FLYBOYS OF THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000300510002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 19, 1999
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 1, 1966
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

FOIAb3b
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lyboys
of the
C
OMETIME TODAY, weather permitting, a U.S. B-26
bomber will take off from an airstrip in the Por-
tuguese African colony of Angola. Its mission is
to destroy concentrations of black guerrillas in the
Angolan bush. It is not always easy for the pilot to distin-
guish a guerrilla fighter from other black persons, but
-then this is a common problem in this type of war, and
even in cases of mistaken identity the bombing seems to
have a useful deterrent effect. Before nightfall, the U.S.-
trained pilot will fly back to the airstrip, leaving his twin-
engined machine in the care of a U.S.-trained mechanic.
There's a war on in Angola. Since March 1961, when
contract laborers earning 30 cents a day revolted against
Portuguese plantation owners, touching off a planned anti
colonial rebellion, there's been a war on. In reprisal the
Portuguese launched a reign of terror. Africans were
executed en masse. Entire villages were moved into areas
under white control; otherwise they were bombed. The
larger towns became armed encampmegits. Portuguese
troops patrolled the streets with submachine guns, shoot-
ing Africans with or without provocation. More than
500,000 refugees, most of them diseas ;d, starving or
wounded after months of running and hiding in the forest,
crossed the border into the Congo.
When Moise Tshombe took power in the Congo, the
Angolan rebel movement went into temporary eclipse.
The pro-European Tshombe was reluctant to permit sanc-
tuary for attacks on his covert allies, the Portuguese.
Despite him, guerrilla patrols continued to make forays
into their Portuguese occupied homeland. And today,
with the Congolese government of Joseph Mobotu allow-
ing them greater freedom of movement, the Angolan
revolutionaries expect to get their second wind.
Since the Angolan uprising, Africans have launched
liberation movements in other Portugues. colonies: Mo-
zambique, Cabinda and Portuguese Guinea (where na-
tionalists control half the territory, operaing their own
schools and civil administration). All of .hem make the
same absolute demand: Independence and Now. But the
lessons of Kenya and Algeria have been lost on the
Portuguese. Maintaining more than 80.000 troops in
Africa-50,000 in Mozambique alone-in addition to civil
militia and police, they are determined to remain. Their
military alliance with the United States and the other
NATO powers can only bolster their determination. Cer-
tainly, NATO military aid has been a major factor in
Portugal's success in containing the insurgents of Angola.
The large quantity of NATO weapons captured by the
rebels, the napalm bomb casings marked "'roperty of the
United States Army" found in the devastated mud-and-
stick villages (and shown to western correspondents at the
border) attest to that. And many of the Portuguese officers
leading the reprisals are graduates of counter-guerrilla
warfare schools operated by the U.S. Special Forces.
Which brings us back to the B-26 bombers, and how
they got to Angola with their American-trained pilots and
mechanics. It is a long story, about America's legendary
anti-colonialism, and about a bizarre smuggling trial held,
of all places, in Buffalo, New York. It is also about that
old canard that if there's a plot afoot, the Central Intelli-
gence Agency has got to be mixed up in it. Well, this time,
like last time, it appears it was.
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visiting American cowboys.
That the CIA supplied the planes, pilots and mechanics,
and directed the employment of B-26s in Cuba and the
Congo has been reported so often that even the New York
Times prints it as fact.
But what about the other theatres where the U.S. is not
even quasi-officially at war, where American planes mys-
teriously turn up in the service of some junta with a civil
war on its hands? What about the B-26s that flew in
Vietnam, in the days when we were supplying "military
advisors" to the Diem government, or those that are
flying today in Laos, Thailand, Latin America and Por-
tuguese Africa? Did the "CIA Air Corps" provide them,
too? Was it the CIA that. arranged to take them out of
mothballs, recondition them, reinforce the wings to pre-
vent them from snapping off, test the armor-plate and
bomb bays, fit six or eight machine guns in the wing pods
and more in the noses, install new bomb sights, radios and
long-range fuel tanks? Was it the CIA that arranged to
have them ferried to overseas points for use against as-
sorted national liberation movements? If not, who did?
