In preparation for a National Security Council meeting, Secretary Kissinger sent two senior Africanists to the front-line states to survey the situation. They returned to tell the secretary that Mobutu favored intervention in support of the FNLA and would help with his own forces. The Kissinger memoirs artfully describe his encounter with the diplomats without mentioning at all the NSC meeting—a fateful one—that took place the same afternoon. Secretary Kissinger’s briefing memorandum for Ford conceded that U.S. interests were “important but not vital,” and noted Mobutu’s push for intervention. Contrary to Kissinger’s recitation of Zambian leader Kenneth Kaunda’s position, in this paper he notes that Zambia (and Tanzania) “can be expected to continue to work for a peaceful settlement.” The Kissinger briefing made out the diplomatic option as only an opening move—everyone agreed on that, but afterward the choice would still be between a neutral attitude or stepped-up involvement. Kissinger’s discussion of the latter lays bare his preference:

  Active support of the FNLA and/or UNITA could enable us to check the momentum of leftist forces and to facilitate assertion of control by pro-Western moderates but would involve considerable risks. Assistance would have to be covert or channeled through third parties. We would be involving ourselves in a match with the Soviets, yet we do not enjoy the same freedom to raise the level of support as do the Soviets.

  In addition to our substantive interest in the outcome, playing an active role would demonstrate that events in Southeast Asia have not lessened our determination to protect our interests. In sum, we face an opportunity—albeit with substantial risks—to preempt the probable loss to communism of a key developing country at a time of great uncertainty over our will and determination to remain the preeminent leader and defender of freedom in the West.

  The NSC meeting itself opened with Director Colby describing the situation in Angola. Colby warned of the MPLA-FNLA standoff in Luanda. New fighting could break out at any time, he said, while Cabinda “remains a tinderbox” where MPLA had a slight edge but Mobutu-supported separatists also figured in the equation. The text on Soviet military aid is deleted from the currently available declassified version of the document, but its placement and length suggest that the CIA had no evidence of the huge arms shipments claimed by Kissinger. Moreover, there is no mention at all of alleged Cuban troops in Angola. President Ford’s questions show that he knew very little of this West African nation. Kissinger jumped in, raised the specter of the Congo from the early 1960s (where, as seen earlier, the Soviets had been misrepresented as meddling), then remarked that “Soviet arms shipments have reversed the situation.” The secretary of state expressed himself as “not in wild agreement” with any of the proposed options, but he discounted neutrality as giving away the game to Neto’s MPLA, and a diplomatic approach as a sign of weakness.

  Kissinger’s comment on covert action is deleted but probably favorable since immediately afterward President Ford asks if there are specific proposals for “grants in the arms area.” Ford also says that diplomacy would be “naive.” The group does recognize Kaunda’s encouragement of U.S. intervention. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger then cautions that “if we do something, we must have some confidence that we can win, or we should stay neutral.” Schlesinger saw Holden Roberto as “not a strong horse.” The consensus bypassed this point to agree to “keep Roberto and Savimbi viable and keep the options open,” as William Clements, Schlesinger’s deputy, expressed it. Bill Colby promised action proposals within five days.

  Kissinger and Colby agreed that in African wars those who controlled a nation’s capital usually won. The CIA chief added that the educated classes in Angola were concentrated around Luanda and tended to support MPLA. For Kissinger this was one more reason to ramp up a CIA program. In early July, just as Langley completed options for Project Feature, another round of fighting erupted in Luanda. The MPLA drove its adversaries out for good. That presence in the capital—the condition for success that Kissinger himself had framed for the president—had now been lost made no difference at all to his drive to jump-start the covert operation.

  Action now moved to the 40 Committee. Assistant Secretary Davis prepared a fresh dissent paper for Undersecretary Joseph J. Sisco. The oil in Cabinda, in which Gulf had a $300 million interest, remained the only significant American stake, Davis argued. He agreed with Kissinger’s view that if the United States did anything at all it had to do it quickly and massively, decisively. Davis simply doubted this could be done, pointing to the CIA’s own paper which made clear that the United States could not win in the best of circumstances, and argued that in these particular ones the Soviets were freer to escalate than the United States. The diplomat warned against leaks, raised questions regarding the legality of the contemplated method of weapons delivery (they would be given to Mobutu, who would hand the rebels U.S. weapons he already had), and questioned a premise in the CIA paper that arming Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi would discourage them from engaging in a civil war. Nate Davis’s colleague William G. Hyland, who now headed the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, dismissed the paper as the usual State Department carping.

