LESSON OF SHABA: CARTER RISKED SERIOUS 'CREDIBILITY GAP'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600070037-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2004
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: July 11, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

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NEW YORK TIMES
Lesion of Shaba: Carter Risked Serious 'Credibility Gap'
By RICHARD BURT
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 10 - On May 25,
when President Carter accused Cuba of
having backed the attack by Kantangans
on Zaire's southern province of Shaba,
some intelligence officials doubted that
the Administration had conclusive evi-
dence to support the allega-
tion.
News Most of the officials, inter-
Analysis viewed in recent weeks,
agreed that subsequent in-
formation on the attack,
which began May 11, tended to substanti-
ate Mr. Carter's statement. But at least
one high official continued to question the
assertion, and others acknowledged that
the initial intelligence on the nature and
extent of Cuban involvement was incon-
clusive when the Government made the
matter public.
Accordingly, while intelligence special-
ists are now satisfied that Mr. Carter was
correct in asserting that Cuba was deeply
involved in training and supplying the in-
vaders, several say in private that the
White House narrowly missed coming out
of the affair with a serious credibility
gap.
Limitations in Political Arena
The Defense Department's senior intel-
ligence official, Adm. Daniel J. Murphy,
hinted at this when he said in a speech
that the incursion was "an example of the
limitations of intelligence in making a
political point." In little-noticed remarks
to the National Military Intelligence As-
sociation, Admiral Murphy also said that
the Administration still lacked "what the
press would term hard, conclusive, pub-
licly available evidence or proof of Cuban
involvement."
Several experts see in the whole affair
a series of troubling questions concerning
the Administration's use, and possible
abuse, of intelligence in conducting for-
eign policy. The questions include these:
9Did the Director of Central Intelli-
gence, Adm. Stansfield Turner, in an at-
tempt to respond to the White House's
policy needs, exercise proper caution in
assessing early reports of Cuban involve-
ment?
Were Mr. Carter's advisers, intent on
drawing the line against Soviet and
Cuban advances in the region, too eager
to make political capital out of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency's findings?
!Why did the White House choose to en-
gage in an open dispute with President
Fidel Castro over the issue of Cuban in-
volvement when it was unwilling or una-
ble to make evidence public to support its
case?
These questions have set off intense de-
bate in intelligence circles, and Congres-
sional aides report that Senator Birch
Bayh, chairman of the Senate Intelli-
gence Committee, has ordered an investi-
gation of the Administration's perform-
White House-C.I.A. Strains
gence officials arguing that Presidential
aides, in an effort to back up Mr. Carter's
contentions, put pressure on the agency
to divulge classified information that
could have jeopardized sensitive sources.
White House officials, for their part, com-
plain that at the outset the agency exag-
gerated the Cuban role and was unable to
provide the President with hard proof
with which to back up his statement.
Intelligence information has often
played a vita! role in efforts by American
administrations to build support for con-
troversial foreign policy decisions. In
1962, for example, President John F.
Kennedy used photographic evidence to
justify his naval blockade of Cuba. Two
years later President Lyndon B. Johnson,
in an effort to gain Congressional support
for escalating the war in Vietnam, said
that an intercepted radio message proved
that North Vietnamese gunboats had at-
tacked two American warships in the
Gulf of Tonkin.
Risk in Strong Allegations
Zaire and Angola, where the incursion
originated, are classified as-intelligence-
deprived areas, meaning that before and
going on. The officials said that in May !David L. Aaron, was told by C.I.A. offi-
Adm. Daniel J. Murphy, the Pentagon's senior intelligence official, said the
Administration lacked "hard, conclusive, publicly available evidence or
proof of Cuban involvement" in the Katangan incursion into Zaire last May.
few American reconnaissance satellites
and listening devices were focused on the
region and that intelligence reports were
based almost exclusively on data gath-
ered from African diplomats, agents
from other nations and prisoners taken
by French and Belgian paratroopers who
moved into Shaba in response to the at-
tack.
