In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

[202] IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES
shipping labels. The MPLA displayed these trophies to western jour·
nalists and the press picked up our scent. Nor were the newspapers
idle. In Washington and New York IAFEATURE was increasingly
exposed with accurate reports of our program, our budget, even the
amounts of money in our budget. The New York Times seemed to
have a particularly direct line to the working group, and the thought
that we might have a "Deep Throat,, in our midst added some
desperately needed excitement to the working group sessions.
While IAFEATURE 0 was being described in the New York Times, the
presence of South African soldiers in Angola became known. On
November 22, a journalist, Ken Bridgefield, filed a story in the
Washington Post, from Lusaka, reporting that South African soldiers
were fighting in Angola. The propaganda and political war was lost
in that stroke. There was nothing the Lusaka station could invent
that would be as damaging to the other side as our alliance with the
hated South Africans was to our cause.
Nigeria, the economic giant of black Africa and the United States'
second most important source of petroleum, emphatically shifted its
support to the MPLA, providing it with s20 million in aid. A crowd
of Nigerians demonstrated before the American embassy in Lagos.
Tanzania announced plans to train MPLA soldiers in Tanzania in
a joint program with the Soviets. Idi Amin reversed his decision to
expel the Soviets from Uganda, and when the Soviets publicly defended
their program in late December, Amin supported them.
Other countries began to recognize the MPLA as the legitimate
rulers of Angola.