In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

CIA People Policies [81]
But there was a large hitch. The propagandists had correctly
sensed that Micombero ran a bitterly unpopular minority government.
What they had missed, or chosen to ignore, was that the
schism between Micombero and the masses was purely racial.
Micombero and his government were elite Watutsi, sensitive to the
threat of the suppressed Hutu masses and terrified at the possibility
of a Hutu uprising. The Watutsi could only interpret the poster as
encouragement for Hutu activists, who were known to be seeking
support for a revolution. Periodically the Watutsi were accustomed
to take preemptive measures by killing a lot of Hutus. And, lo, two
years later, in 1972, in a paroxym of genocide that ranked with
modem history's most brutal, the Watutsi did kill dozens of thousands
of Hutus, while the United States and the rest of the world
turned its back. How much of a role our ill-advised mailing played
in the matter is open to conjecture.
Now three years after the massacre, I found Bubba in the Covert
Action branch, already working hard on propaganda ploys to publicize
the Soviet support of the MPLA in Angola. The Russians
seemed to him delightfully vulnerable as they dumped arms into the
civil war. He was scheduled to leave shortly for Rome, Kinshasa~ and
Lusaka where he would get the propaganda machine in gear.
"The key is a fourth force in Angola," he told me in his office in
the Covert Action branch in "D" corridor. "We need to organize a
fourth liberation front which can call for a coalition of all the forces,
and denounce the Soviet arms shipments."
"Where will we get people for this front?''
''Angolan exiles-stranded students. There are some right here in
the States. We'll call them the Angolan People's Front."
"Bubba, if you use Angolans who've been studying here in America,
everyone will know it's our front. They won't be listened to by
anyone but our friends."
"Well, we'll find some in Europe. They won't know the United
States is involved. They'll think they are being funded by rich Portuguese
refugees. We'll get Angolans who really believe in a peaceful
solution, and they can operate maybe from Spain or Brazil. Can you
get me the names of some Portuguese who would help?"
I promised to query the Lisbon station and the Portuguese Task
Force.
"No matter," he said, "we can use Rodriguez or Jimmy Manus.