In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

The Angola Program [47]
and country surveys of the target area. The objective was to acquire
as rapidly as possible the common denominator of background
knowledge shared by other CIA officers dealing with the same area.
In addition, one was expected to have ready recall, perhaps with the
help of cribsheets, of considerable detail about CIA operations in
that area. Unfortunately, the CIA case officers are thus almost entirely
dependent on CIA material, for knowledge of their areas of
operation, perpetuating CIA biases and superficial observations. It
is exceedingly rare that CIA officers, including even the analysts of
the Directorate of Information, will read the books and articles
which the academic world publishes about their areas of interest.
Bantam told me to process through East Asia Division the next
morning and hurry back to Africa Division ready to work.
As I stood there, he said, "Speaking of reading in . .. Why don't
you have a look at these .. . Sit right there. No, don't take them out
of my office! Just make yourself at home at that table ... You won't
bother me."
He handed me a large loose file of sensitive papers, including a
presidential finding, a director of Central Intelligence memo, a 40
Committee paper, a background paper on Angola, and some rough
notes, draft cables, and memos.
I glanced at the clock and noticed it was almost TOO P.M. although
still light outside. I was uncomfortable and hungry and hadn't seen
Potts yet. But I knew I had before me the charter for the nascent
Angola program and I was eager to read that before doing anything
else.
The Presidential Finding of July 18, 1975, was a curious document,
deliberately vague and unspecific, to be fleshed out in verbal briefings
by the CIA dir.!ctor. It said only that the president found the following
operation to be important to the national security of the United
States. The country wasn't even specified--only the continent,
Africa. The operation was described as the provision of material,
support, and advice to moderate nationalist movements for their use
in creating a stable climate to allow genuine self-determination in
newly emerging African states.
That was the legal justification for the CIA's Angolan paramilitary
program. Behind it lay a lot of history.
After five centuries of colonial rule and fifteen years of bloody