  Meeting on July 14, Kissinger’s 40 Committee directed the CIA to finalize details within forty-eight hours. Langley should use the CIA director’s contingency account so as to avoid the need for the Ford administration to ask Congress for money. That would have meant explaining a paramilitary intervention to the same legislators then busily investigating the CIA. The top leadership at Langley opposed Project Feature—the CIA, like the State Department, worried about exposure while estimating a $100 million price tag, an amount not available in the DCI’s contingency fund. While Langley refined details the press reported FNLA forces completely driven from Luanda, and the CIA received new data on Soviet arms shipments—more and heavier weapons flowing into MPLA hands. Assistant Secretary Davis made one more try at turning Kissinger away from his determination to proceed.

  On July 17 the 40 Committee blessed the project. Henry Kissinger took the proposal to President Ford, along with Davis’s dissent paper. Kissinger quotes himself as favoring action and urging the president to study the dissent. Ford merely wondered why Davis was so vehement. Kissinger warned he had “massive problems within” State over the program and expected Davis to resign and the program to leak. Ford approved an initial $7 million the next morning. A million of that went directly to Mobutu, not to any of the Angolan rebel groups. Nathaniel Davis indeed resigned when he learned of the go-ahead. In a replay of the Haig-Kissinger ploy with Ed Korry in Chile, Kissinger kept Davis on the reservation and out of media hands by convincing him to become ambassador to Switzerland.

  The CIA, which had advised against Track II in Chile and the Kurdish operation, again received distressing marching orders. That it proposed a plan at all was used by Kissinger in 1976 Senate testimony to argue that “the CIA recommended the operation and supported it.” This is in marked contrast to Kissinger’s recollections, where he takes every available opportunity to castigate the agency as loathe to participate in covert action. Put another way, Kissinger’s constant railing about CIA reluctance to engage, plus the fact that Langley did conduct all these operations, demonstrates quite directly that the Central Intelligence Agency, far from being a rogue elephant, functioned under purposeful presidential control.

  One reason Director Colby was so lukewarm is that he knew the difficulties involved. Project Feature, just a few months after the final denouement in Vietnam, found the agency still licking its wounds. The Special Operations Group, Langley’s paramilitary experts, had been reduced under DCI James Schlesinger, and they had no recent African experience. As of late 1974 the agency had fewer than ten black case officers. Some saw the Africa Division of the DO, still the smallest, as having its hands full watching dozens of nations. A 1971 policy review chaired by the State Department, according to a subordinate officer, concluded that the CIA had been useless in Africa and recommended closing the division. Its baron, James Potts, strongly supported Feature. Potts came to the Africa Division from a four-year tour as station chief in Athens, where Langley’s headaches were from Greek colonels who had taken over the government amid public suspicions of CIA collusion. It had been his second Greek assignment, and Potts had tired of political action. Angola offered fresh terrain and a new mission.

  Project Feature proceeded under very high priority, so urgent in fact that a first planeload of weapons went off to the FNLA, via Zaire, before Langley even formed a task force and before the Portuguese withdrew from the airfield that received them. By August 9 two more loads had been sent on air force C-141 transports while CIA assembled a shipload of supplies.

  Director Colby chaired an interagency group to oversee Feature. Kissinger objects to that procedure, crediting the spy chief with an insufficiently aggressive attitude and CIA with lacking a “sense of tactical feasibility” and being “attracted to dramatic ploys rather than to a coherent long-term strategy.” The national security adviser observes that he and Ford ought to have put someone in the White House in charge—CIA management would have been okay for espionage or a political action but “it made no sense with respect to military operations on the scale now unfolding.”

