In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES
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hungrily of the city, which lay almost within his grasp. Roberto, a
man obsessed with his place in history, saw the goal of a lifetime's
struggle just beyond the next ridge, beyond a few MPLA soldiers and
some Cubans.
In Luanda, the Portuguese high commissioner had fled without
ceremony and frightened ¥PLA leaders peremptorily celebrated
Angolan independence, declaring the People's Republic of Angola.
Conspicuously absent were the representatives of forty African nations
who should have been present to celebrate the end of five
hundred years of Portuguese tyranny in Africa.
A hundred miles southeast of Luanda, the South African armored
column was having a field day, covering vast distances so rapidly the
Cuban/MPLA forces had difficulty retreating ahead of them.
At CIA headquarters in Langley, the Angolan Task Force celebrated
Angolan Independence Day with a late afternoon party, decorating
its offices with crepe paper and serving wine and cheese.
People came from all over the building, from the Portuguese Task
Force, the French Desk, and the Special Operations Group, to drink
to the pro.gram's continued success.
Then the Cubans' 122 mm. rockets began to land in the Quifangondo
valley, not like single claps of thunder, but in salvos, twenty
at a time. The first salvo went long, screaming over the heads of
bewildered FNLA soldiers and shattering the valley with a horrendous,
ear-splitting sound. The next salvo was short, and the little
army was bracketed, exposed in an open valley, without cover. Soldiers'
hearts burst with a clutching terror as they dived to the ground
or stood helplessly mesmerized, watching the next salvo land in their
midst. And the next. And the next.
CIA observers on a ridge behind estimated that two thousand
rockets rained on the task force as it broke and fled in panic, scattering
across the valley in aimless flight, abandoning weapons, vehicles,
and wounded comrades alike. Survivors would call it Nshila wa Lufu
-Death Road.
As for the artillery, one of the North Korean 130 mm. cannon
exploded the first time it was fired, killing its Zairian crew. The
second misfired., injuring its crew. Both guns were permanently out
of action.
The obsolete South African cannon pounded away, but their firepower
was a fraction of the rocket salvos and their range scarcely