attempting to evacuate our upcountry post during a lull in the
fighting. In our small world we preferred having Pat between us.
At 1:55 I hurried back to my office to gather my notes for the
briefing I would give the Working Group, and to glance at last
minute cables.
Pat and a secretary took the map down to the conference room on
"C" corridor. Another assistant dropped off stacks of photocopied
briefing papers, and hurried downstairs to meet the working group
members as they arrived from the White House, State Department,
and Pentagon. All visitors, even senior ambassadors and top advisors
from the White House, were given visitor's badges and escorted
every moment they were inside CIA headquarters.
I overtook Jim Potts, who was moving with slow dignity on a cane,
his balance more precarious than when he used his crutches. Once
a college football star, Potts had been struck down by polio in middle-age.
I ducked past him into the conference room, to make sure
everything was ready. The others filed in, exchanging amenities: the
State Department officers in their traditional dark grey, vested suits;
the lieutenant general from Defense in his air force uniform; the
admiral wearing an inexpensive business suit; a colonel sporting a
double-knit jacket and bright red slacks. There were eleven of us in
the room. Each received a copy of the memos and reports we would
discuss.
Potts nodded and I stood, facing the group. Using a pointer, I
started at the top of the map and talked my way down through the
battlefields bringing everyone up to date since the previous week's
meeting. In the north our allies, the FNLA and the elite Zairian
paracommando battalions, had been routed and were now a broken
rabble. Kinshasa station had reported that the FNLA headquarters
at Ambriz, on the coast north of the capital, was in a "stable state
of panic." Only in the south were we holding on. The South African
*S.9.G (~pecial
Operations Group), the agency's paramilitary office.
"- - - ...,, . "• .