  These are specious objections. Langley had just ended secret wars in Kurdistan and in Laos and Vietnam, both of which involved long-term strategy over a decade and a half; and it had worked against Cuba for half a decade and in Tibet longer than that. Except for Project Mongoose, the standard had always been for CIA management, and if Angola had been intended as a new Mongoose, Kissinger and Ford were in real trouble, for that kind of effort was simply not possible amid the controversies of the Year of Intelligence. If that seemed problematical, the problem should have been apparent to the White House at the time. If the White House had been in charge, this would not have freed Ford from clearing a more muscular approach with Congress. Kissinger quotes himself telling the 40 Committee there were “ ‘no rewards for losing with moderation,’ ” by way of explaining that he held a “most liberal interpretation” of the formal directive, which was simply “to establish a balance of power in Angola, as a prelude to negotiations.” In other words, Kissinger’s—notorious—posturing should be taken as the guidance rather than the actual directive. Moreover the monies actually approved for Project Feature were consonant with the formal objectives, not the expansive goals Kissinger asserts retrospectively.

  One level below Colby’s management group, Langley’s Angola task force was somewhat unusual. Appointed chief, John Stockwell was a twelve-year veteran and old Africa hand who had also served in Southeast Asia. The agency’s equivalent of a colonel, relatively junior for the job, Stockwell held a slot normally reserved for generals. Judging from Stockwell’s account, Jim Potts then ran it—the division chief rather than DDO William Nelson. Potts, his deputy George Costello, and Stockwell prepared detailed plans right up to the last minute. On July 27 President Ford upped the ante, approving another $8 million for the program.

  The CIA principals gathered in Nelson’s office to review the plans for the Colby working group. When Costello suggested that the moment had come to determine how far the CIA should go, DDO Nelson spoke up: “Gentlemen, we’ve been given a job to do. Let’s not sit around wringing our hands.” Colby carried the latest plan to the 40 Committee on August 8.

  John Stockwell, sent on a fact-finding mission to Zaire and Angola, visited both Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi. The latter seemed by far the more credible opponent for the MPLA. French intelligence chief Alexandre de Marenches agreed. So did the British, apparently, and a British corporate aircraft flew the CIA officer to Savimbi’s headquarters. De Marenches, not so fortunate, had to send one of his SDECE officers on a trek of more than a thousand miles just to put key questions to the UNITA leader. Savimbi had the strongest movement. An inspiring leader, his political organization was competent and had grass roots. Much of Roberto’s support resided in Zaire. On August 20, while Stockwell observed the FNLA and UNITA, President Ford authorized an additional $10.7 million for Feature. By the time the task force chief reappeared at Langley, the project had momentum. In all, Langley put about a hundred secret warriors into this battle for black Africa.

  Mobutu would be critical. With MPLA in control of Angola’s main seaports and railroad, CIA supplies could enter only through Zaire (or South Africa). In addition, Holden Roberto had his FNLA base camps in Zaire and resided there too. In fact Roberto showed no inclination to leave his comfortable villa for the front, something of which the United States was well aware (Roberto had not been in Angola in years)—Jim Schlesinger even mentioned this at the key meeting with President Ford. Mobutu had Roberto in tow and to some extent used FNLA as a cat’s paw to advance his own interests in Angola.

  Stewart Methven, chief of station in Kinshasa, handled relations with the FNLA and Mobutu. Methven, a covert project man par excellence, a member of the first class to graduate from Camp Peary, was a Langley legend. His exploits in Southeast Asia ranged from training Diem’s spooks in the 1950s, to work on the montagnard scout program and the counterterror teams, to pacification and political action. But Methven had earned the greatest acclaim in recruiting Vang Pao for the secret war in Laos. He had been controller for Vietnamese officer and politico Tran Ngoc Chau, who became such a political thorn to Nguyen Van Thieu that the Saigon leader had him jailed. The CIA failed to protect Chau, and the Young Turk blew Methven’s cover. That upset the spy’s son, who learned of his father’s occupation in the New York Times. By then deputy station chief in Indonesia, Methven watched as General Suharto began secretly helping Nixon in Cambodia, with supply shipments to the pro-U.S. side. John Stockwell fought alongside the Hmong in Laos, and also had Vietnam service in common with Methven, but their relations quickly soured over Project Feature. Stockwell saw Methven as far too willing to pander to Joseph Mobutu, presiding over payoffs and barely concealed bribes—like ice plants and boats for Zairian officials—while standing aside as Mobutu used FNLA aid to reequip his own military. Stockwell also saw Jim Potts as weak for failing to rein in the station chief in Kinshasa.

