In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

(242) IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES
the liberation forces in Angola. Bluntly threatening to review the
agency's overall budget, it subjected Director Bush to a series of
hostile committee hearings, in which it demanded to be given, for
once, full and accurate information. To make sure the CIA hadn't
secretly used other funds in addition to the s31.7 million, the House
Appropriations Committee placed a team of auditors in CIA headquarters
to review IAFEA TURE accountings.
The new director's first problem was to rein in the free-spending
chiefs of station in the field, until he could placate the Senate and
coordinate an orderly disengagement. On March 12 he sent a cable
to all stations, ordering that no funds whatsoever be expended under
the IAFEATURE program. Abruptly, the chiefs of station in Kinshasa
and Lusaka were cut off from all funds-not even St. Martin would
defy such an edict from a new director. High-living UNITA and
FNLA cadres, mercenaries, agents, collaborators, landlords, hotel
managers, and businessmen were suddenly denied further CIA
money, even for previously incurred bills. And St. Martin could only
bombard headquarters with a series of cables pleading his dilemma.
"Our situation is barely short of intolerable," one said.
Even so, St. Martin managed the unthinkable. To feed Savimbi's
forces, St. Martin had proposed in late February to have IAMOLDY/1
purchase s220,ooo worth of combat rations in Rhodesia to be flown
from Salisbury to Gago Coutinho. Headquarters had nervously approved
this operation, stipulating in repeated cables that, other than
passing funds to the UNIT A representatives, CIA personnel should
have no involvement whatsoever with the foodlift. UNIT A alone
should contract with IAMOLDY /1 and make all the arrangements for
transportation. Six headquarters cables underscored the importance
of the Kinshasa station staying out of it. With Congress closing in,
responsibility for a rogue airplane was the last gaffe anybody at
Langley wanted.
On March 14 and 15, a mere three days after Bush's ultimatum,
we began receiving reports of a downed F-27 at Gago Coutinho. The
details were not immediately clear, but it seemed very likely that the
CIA was liable for the uninsured plane. And so it was. St. Martin
had not only ignored headquarters' instructions and managed the
foodlift himself, he had used Mobutu's precious F-27-the one we
had leased-to haul the rations.
Fate had intervened in the form of two MIG-2rs. On March 13,