It has long been thought that Air America, a private
company, is a front for CIA aircraft supply and main-
tenance operations in Asia, and that another private air-
line, Bird & Sons, was operating in Asia in coo ratio
Approved For Release 2000 080
[A "BLACK" OPERATION]
HE DOUGLAS B-26 invader, star bomber of the
Second World War, seems to be the pride of the
CIA. B-26s were the principal "air cover" that
was to have assured the success of the CIA-
sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs-until
President Kennedy called them off. Eight of the aircraft
saw action anyway in support of the gusanos. Three years
later anti-Castro Cubans again climbed into the cockpits
of the CIA's favorite freedom bombers, this time in the
ex-Belgian Congo, to help white mercenary footsoldiers
quash a guerrilla revolt which threatened to sweep the
country. The intervention of the CIA-Rhodesia-South
Africa axis, with overt Belgian and American support,
assured the defeat of the rebels and the survival, for a time,
of the Tshombe government.
A French economist, recently returned from three
months in the Congo, told Ramparts the B-26s and their
white Cuban pilots are still there, "maintaining order"
with the rest of the U.S. garrison. He saw the airplanes
and went drinking with the pilots. The Cubans openly
admit having been recruited by the CIA in Miami, with
the promise of immediate United States citizenship in
return for six months' fighting in the Congo. They swagger
around Stanleyville and Leopoldville with United States
.45 automatics strapped to their hips, and fraternize with
DEC 1966
051-0002-4
with the State Department and the Laotian government.
Hard evidence of the CIA's "flying war stores" in Asia,
however, has been lacking. But this fall, the public was
let in on the African operation. "Yes," said John Richard
Hawke, an Englishman, as he stood trial for munitions
smuggling in Federal Court at Buffalo, "I flew B-26
bombers to Portugal for use in their African colonies,
and the operation was arranged through the State Depart-
ment and the CIA."
[WAR TOYS]
NE GETS the feeling that the CIA is a playpen for
perpetual adolescents. That its agents, em-
ployees and hangers-on are playing with other
people's lives and other people's freedom, in
the service of American and foreign empir ;-builders, is
perhaps incidental. For this crew, the play':; the thing-
that and the pay of course, and a slightly mi,;placed sense
of patriotism. These initial impressions were confirmed
durin~ the trial at Buffalo.
It was a light-hearted trial, spiced'with spooky dis-
closures and the hilarious circumlocutions of the CIA's
tl air. The tone was set by Edwin Marger, an impish
Iaf _ Beach attorney and counsel for pilot Hawke.
Marger is a courtroom genius, a jury-charmer and goat-
getter of hostile witnesses. Every government witness he
turned to his client's profit, methodically building his case.
Recesses he spent animating the fine points for a clutch
of eager law students from the University of Buffalo.
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the case. Weekends everyone seemed to be rushing to the
Buffalo airport to fly off in their planes, although their
destinations did not appear to have an overweening im-
portance. The judge even let Hawke ferry an airplane to
Paris and back one weekend during the trial.
Hawke and de Montmarin were charged with violating
the Munitions Control Act by smuggling B-26s out of the
C Izo1GFi CVWiThout an export license. They were arrested by
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judge, are fliers. Hawke, a bearded, moustachioed, 29-year-
old veteran of eight years in the RAF, has done acrobatic
stunt flyii g. Once, during one of his B-26 flights, he no-
ticed that one of his wheels was locked as he was preparing
to land; he went into a slight bank and brought her in,
miraculously, on the one remaining working wheel.
Accused of arranging the bomber deal with agents of
Portugal was a debonair French count by the name of
Henri Marie Francois de Marin de Montmarin, an air-
craft broker who won the Legion d'Honneur as a Free
French fighter pilot in World War II. The three others
named in the original indictment are pilots too. Gregory
Board, the dashing, sometimes CIA associate alleged to
have masterminded the operation, mysteriously skipped
off to Jamaica under the nose of Treasury agents who were
following him. Charges were dropped against Keat Grig-
gers, the California mechanic who gave B-26 training
under a CIA-arranged contract to Portuguese pilots and
mechanics, and Woodrow Wilson Roderick, a Canadian
businessman accused of being a middleman.
Among the other fliers present in court were Attorney
Marger, a good proportion of the witnesses, U.S. Attor-
ney Curtin and Gerald Long, the young State Department
lawyer who advised Curtin on the delicate CIA aspects of
n, architects of our Jekyll and Hyde foreign po Icy,
mediately came to mind: If this was a CIA-approved
caper (and there can be no doubt that it was, notwith-
standing the holy denials of the Administration), then
why was the government prosecuting its own agents?
