Jim D. wrote:
for what it's worth, UNITA wasn't "created" from above. Rather, it arose as
part of the war of liberation against Portugal. Savimbi was probably
corrupt from the start, but he sounded like a revolutionary for awhile.
Maybe he's an example of power corrupting. In any case, Kissinger found him
to be a worthy representative of the "free world." Also, China supported
him for quite awhile.
=====
A piece of serendipity:
"Despite the steady unravelling of CIA malpractice on Capitol Hill, William
Colby's Agency was still being asked to perform 'covert operations'. Just as
Richard Helms had been ordered to 'make the economy scream' in Chile in the
process that led to the overthrow of Allende, now Angola was the target. The
collapse of the Portuguese regime, and the subsequent likelihood of her
African colonies gaining independence, led to a covert decision to fund a
civil war in Angola, to deny leftists 'an easy victory'. This operation,
code-named IAFEATURE, required, ideally the use of two 'surrogates', Britain
and South Africa, to provide Intelligence support in the region and,
eventually, some 'deniable' fighting men. Africa was traditionally in GCHQ'a
zone of responsibility -- since the fighting had begun in earnest in
southern Africa, GCHQ had broken the codes of the DGSE, the Portuguese
security police, and was targeting Angola from a base in Ascension Island,
and Mozambique from Mauritius. South Africa, meanwhile, had successfully
solicited GCHQ and CIA liaison to operate its own listening base at
Silvermine, the surveillance station near the Simonstown naval base, and in
return got information on 'revolutionaries' from the US.
"Wilson refused to have anything to do with South Africa -- he
stopped selling arms and broke off liaison with Silvermine. Nor would the
British government assist the Angola project. In 1975, they closed down the
Mauritius base and turned Ascension over to the US. The CIA finished up
recruiting British-based freelance 'mercenaries' in 1975, and shipping them
out from London behind Wilson's back. The CIA operation was both immoral and
pointless: but once again there was a complete mismatch between the Western
Intelligence agencies, with their fixation on doing down 'Communists', and a
British Labour government which had some sympathy with the leftists in
Portugal, Angola, and indeed Chile. Wilson's more idealistic ministers also
wanted to refuse to sell arms to the CIA-backed colonels' regime in Chile.
"The upshot was yet another attempt by MI5 to push one of Wilson's
ministers out of office -- this time it was the leftist Judith Hart, who had
been in Wilson's 1964-70 Cabinet. In the summer of 1974 London was awash
with rumours that Judith Hart was part of the 'Communist cell' [in Downing
Street]. MI5 officers hinted to their journalist friends that there were
'certain ministers' who could not be relied on to see Intelligence
information because they might pass it to 'freedom fighters'.
"The truth was that, in mid-1974, Judith Hart was intensely
concerned about the arrest of anyone in Chile who opposed the regime. Many
of them, of course, were Communists. Hart phoned British Communist Party
headquarters in London, knowing they would have the best picture of the
situation. MI5's 'A' branch were, as usual, tapping the party's phones. The
transcript of Hart's innocent contact was excitedly circulated within MI5,
and throughout Whitehall.
"Hanley felt constrained to report these matters to Wilson. He
claimed that there was evidence which might also show that Hart had attended
a Communist-backed international peace conference in Warsaw in 1950. At the
back of it, it eventually transpired, was a twenty-four-year-old blurred
photograph from the Daily Worker, captioning among others a Mrs J _Tudor_
Hart, the wife of a prominent Communist Party member."
David Leigh, "The Wilson Plot", pp. 228-9
Michael K.