"What we had," an analyst recalled,
"was just a steady accumulation of evi-
dence, some of it contradictory, that built
up through the first week of June. What
we lacked was any single piece of intelli-
gence to convince the skeptics."
The second factor posing problems for
the Administration was the confusing and
fast-shifting situation in southeastern
Zaire, the scene of almost two decades of
constant insurgency. The Katangans,
exiled to Angola after the civil war in the
former Belgian Congo in the early 1960's,
were equipped and trained by Cuban ad-
visers in late 1975 to take a part in the pos?
tindependence conflict in Angola that led
to the formation of Agostinho Neto's
Marxist Government. Although Dr.
Neto's victory increased the difficulty of
Western intelligence collection in Angola,
American analysts believed they had evi-
dence that Cuba continued to provide
training and support for the Katangans
and helped them carry out their first in-
vasion of Shaba, in March 1977.
Despite this the Central Intelligence
facilitating the incursion.
C.I.A. Confidence a Surprise
"We all thought that Cuba was some-
how involved in the affair," a participant
related, "but some people seemed sur-
ell, is said to have instructed the State
Department to inform reporters of the
C.I.A. finding. At the State Department's
noon press briefing that day, Tom Res-
trained recently by Cubans." Later in the
day Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, in
a background briefing, said that he was
Agency is said to have been cautious in in.
teragency discussions in specifying the
extent of Cuban responsibility for the 1977
attack, and the White House did not make
Shaba Not Mentioned in Criticism
Shaba early in May and quickly seize
the mining center of Kolwezi, it appeare
at first that the Administration had agai
decided to play down the possible Cuba
role despite continuing reports tha
Cuban advisers had maintained the!
close links with the invading force. O
May 14 Mr. Carter sharply criticize
Cuba for obstructing the "peaceful settle
merit of disputes," but he did not refer t
the Shaba attack.
On May 16, officials said, the State De
partment sent a message to President
Castro asking support in ending the fight.
ing and facilitating a Katangan with-
drawal. At the same time the department
spokesman, Hodding Carter 3d, told re-
porters that information concerning
Cuban involvement was sketchy.
The following day Mr. Castro called in
the chief American diplomat in Havana,
Lyle F. Lane, and denied any role in the
invasion, saying that he knew of plans for
the attack a month or so in advance and
As the Administration moved to airlift
French and Belgian forces into Zaire to
larger. According to officials, a decisive
White House on May 19, when an intera-
gency working group organizing the
American airlift under thex-hairnauchin
Dakota. Administration spokesmen con-
tinued to contend that Cuba had played a
tration's case.
On May 24 Mr. Aaron, Mr. Powell,
Hamilton Jordan, Mr. Carter's assistant,
ren M. Christopher, drafted a statement
on the Cuban role for Mr. Carter. At a
he reiterated the charge that Cuba had
trained and equipped the Katangans and
asserted that it had done nothing to re-
strain the attack.
The Case Could Go Either Way
In retrospect, intelligence specialists
acknowledge that they were troubled by
those statements. One official with close
access to information available to the
White House at the time said: "After
looking at it, I realized it was possible to
make the case either way. The guy who
was briefing the President had a big load
on his shoulders." An official in another
agency charged with evaluating the in-
formation commented, "The President
was probably right, but the evidence just
wasn't there to back him up."
Asked why the Administration went out
on a limb late in May, some officials said
tendency to shape intelligence to fit poli-
cy. "The Cuban thing came along just ?t_
the right time," one explained. Referring
to Mr. Carter's national security adviser,
others were getting increasingly upset by
events in Africa."
Others also argued that top intelligence
Turner is known in the Government as
ambitious and keenly interested in policy
cooperated with White House officials in
pursuing the possibility of resuming
American aid to covert anti-Marxist
groups in Angola.
Still other officials suggested, however,
perience in intelligence questions, might
not have recognized what one specialist
called "the grayness of these types of