The answer lies deep in the deceit of United States
foreign policy, in our desire to set up and maintain "sta-
ble," right-wing governments in the underdeveloped
world while at the same time proclaiming our belief in the
self-determination of peoples. To be caught assisting
Portugal, the most neanderthal of all colonial powers, in
the prosecution of an imperial war would be bad for the
image-and bad for investments. Moreover, it would have
been most embarrassing to be caught in another lie at the
United Nations. The accused pair were small fry, at most
a delivery boy and a shipping agent doing a job. But if
their trial did nothing else, it left the indelible impression
that moralistic John Foster Dulles and his sinister brother
are still very much with us.
66
HEN THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL convened
for its fall 1965 session, Soviet delegate-,
Fedorenko repeated a chargc, he had made
before: that the U.S. was supplying Portu-
gal with planes to suppress the black rebellion in Angola
and Mozambique. Ambassador Goldberg immediately
denied it, citing a long-standing U.S. policy forbidding
supply of armaments to Portugal, from public or private
U.S. sources, "without specific assurances that they will
not be used in the overseas territories."
Hungarian delegate Szilagyi was more specific than his
Soviet colleague. He charged that in addition to a host of
NATO armaments, seven B-26 bombers had been secretly
delivered to Portugal for use in Africa, "on instructions
from the competent United States authorities." Mrs. Eu-
genie Anderson, a U.S. delegate, conceded that the seven
aircraft had in fact been delivered to Portugal, but "by
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 CPYRGHT
private persons ... without the United States authorities
having the slightest knowledge of the operation." She
added that the culprits (Hawke & Co.) had been indicted
and would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Jaded U.N. delegates tittered sardonically at her re-
joinder. They remembered Eisenhower's story about the
U-2 in 1960, Stevenson's fabrication about the Bay of
Pigs, and the more contemporary lies in which a simple
majority of U.N. delegates believe the Johnson Adminis-
tration has been caught-about Viet Cong "supply trails"
in Cambodia, for example, or about Communist overtures
for negotiation of the Vietnam war. Some day when the
United States does tell the truth about an international
embarrassment, no one is going to believe us.
[ERROLL FLYNNS IN PILOT SUITS]
AWKE WAS STILL in the RAF when he met
Gregory Board in 1963, along with another
adventurous gentleman named Martin Cai-
"Let me say right off the bat; I'm a sonofabitch." He also
identifies himself as a proud member of the "ABCDEF-
GHI-Club-the American Boys' Club Defending Erroll
Flynn's Good Habits, Inc.-And that's the only organi-
zation I belong to." (Gregory Board, tall and lean with a
bushy moustache, closely resembles the late movie actor.
Count de Montmarin used to attend parties with the real
Erroll Flynn in the south of France and north Africa, and
Attorney Marger belonged to the same cock-fighting club
with Flynn in Batista's Cuba.)
Caidin, whose judgment of a mart tends to hinge on
how good a pilot he is, took to Hawke like Batman to
Robin. They had barely met when lie hired Hawke to
ferry his Messerschmidt back to the States. The young
Britisher had expressed an interest in emigrating to Amer-
ica, and Caidin agreed to sponsor him.
Caidin testified that in February of 1965, he flew into
Tucson, Arizona to see Gregory Board. Board told him
he had met several times with the chief of the Portuguese
secret police to arrange for the sale of B-26 bombers. The
planes could not be sold legally but tie Portuguese were
seeking the necessary consent of the State Department
and the CIA. This involved "negotiations on the highest
level of government" between Portugal and the United
States; Salazar himself had to okay the transaction. Board
told Caidin he wanted the airplanes to attract "the least
amount of public attention." For that reason the planes
"would be flown openly, going through customs and filing
flight plans." U.S. Air Force installations would be avail-
f)P7 9149R000300510002-4
;'nn't S.mor'.
Caidin, a pilot and self-made expert on space research, is
the author of 59 books, 12 of which are used as textbooks
by the U.S. military. His Countdown for Tomorrow, for ex-
ample, is required reading at the War College.
Caidin is a roundish ball of energy in a pinstripe suit
and G-15 pilot's shades, snappy with repartee, and the
kind of guy who opens an interview with the comment,
din, a friend of Board's. Hawke and Board
were flying in a war film, "633 Squadron," and Caidin
was .on location in England checking the authenticity.
