In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

Disaster [219)
human side of IAFEA TURE. There was one marriage, between a records
officer and a reports officer. Other returnees never spoke to each
other again. One young officer was eager to get back to Angola,
having decided that he would smuggle home a handful of diamonds
on the next mission.
About this time St. Martin requested approval to put his wife on
a contract to help Ray Chiles write propaganda articles for the
newspapers. Mrs. St. Martin, it was said, was bored, and her low
morale was becoming a problem. Agency regulations strictly forbade
such nepotism, and station chiefs, especially supergrades, are prohibited
from putting their families on the government payroll. However,
a contract was approved for St. Martin's wife to write for the Kinshasa
station, on the basis of a special dispensation from Colby
himself.
Carl Bantam, the Africa Division deputy chief, took his first orientation
trip to Africa in December, visiting Kinshasa, Pretoria, and
Lusaka. He left determined to perform his historic role as enforcer,
to bring St. Martin down to earth. He returned strangely silent about
the trip. Later I learned that St. Martin had hosted a dinner in his
house for Carl and selected personnel of the IA FEATURE program.
This group, under St. Martin's leadership, had literally shouted Bantam
down when he attempted to bring them into line and explain the
limitations of our charter in Angola. Now St. Martin was the chief
of station, on his own turf, reporting to Potts. Carl Bantam, although
a GS 17, was only a staff officer, not in the chain of command.
Paul Foster came back from his second TDY to Kinshasa just
before Christmas. His natural confidence was buoyed even higher,
because he now couid pronounce the names and knew where places
were on the map. He briefed the working group and gave a fascinating
account of the battle of Quifangondo which apparently he had
watched from the ridge. "We taught them how to build bunkers and
advised them to spread out. It did no good." he said. At the word
"advised" the working group members looked at each other knowingly.
The National Security Council had said there should be no
American advisors in Angola, but they had nevertheless suspected
that the CIA was cheating on that caveat. Now they knew.•
*By this time, of course, the National Security Council was urgently seeking the
means for escalation and was scarcely inclined to reprimand the CIA for its aggressiveness.