In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

Our Little-Known Allies
one at CIA headquarters outside the desk itself was reading the
traffic. Or cared.
Over the years the CIA devised a special language, "cabalese," for
use in cables. Originally this was done in the interests of brevity,
when field operators had to decode each letter from a One Time Pad.
The modern machinery is computer fast and charges no more for
additional words, but "cabalese" still must be learned by newcomers
to the clandestine services, who also face a strange vocabulary of
cryptonyms and cable slugs.
All cables are read and edited by a succession of supervisors until
they reach the division chief, who releases them. In the CIA one's
cable writing is anonymous, as all cables go out from the "director."
One especially significant operational cable was the IMMEDIATE
we sent the CIA station chief in Luanda on August 7. It instructed
him to brief the consul general, GPSWISH, on the IAFEA TURE program.
Simultaneously the State Department sent a message through
a special channel, called the ROGER channel, which it used exclusively
for sensitive messages about the CIA, advising GPSWISH that
he would receive an important briefing from the CIA station chief.
This would make it clear to SWISH that the State Department endorsed
the Angola program; yet it would not expose any details to
the State Department communicators in Washington or in Luanda.
Potts and Bantam repeatedly massaged the cable, until they were
satisfied. The briefing would inform GPSWISH of the fact that a
paramilitary program was being undertaken in Angola with the
approval of the 40 Committee and the highest levels of the United
States government, and that it was highly sensitive. Ambassador
Sheldon Vance, (temporarily) in Kinshasa, and Ambassador Wilkowski
in Lusaka were the only officials outside of Washington who
had been briefed. The presidents of Zaire and Zambia, Mobutu and
Kaunda, were involved. This much was truet but the cable then
proceeded to describe the program in less than candid terms, designed
to soften the blow on GPSWISH.
It admitted that the program would support Roberto and Savimbi
but claimed that it was designed to promote a peaceful solution in
Angola. Funds were being provided for Roberto, Savimbi, and
Mobutu, but there was to be no direct provision of materiel to the
Angolan groups by the CIA. It was a resupply operation to Mobutu's
army, which had been selling arms to Roberto, and there was an