 .CPYI3GHT
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able to assist the B-26 pilots. "This would be a sort of ber of the CIA, if you were instructed by your superiors
`black operation,' with the government looking the other to tell other than the truth, would you do it'" Houston, a
.way," said Caidin. "You just don't fly this type of airplane bespectacled, balding man whose dignified bearing and
out of the country without the complete cooperation of clpe accent ill-concealed his nervousness, was not per-
various government agencies . . ." mitted to reply. "This case involves matt=;rs of highest
"Greg was very excited about this," Caidin said, "be- concern in the preservation of national security," said
cause if the deal went through with the B-26s, he could Federal Judge John Henderson. "Any question calculated
handle the sale of jet fighters to the Portuguese. He felt to improperly discredit the United States and its represen-
this opened the door to a multi-million dollar account tatives will be disallowed." The hand of the U.S. govern-
later, where in regard to jet fighters he would act as a ment is everywhere in this affair, and the network of
representative of the U.S. government." private individuals and companies through which it oper-
On Caidin's recommendation Board engaged Hawke to ated, described here in but a fraction of its complexity, is
pilot the B-26s. Hawke was a bit strapped for cash at the nothing more than elaborate camouflage.
time, and besides, he loved to fly, anytime, anywhere.
Board explained the operation and the tight security (WORLD WAR III FOR SALE-CASH ONLY, PLEASE]
requirements, assuring him, however, that it was all "quite AMILTON'S ARIZONA HANGAR faces directly on
legitimate and proper." Hawke was to ferry 20 B-26 the road. Anyone driving by could see more
bombers to Portugal. For each flight he would receive than a hundred B-26s with their armor plate,
$3000, out of which he had to pay all expenses, including bomb bays and gun ports. "The largest col-
fuel, repairs and commercial air tickets back to America. lection of 26s in the world," claimed Hamilton, a licensed
(On the seven flights he completed before his arrest, munitions exporter who does over 30 per cent of his
Hawke averaged $700 each after expenses.) business overseas. Three miles away is the U.S. Customs
In May, Hawke and Board flew to Tucson, home of two office for Tucson International Airport. Hamilton testified
companies engaged in international aircraft supply-Aero that throughout the period he was preparing the surplus
Associates, operated by Board, and Hamilton Aircraft, bombers for overseas shipment, customs inen, the FBI
the property of a corpulent giant in baggy pants named and representatives of the Federal Aviation Agency paid
Gordon B. Hamilton. Aero, using a $694,000 letter of repeated visits to his hangar to check the progress. Yet
credit drawn on a Swiss bank, contracted to pay $450,000 none of these agencies did anything to prevent John Hawke
to Hamilton for supplying and reconditioning the 20 from leaving the country in his seven flying fortresses.
planes. Most payments were in cash. "I've had dealings The standard explanation about CIA bombers is that
with Board for seven years," said Hamilton, "and he likes they are being converted for civilian use as "executive air-
to deal in cash." In addition, various European interme- craft." Even if one could believe that Portuguese execu-
diaries expected to clear $700,000 total profit on the venture. tives would be ordering two squadrons of bombers for
It was understood by all concerned that this, like similar business junkets, one can hardly imagine them ordering
operations that had gone before it, was a CIA caper. the noses rebuilt to accommodate machine guns, as were
Even Lawrence Houston, the CIA general counsel who the noses on most of the planes chauffeured by Hawke.
denied the agency's involvement in the affair, testified Hamilton testified that it was necessary to "demilitarize"
that the CIA "knew about" the bomber shipments from the aircraft for export; when pressed he said this consisted
.a Lisbon source as early as May 25, 1965-five days be- entirely of disconnecting a few wires. In fact the planes
fore they began-and informed the State Department, were being remilitarized by Hamilton's 78 employees, un-
Customs and 11 other concerned agencies of the fact. der the tolerant eyes of U.S. Customs officers. Each
Houston also said that on July 7, 1965, the CIA was plane, before it left the country, received a certificate of
"informed" that four B-26s had been delivered to Portugal airworthiness from the FAA. Members of the Air Na-
for use in the African colonies; again the CIA dissemi- tional Guard, stationed near Hamilton's shop, were re-
nated the report to State and other agencies. One wonders cruited to install or repair military equipment on the
how, if 13 government agencies knew about the illegal bombers. "We hired the Air National Guardsmen for
operation in advance, with a confirmatory report six particular tasks," said Hamilton, "like on the radios."
weeks later, seven bombers could have been "smuggled" Attorney Marger asked if they were wearing uniforms.
out of the country without the required export license. "They may have been wearing fatigue uniforms," Hamil-
Attorney Marger, contending that the operation had the ton replied, "but I want to make it clear that they were off
CIA's blessing from the beginning, was unimpressed with duty and it had nothing to do with their military duties."
