In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

(220) IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES
With all else failing, the CIA turned to its mercenary recruitment
programs with renewed determination. Already underway, the recruitment
of the French Hoods was proceeding slowly. The CIA
station in Paris had fine rapport but little influence with the French
service, and could not seem to expedite that program. The French
service insisted that the CIA work directly with Bob Denard, who
was doing the recruiting.
Denard was himself a famous mercenary. He had fought for
Mobutu in the Congo (in a program financed by the CIA) and had
later defied Mobutu, been wounded, and convalesced in Rhodesia in
1967. In November 1967 he had brought sixteen mercenaries on
bicycles across the Angolan border into the Katanga province of the
Congo and bluffed his way three hundred kilometers against
Mobutu's commandos, to the outskirts of the huge Kolwezi copper
mines, apparently hoping that the Katangese gendarmes would rise
up under his leadership. At Kolwezi, however, Mobutu's commandos
made a stand which checked Denard's advance and forced his
withdrawal back across the border. Since that time Denard had lived
in France, performing useful services for any intelligence service or
government that paid cash, playing all ends against his bank account.
The CIA had reports that in the fall of 1975 Denard, now back in
Mobutu's good graces, had recruited mercenaries to support
Mobutu's invasion of Cabinda and to run an operation in the
Comoro Islands.
I was opposed to all mercenary operations, but this one was at least
more palatable than the others. The Frenchmen would be white
neocolonials, but not as offensive to Africans as the Portuguese. And
the sponsorship of the French service reduced the likelihood of
psychopaths and sadists. The contract called for technicians and
skilled military veterans.
Bob Denard was to handle all the recruiting activities, and only
he would meet with a CIA representative. The French service would
facilitate passports and visas. UNITA representatives would house
the men as they staged through Kinshasa, and Savimbi would supervise
their activities in Angola. This arrangement gave the CIA plausible
denial of involvement in the operation and protected the United
States government from claims that might be lodged by the families
of any mercenaries killed in Angola.
A paramilitary officer, who was a lieutenant colonel in the Marine