In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

Propaganda and Politics
and restless American citizens began to contact the FNLA, and
eventually a few made it to the FNLA fighting front in northern
Angola where several met tragic deaths.
We had other lines into the American media. For example, a
European film crew was sent to Silva Porto to make a film about the
war. Featuring Cuban soldiers Savimbi had captured, the documentary
it produced was quite successful on European television. It came
to the attention of the Voice of America, which proposed to show
it in the United States. After discussing the pros and cons, the
working group decided to let it happen-subsequently parts of the
film appeared on an American television show.
Another time, a European CIA station cabled headquarters, advising
that a journalist was enroute to Washington with an FNLA
story. When he arrived, the task force deputy chief, Paul Foster, met
him secretly in Washington, then brought an article he had written
back to CIA headquarters, where a task-force linguist translated it
into passable English. The next day Foster returned it to the reporter,
who sold it to the Washington Post, which printed it.
The article covered several columns, reading in part:
A stem countenance, mustachioed and goateed, a stocky frame in
a Mao tunic, a sternness in his bearing and in his remarks, often belied
by great bursts of truly African laughter-Holden Roberto is a strange
blend of war chief and Alabama Baptist preacher, but a man who
obviously inspires a quasi-mystical fervor in his men . . .
Question: But you have South Africans on your side?
Roberto strikes the table in his Headquarters violently and sends the
general staff maps flying. He seems gripped by a cold rage and starts
to walk back and forth across the room, his hands behind his back.
"You saw the South Africans, did you see them? I say, in the zones
which we control, we, the FNLA? Go and see at Savimbi's headquarters
... I am telling you that we have no South Africans or Rhodesians
among us!"
At first we were successful in keeping our hand in the war hidden,
while exposing the Soviet arms program. However, cracks began to
appear in our cover facade in early September and the working group
discussed ploys to cope. When State Department representatives
reported the department was receiving inquiries from the press about
Angola, the CIA presented them with working group paper #18