AMERICAN MERCENARIES IN ANGOLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150009-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: December 18, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150009-9
RADIO lv REPORTS, IN~
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
PROGRAM Jack Anderson Confidential STATION WJLA TV
Syndicated
DATE December 18, 1982 7:30 PM CITY Washington, DC
American Mercenaries in Angola
JACK ANDERSON: The Central Intelligence Agency,has been
conducting secret subterranean wars around the world. The CIA
has sponsored rebellions in such faraway places as Cuba and
Cambodia, Laos and Iraq. One of-the most secret operations was
run in the remote African nation of Angola.
Gary Acker, an ex-Marine, signed on to fight communists
in Angola six years ago. He was then 21 years old. He was
captured by the communist forces before he saw any action. He
was sentenced to 16 years in an Angolan prison.
Last month Acker was released as part of a prisoner
exchange with the Soviets. He described his experience in an
exclusive interview with my associate Indy Badwar.
GARY ACKER: The prison clothing, what they gave us --
one time they gave us what we called a monkey suit. It was a
brown overall type thing, and this I refused to wear.
When I was released, I refused to wear the clothing that
they provided, because during my time in prison, they didn't give
me sufficient clothing. Two and a half years, I was barefoot. I
had no shoes. I had a pair of shorts that rotted, literally
rotted off me. The guards would laugh and say "a white mercen-
ary." And when I asked for clothes, they refused to give me
clothes.
So when my time came, I refused to wear their clothes.
INDY BADWAR: What about medical treatment? They had
refused it to you once.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150009-9
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150009-9
ACKER: They refused it to me several times. I had
malaria one time. And they refused to treat me, so -- that was
in 1978. So I completely stopped asking for medical treatment,
and I never accepted anything.
In prison there, it's just one day at a time. It's not
the future, what I'll do in ten years, five years, or whatever.
It's one day at a time. And you make it the best way you can.
BADWAR: What caused you to become a mercenary?
ACKER: That's difficult to answer, besides a little
money, combat experience.
BADWAR: What did you know about Angola?
ACKER: Well, really, at that time, I knew very little.
I didn't even know where Angola was. But I read articles. I
read one or two articles in the newspaper, and I saw that the
FNLA was Western-backed. So that was the one I got into, es-
pecially seeing the article about David Bufkin.
ANDERSON: The man Acker mentioned, David Bufkin, has
signed an affidavit admitting he had recruited Acker for the CIA.
Bufkin hired mercenaries by placing ads in the Sacramento Bee
newspaper.
The CIA insists it had nothing to do with hiring
mercenaries like Acker. But some former CIA agents tell a
different story.
JOHN STOCKWELL: I was quite disillusioned with the CIA
and integrity. You see, we had abandoned all my people in Viet-
nam. So I had seen us do this before.
ANDERSON: John Stockwell was the CIA's task force
commander for Angola. He states Acker was hired to fight in
Angola as part of a CIA operation, an operation that Henry
Kissinger, when he was Secretary of State, officially disavowed.
HENRY KISSINGER: The CIA is not involved in the re-
cruiting of these individuals.
STOCKWELL: In the Angolan operation, I testified for
five days to the Senate Oversight Committee. I gave them chapter
and verse. I gave them cable numbers and memo numbers and dates
and details and told them exactly where in the building they
could go to recover the files that would prove the truth. And in
the end, they decided that they simply weren't willing to try to
clash with Henry Kissinger over a matter of perjury.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150009-9
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150009-9
ANDERSON: Gary Acker was a pawn in a great powers'
game. He hasn't been the only one. The CIA has been plotting
coups, staging rebellions and waging wars in secret. This has
thrown us into an uncomfortable embrace with extremists who are
morally objectionable, with dictators who oppose U. S. prin-
ciples, even with terrorists, whom we claim to abhor.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150009-9