FEAR OF SEEMING WIMPY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100014-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: November 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100014-0
5
P"P EAPPEARED 'It
ON PAS
WASHINGTON POST
28 November 1985
The people promoting an encore in
Angola ought to get hold of "In
Search of Enemies,' the inside
acgouot of the original fiasco by
and not fear they would enrich
a uatilth The CIA was so exercised over
SI AJ teling the whole appoliig
story of.the Angola operation that it
took him to court-and won. His
royakiaa lip to the government, and his
money m4 even taw be being used to
fumd the kind of madness he so
inexorably recounts.
But if those who want to do it all over
again can't be persuaded to read his
book, maybe they would study one
paragraph. Stockwell is describing the
impact of a Washington Post story in
1975, which revealed the presence of
South African troops fighting with Jonas
Sevimbi, the head of UNITA, the
guerrilla group that would benefit by an
Angola replay.
"The propaganda and political war
was lost in that stroke. There was
nothing the Lusaka station [CIA
headquarters in Zambia where the war
was rung could invent that would be as
damaging to the other side as our
alliance with the hated South Africans
was to our cause."
But we are poised to renew that
alliance with the South Afripns is
Angola. The president artlessly
revealed that he favors covert
operations, Two congteMesn, one an
85-year-old Democrat, the other an
undeclared Republican presidential
candidate, want overt aid and have
boldly proposed a bill funding UNITA to
the tune of $27 million.
Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.), the
guardian of senior c itisens, is frank, at
least, about why he is sponsoring the
return to folly. He never heard of
Angola, he told a House corrmittee,
until his Cuban-American constituents
called it to his attention. The presence
of some 35,000 Cuban troops in Angola
is an affront to the folks who spend
Fear of Seeming Wimpy
their lives thinking up ways to foil Fide! McHugh hopes that some who voted
Castro. And Pepper responded with an to repeal the Clark Amendment, which
alacrity that suggests that avidity to forbade aid to covert operations or S TAT
retain office is a quality that does not training for any Angolan movement
diminish with the passing years. without authorisation by Congress, will
Cosponsor Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) draw the line on money that will
denies any political motivation. H. prolong Angola's civil war. The bead of S TAT
suppab."freedom fighters" the House Permanent Select
everywhere, he insists. Stif, Angola Committee on InttWgeace, Lee
offers him a wonderful chance to make H m4tc wd.1 one who sod yea
up with the far-right of his pasty, which, repeal- On grounds the president
was outraged by his support of the should not be specificcalty hampered in
South African sanctions. ConeeMdWee- any area of the world-is saying no as
cannot handle the idea that a Marmt
government stoats a world away.
The rabids went into orbit when
Secretary of State George P. Shultz
recently advocated holding off on aid
until the United States could wear its
mediator's hat a little longer. A State
Department official met this week with
a representative of the Angolan
government to give him a last chance to
settle with UNITA.
Rep. Matthew F. McHugh (D-N.Y.)
rounded up 100 signatures on a letter
to the president in which he said that
either overt or covert aid "would
damage our relations with governments
througlwut A "
The result in Congress is much in
U. A Democrat, the late senator
ch exposed the abuses of
CIA, whit were, incidentally, being
aired on Capitol Hill while the agency
was pressing ahead with its Angolan
intervention and William E. Coly, t}~~
the agency's director, 'waac'ym''g it.
But today's Democrats have been
thoroughly indoctrinated in the horrors
of seeming wimpy on national security.
"Everyone is shopping around for
freedom fighters to support," says Kirk
O'Donnell, counsel to House Speaket
Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.).
Everyone knows that to Angola the
Nicaraguan formula will be used. That
is, we give enough help to keep the war
going but not enough to win it.
How House members from farm
states are going to explain why they
gave $27 million to help somebody in
the African bush when their own
farmers are being foreclosed is not
something they are thinking about.
But the chances that we will do it
again-squander millions of dollars,
hear hundreds of lies and ruin countless
lives-are 50-50. Too many
officeholders these days, when faced
with a problem, begin by asking
themselves, "What would Rambo do?" S TAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100014-0