In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

[228] I N SEARCH OF ENE MIES
being thoroughly tested. Insisting on consulting every principal involved,
Clark was visiting Luanda, Kinshasa, and even Ambriz and
Silva Porto, and talking to Neto, Roberto, Savimbi, and Mobutu.
Ominous rumors were trickling back about his reaction. What if he
chose to expose our program to the public or go on record against
it within the Senate? At headquarters we wanted detailed reporting
from the field about Clark's· reactions.
As I drafted the cable I read through a soft file* on Senator Clark,
and found a cable from headquarters to Kinshasa instructing the
chief of station to see Mobutu and Holden Roberto and prep them
for their meeting with Senator Clark. The COS should advise
Mobutu and Roberto that Senator Clark had been briefed in very
general terms about our program to help the Angolan liberation
front leaders and to resupply Zaire, to make up for the aid it had
given the Angolans. The cable stated that Senator Clark had agreed
not to discuss the program in Zaire. Therefore the two African
politicians should be encouraged to promote their interests in Angola,
confident that Senator Clark could not tum the conversation
to the CIA program.
After a staff meeting, as we walked back to the Africa Division
offices, I asked my colleagues if we could get by with that sort of
thing.
What sort of thing? someone asked.
"Coaching African politicians before they meet with one of our
own senators.,,
No one seemed to grasp my point, so I tried again.
"Senator Clark was sent by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
to get the facts on Angola. Can we tell Africans he wants to meet
what they should and should not tell him?"
A chorus of sharp voices pounded me. Clark shouldn't waste the
taxpayers' money on such a trip. It was the agency's job to gather
intelligence. We had already told Clark everything he needed to
know about Angola. Besides, you couldn't trust senators any further
than you could throw them, someone added, recalling an incident in
*Since the Freedom of Information Act, the agency increasingly uses a system of
"soft," "unofficial," or "convenience" files for sensitive subjects, especially any
involving surveillance of Americans. Such files are not registered in the agency's
official records sys.tern, and hence can never be disclosed under the FOIA.