In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

The Angola Program [55]
cially, the United States was observing an arms embargo and should
continue to do so. Broad allegations of "massive" American assistance
to Mobutu and Roberto would not hurt us too badly. But a leak
from an official American source would be damaging. The United
States would be held to blame for spreading the civil war in Angola.
The major fear was that some American official would leak the
program to the American press, the American public. From the
outset, the program was being kept secret from the American people
more than anyone else.
I finished with the 40 Committee paper and read several other
pages of notes and draft memos. I learned that Colby had briefed the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Special Subcommittee on
Intelligence of the House Armed Services Committee, and the Defense
Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, to
ftesh out the presidential finding, as required by the Hughes-Ryan
Amendment.
The 40 Committee had met once in January 1975, once in June,
and again in July to discuss the Angola program. The National
Security Council had met June 27, 1975, and requested that it be
presented an options paper on Angola; this was the paper I had just
read.
On July 14, 1975, the 40 Committee had requested that the agency
submit a covert action plan for the Angolan operation. This plan was
drafted by Africa Division of the CIA and submitted July 16. It was
approved the same day by President Ford, who authorized the expenditure
of s6 million. On July 27, Ford had authorized the additional
s8 million. On July 29 the first planeload of arms left South
Carolina for Kinshasa.
It was after 9:00 P.M. when Bantam interrupted my reading to
invite me to his new condominium in McLean, where we had dinner
in a virtual museum of oriental art, still only half sorted out. A
packing crate in one comer had "AMEMBASSY DJAKARTA,, printed
on one side. At 1:00 A.M. I finally stretched out in the tub of his guest
bath and reflected.
While on leave I had almost convinced myself that I should get
out of the clandestine services-that I did not want to travel the
world living fictitious cover stories and cultivating spies all my life.
Now this incredible offer had come along.
From my earliest days with the agency I had promised myself