In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES
lands? The disbursements had to be made promptly, as Congress had
decreed there would be absolutely no lingering involvements with
Angolan personalities.
For a week we considered having a case officer walk into Angola
from Zambia and deliver the money to Savimbi. Case officers, myself
included, began to scramble for the assignment, wanting to see
Savimbi one last time in his guerrilla redoubt. But the program
directors abandoned the idea, fearing the capture of a case officer by
the Cubans, and we sought other solutions.
Eventually, on April 28, 1976, the money, s1,986, 700, was delivered
to Mobutu. Of that, s6oo,ooo would be for his lost plane. The
rest he could dole to Roberto and Savimbi's representatives in appropriate
increments. Conveniently ignored was the fact that Mobutu
was as eager as we were to be rid of the liberation movements.
It was only a matter of days before UNIT A and FNLA leaders
were hounding the Kinshasa station, desperate, hungry, their debts
still unpaid. Roberto wailed that thousands of displaced FNLA
tribesmen in lower Zaire were starving. And Mobutu refused to
receive anyone. He was pocketing their s1,376,700. •
The Kinshasa station made a feeble effort to obtain another million
dollars from headquarters, but it was over. There was no more
money. We were not in the missionary business and our involvement
with the Angolan revolutionaries was ended.
On March 24, 1976, a CIA intelligence source with contacts among
the Portuguese exiles in Spain reported that Colonel Castro was
claiming the CIA had welched and refused to provide any funds for
him to terminate the PAC force.
One of the French Hoods angrily claimed that he had not been
paid by Bob Denard. Denard denied this, and the two blustered,
threatening each other.
*Jim Potts and crew were aware of this potentiality when they ordered the money
delivered to Mobutu. They rationalized that it would mollify him, bribe him not to
retaliate against the CIA.
It is an interesting paradox that the Securities and Exchange Commission has
since 1971 investigated, and the Justice Department has prosecuted, several large
U.S. corporations for using bribery to facilitate their overseas operations. At the
same time, the U.S. government, through the CIA, disburses tens of millions of
dollars each year in cash bribes. Bribery is a standard operating technique of the
U.S. goverment, via the CIA, but it is a criminal offense for U.S. business.