In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

[210] IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES
obtain a large fishing boat, the Christina, and hired a Portuguese
crew to man it. It also obtained a lovely twenty-six-foot pleasure
yacht, the Sagittarius, with twin inboards, long-range tanks, and a
wooden hull. The Sagittarius was purchased by the Luanda Station
1 1
and smuggled out of the Luanda harbor in a high-seas adventure.
Taken to Ambriz, it was int~nded for use against unarmed vessels
which were supporting the MPLA. However, as no operations were
mounted against coastal shipping, the Sagittarius contributed little.
Eventually it was moved up the coast in concert with the FNLA
retreat and at the end of the war, was maintained for outings on the
Congo River by individuals who had aided the program in Kinshasa.
Twenty-four rubber assault craft with outboard motors, shipped
from the United States into Angola for commando raids, were misplaced
in Kinshasa and could not be located when they were needed.
Kinshasa station was indeed active, with St. Martin taking his role
as the resident warlord seriously. He continuously proposed extraneous
operations involving station support assets, including an agent
called IAMOLDY/1 who was a Portuguese Angolan businessman with
operations in Luanda and Kinshasa.
First the Kinshasa and Luanda stations cooperated in pouching
the personal effects of a non-American agent in the U.S. State Department
unclassified diplomatic pouch, arguing that they included
printing materials which could be used in the Kinshasa propaganda
effort (other printing materials were abundantly available in Kinshasa).
Then we discovered in the Kinshasa station accountings that s50,­
ooo of the money which was allocated for Roberto had been spent
to purchase an ice plant on the lower Congo River for IAMOLDY/l.
There had been no discussion of this purchase and we were flabbergasted.
Agency regulations permit a chief of station to spend s500 without
prior headquarters approval, if documentation and justification are
submitted in the next monthly accountings. Normally a s50,ooo
expenditure would require staff work at headquarters and at least the
DDO's signature. But the Fiscal Annex of the IAFEATURE Project
Outline simply waived the usual controls. Over s5 million was delivered
in cash to Mobutu, Roberto, and Savimbi by the chiefs of station
in Kinshasa and Lusaka, accounted for only by signatures from the
liberation leaders and their representatives. Other money was depos-