  Meanwhile Methven solved the problem of an air force by the simple expedient of rewarding defectors who brought airplanes with them. Eight assorted light planes were contracted, commandeered, or diverted. In one instance Methven went along with Mobutu’s demands for $2 million from CIA to buy a Zairian C-130 worth less than a third of that, though Langley rejected the scam. The Americans also acquired a pair of Swift boats for the FNLA to run off Cabinda. The boats, 140 trucks, several hundred radios, and 70 mortars sailed on August 30 from Charlestown for Africa aboard the freighter American Champion. Project deliveries to Zaire also included a dozen M-113 armored personnel carriers and almost 20,000 automatic rifles. Soon there would be a munitions stockpile in Kinshasa of 1,500 tons. But corruption reigned: Zairian shipments to the rebels included no armored vehicles, fewer than half the number of modern rifles the CIA gave Mobutu, and more than 12,000 old M-1 carbines. The FNLA ultimately received supplies at a rate of ten tons per day, much of it old and worn out. As on other occasions, the agency made its cash go farther by undervaluing the weapons, for example pricing an M-1 carbine at $7.55 or a .45-caliber automatic pistol at $5.00.

  Langley fooled itself, supposing the Zairian weapons somehow hid its hand. Mobutu’s involvement simply invited attack on the rebel rear base in Zaire while reducing the effectiveness of rebel forces. Meanwhile China continued to train the FNLA almost until independence day. When Roberto’s troops failed to show much striking power in northern Angola, Mobutu sent in two of his paracommando battalions plus some Panhard armored cars in return for more CIA arms. Half the twelve hundred troops Mobutu sent into Angola deserted. His army turned back after suffering only about fifty casualties.

  The secret warriors also tried to substitute propaganda for boots on the ground. Fully a third of the Feature task force were psywar specialists, their effort code-named Project IA/Cadmus. In Kinshasa they planted stories in the two major newspapers, Elimo and Salongo. The same thing happened in Lusaka, the Zambian capital. Whatever favorable development could be seized upon was converted into leaflets printed on a mimeograph in Kinshasa. Planes dropped them inside Angola. In at least one case MPLA radio in Luanda took CIA leaflets and broadcast them verbatim. At Langley a committee compiled press guidance for the State Department, several paragraphs each day with the themes that should be pushed. Often the stories were completely made up—in one instance a lurid tale of Cuban soldiers raping and pillaging, complete with the accounts of victims. The Cubans were supposed to have been taken and executed by a firing squad of women. Another story told of UNITA capturing Soviet advisers when they took a village. Looking for evidence of Communist presence, and ignorant of African superstitions about spirits (Stockwell believes that women, especially, would never have participated in killings), the press gave such stories great play. When journalists—more than fifty of them—tried to follow up the stories, they found nothing. Savimbi admitted to reporters that UNITA had no Cuban or Russian prisoners and had never been near the village named in the accounts. The propaganda coup evaporated.

  The station chief in Lusaka, Robert Hultslander, dealt with UNITA. Despite liking Savimbi, Hultslander eventually came to agree with the U.S. consul in Luanda that the MPLA were, in fact, better qualified to govern the country. Theoretically no Americans were to work inside Angola. But Hultslander got a Special Forces training team in mufti to instruct UNITA recruits. This would be critical since, at the outset of Project Feature, Savimbi’s forces numbered only a few hundred. CIA communications experts were also located with both UNITA and FNLA, handling not only Feature cable traffic but training rebel radio operators. More ominously, South Africa, both through its armed forces (SADF) and its intelligence service, the Bureau of State Security (BOSS), intervened as well. Early on South African troops occupied a hydroelectric dam in southern Angola. Then BOSS quietly sent money and arms to UNITA. This meant that the CIA and the secret warriors of the white minority regime worked hand in hand in a covert operation in the heart of black Africa, which automatically put Washington on the wrong side of African nationalism, to devastating political effect. All the propaganda the agency generated so assiduously could not alter that reality.