STUDY IS REPORTED TO FIND CONGRESS WAS MISLED ON C.I.A. ANGOLA ROLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600230028-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2004
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: July 16, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For ReleasLNr:D/0-Y*-FkbPk';980R000600
r
By SEYMOUR M. HERSH, . ?
ady Is Reported to Find congress.
3t '
Was Misled on LA. Angola Rot
' The Senate Intelligence Committee has I plained: "Some people who go back a
concluded, after a secret year-long study,
that Henry A. Kissinger and William E.
Colby misled Congress about the extent
of the Central Intelligence Agency's ac-
tivities in the 1975 civil war in Angola, ac-
cording to sources with first-hand knowl-
edge.
The committee's extensive compilation
of C.I.A. documents indicated, contrary
to various assertions by Mr. Kissinger
and Mr. Colby, that more than $1 million
was allocated to recruit mercenaries and
that an undetermined number of C.I.A.
agents helped train military units inside
the former Portuguese colony in West
Africa.
In a series of interviews over the last
two months, the sources said that .the
study has triggered a dispute among
Senators and committee staff members
as to whether Mr. Kissinger, then the Sec-
retary of State, and Mr. Colby, the Direc-
tor of Central Intelligence at the time,
deliberately lied in testimony before Con-
gress.
long way are using this to prove and dis-
prove a point." - ,
"If we did anything," a key Senator
said in an interview,. "we bent over back-
wards on objectivity. There are a lot of
things that weren't said - it doesn't seek
to point any fingers."-
He acknowledged that the report,
which was sent to the White House and
the agency for comment May 17; has so
far drawn no official Administration
reaction: ':We're not going to let it-die,"
he said. "I'm not. going to forget-about
this report."
A Government official said that the
Senate study did accuse the C.I.A. specif-
ically of having "misled" Congress in
briefings by Mr. Colby and other intelli-
gence agency officials, including James
Potts, who was then chief of its African
division.
"'Misled' is the key word that got
everybody upset," the official said. "The
implication was clear that it was done
consciously and that's what people in the
C.I.A. object to." - ' . .
In recent weeks, the official said, the
agency has turned more documents and
files over to the committee in an effort to
show that Congress was not misinformed
and to force a revision of the study. The
official said the agency has been "show-
ing them the dates" on which specific in-
formation about C.I.A. activities was for-
warded to the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee during the Angolan civil war.
.Some Senators and committee staff
A senior C.I.A. official, obviously refer-
ring to the section of the report dealing
with Mr. Kissinger's testimony, com-
tone."
C.I.A. Officials Furious
In addition, the study has infuriated
senior officials of the intelligence agency.
They have been urging the committee to
modify the study, saying that it is mis-
leading, biased and has "a negative
Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000600230~ 0 -1
 Approved For Release 2WOX
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Panel Reportedly Finds congress
sled o C.I.Q. '?1ein :Angola
Continued From Page 1
members made it clear in interviews that
they believed that the C.I.A. documents
already compiled, which include cables
direct from Angola, not only contradict
the testimony of Mr. Kissinger and Mr.
Colby but also indicate that they knew at
the time that their testimony was not cor-
rect. - . - . .
The sources said, however, that others
on the committee believe there is no evi-
dence available as to whether Mr. Kiss-
inger and Mr. Colby saw those documents
or were even aware of the extent of C.I.A.
activities in Angola.
"We did not learn how far up the chain
of command the documents went," a
Senator said.
Another Senator acknowledged that
there were deep divisions in the commit-
tee. Some, he said, "got all excited"
about the staff study. "They thought it
was a great, enormous event; that heads
would fall; that we'd rig up the guillo-
tine."
"To me," the Senator added, "it's not
significant whether somebody does or
does not get indicted for perjury. To me,
the major element is: 'Why didn't people
at the top know?' '' -
Some Senate staff members were
known to believe, however, that Presi-I
dent Carter would be obligated to for-
ward the report to the Justice Depart-
ment to determine whether perjury
charges could be sustained.,
'We're Waiting'
Asked whether the White House Was
planning any action, a spokesman for the
National Security Council said, "We're
waiting for the agency and the committee
to sort it out. When there is a formal and
finished report with recommendations,
then we will consider it."
Some of the Kissinger and Colby testi-
mony challenged by the Senate study ap-
parently was given in closed hearings in
late 1975 before the Intelligence Commit-
tee, then known as the Church Commit-
tee. Mr. Colby also gave dozens of classi-
fied briefings on Angola in late 1975 and
early 1976 to at least six House and Senate
committees.
Mr. Kissinger testified on Angola at
least once in public, telling the African
Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee on Jan. 29,
1976, that "the C.I.A. is not involved" in
the recruitment of mercenaries for Ango-
Ia.
Approved
Mr. Kissinger went on to say, "It is, of.
course, possible that in a very indirect:
way that money has been given" to the
pro-Western National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola, or Unites, one of
the two factions supported by the United
States Government. I
Allegation on Recruiting
According to one former C.I.A. official
however, the 40 Committee, a high-level
group chaired by Mr. Kissinger that ap-
proved all covert intelligence activities,
authorized $1.3 million in October 1975,
three months before the Kissinger testi-
mony, to aid in the recruitment of Portu-
guese mercenaries. Mr. Kissinger's testi-
mony on the mercenary issue is known to
be discussed in the study.
Another issue raised in the study is
testimony in which Mr. Kissinger and
Mr. Colby denied that any C.I.A. agents
were acting as military advisers to the
C.I.A.-supported factions in Angola.
The sources said that file documents:in-
cluded as an appendix to the study show
that at least 12 and possibly as many as 24
C.I.A. agents did help train military units
inside Angola.
Another possible discrepancy concerns
the extent of the American intelligence
agency's co6peration with the South Afri-
can intelligence service. Sources said
that Administration witnesses sought to
minimize the link, but that the Intelli-
gence Committee uncovered C.I.A. do u-
ments showing that much information
was relayed to the South Africans, who
also provided support to Unita.
The Kissinger Response
However, Mr. Colby said, "We knew
that they were working there, we had
some contacts, but it 'was not a joint
operation."
Mr. Kissinger, according to an aide,
was "indignant and outraged" about the
dislosure of the Senate coepmittee's study
and called it "cheap politics."
He. was quoted as saying, "Leaks like
this are malicious attempts to smear
those who were trying to resist the
Cubans, the Soviets and the Communists
in Angola."
Asked about the specific allegations in
the study, the aide quoted Mr. Kissinger
as saying that he could not comment on
those because he had not seen the docu-
ment.
In an interview, Mr: Colby character-
ized differences between his Congres-
sional testimony and the C.I.A. docu-
ments as "a matter of perception."
Told that the committee has obtained
copies of. the. agency's cables indicating
that its men were training pro-Western
Angolans in the use of arms, Mr. Colby
said, "My normal practice was not to
read raw traffic."
He noted that the question of what he
did or did not know must be put "in the
context of what I was spending most of
my time doing in 1975," a reference to his
repeated testimony in connection with
the Senate and House inquiries into intel-
ligence abuses.
The former Director of Central Intelli-
gence. who is now in private lair practice
in Washington, said that the thrust of his
secret Angola briefings was "to show that
we were not going to run it as we did in
Laos," where the C.I.A. maintained a
large force of agents and conducted full-
scale military training exercises.
Mr. Colby said,"If some guy did step
over the line, it was without my knowl-
edge and I think it was minimal. It really
didn't affect the basic thrust of the pro-
gram."
Many of these discrepancies also were
described in a recent book on the Angola
civil war; "In Search of Enemies." The
author, John Stockwell, who was head of
the agency's Angola task force before he
resigned last year, wrote that the- C.I.A.
repeatedly "misled Congressmen about
what we were doing in Angola" and gave
them "patently false information."
In recent interviews, a;number of Sen-
ate Intelligence Committee officials took
pains to note that its inquiry began well
before Mr. Stockwell's revelations.
"We were looking into this long before!
Stockwell came to us," one Senator said.
"This Angola business came Up as part of
a routine review. We asked for certain
kinds of information and this came up." =