Houston's disclaimer. He asked the witness, "As a mem- Hamilton said that from the time of Hawke's first flight,
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Traffic Control sent out an Atlantic-widk: alert for the
missing B-26. U.S. air control authorities, who pay special
attention to traffic of military aircraft and report immedi-
ately to their superiors any suspicious warplanes, were
also notified. A second incident occurred on Hawke's
arrival at Santa Maria, when an airport official, ignorant
of the caper, tried to impound the bomber. A quick phone
call to the giant U.S. Air Force base on the Azores was all
that was required to send Hawke winging on his way.
Landing at Tancos airfield near Lisbon, he was met by
an assortment of high Portuguese milit.-iry and secret
police officials-"all of them delighted," he said, "to see
the airplane." He also met the assistant I J.S. air attache
from Lisbon, a Lieutenant Colonel Mario di Silvestero,
who chatted amiably with him about the flight. Tancos
Field was frantic with activity. A number of B-26s were
already there, being prepared for battle, with U.S. guid-
ance, by the mechanic pupils of Keat Griggers.
Hawke returned to the States, picked up another B-26
in Tucson and began his second, many-legged journey to
Portugal. On the way east, flying in messy weather, the
radio and compass malfunctioned and Hawke decided to
put in at Washington National Airport for repairs. As he
was preparing to land, at low altitude, he unknowingly
flew directly over the White House. "Imagine, in a
When he c- )nrerred with customs officials about the -legal-
ity" of the shipments, he knew that the planes were des-
tined for Angola and Mozambique via Portugal. Through-
out the affair and until the trial almost a year and a half
later, he testified, he continually discussed the case with
representatives of the U.S. government. When Hawke
and de Montmarin were under surveillance in September
1965, Hamilton was "kept apprised of it" and knew they
would be arrested. "I was in close contact with the gov-
ernment during this period," he said. "I had good reason
to be." It is clear that at all times during the affair, Wash-
ington knew precisely what was happening.
Knowing that for reasons of state the deal was off,
Hamilton tried to make his own deal, after clearing it
first, naturally, with the State Department. Shortly before
the arrests of Hawke and de Montmarin, he personally
contacted the Portuguese air attache in Washington and
asked if Portugal would accept the remaining 13 B-26s
under the "new conditions" laid down by the State De-
partment. The new conditions were none other than the
"long-standing U.S. policy" righteously enunciated by
U.N. delegates Adlai Stevenson and Arthur Goldberg-
"that use of the aircraft would be limited to Portuguese
European territory." Negotiations were broken off when
the Portuguese would not agree to that condition. "They
wanted to use them in Angola in their African colonies, I
guess," Hamilton said.
Hamilton was not indicted. The two Americans who
were, were not prosecuted. Board was allowed to leave
the country; his services as armorer to the counter-revolu-
tion were too valuable to be compromised. Charges
against Keat Griggers were dropped, so he could return
to his job in Portugal-training pilots and mechanics for
their B-26 missions in Africa. That left the two patsies,
and foreigners at that, to pay for saving America's face.
And Washington did its split-level best to convict them.
[BUZZING THE WHITE HOUSE IN MY BOMBER]
OHN HAWKE is a briskly self-reliant young man, made
the more so by his realization that no matter what
difficulties he encountered, the U.S. government, his
patron, would bail him out. And right up until the
time of his arrest, when the government doublecrossed
him, his trust was entirely warranted.
He took off in Bomber No. I from Tucson in late May
of 1965, landed in Rochester, New York to take on addi-
tional equipment and registered at a hotel, as he always
did, using his right name and correct address. From there
he flew to Torbay, Newfoundland, cleared Canadian
customs with no difficulty, filed a flight plan (as he always
did) and headed for Santa Maria airport in the Azores.
When his radio failed him after takeoff, Canadian Air
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bomber." i Iawke mused, "and the bomb doors worked-
we saw to that before we left Tucson. What's more I think
the President was in the White House at the time." The
airspace over the White House is, of course, a prohibited
area. Hawke had no sooner landed than he was seized by
"little men in black suits" who told him the violation
usually carried a $1000 fine whatever the excuse. "But I
gave them a couple of code words," said Hawke, "and
suddenly I was Blue-eyed Boy Number One. They said
they were sorry to have troubled me, although I should
be more careful in the future, and wished me a successful
de Montmarin were locked up in the Dade County jail.
Caidin testified that after Hawke's arrest, he talked
with Miami customs agents, in the presence of Marger,
and offered to contact Board for them. "They were not
interested," he said. Caidin then contacted Col. Charles
Callahan, the security officer at a Florida Air Force base
to whom he regularly supplied intelligence, and filed a
25,000-word report on the case. He said Callahan told
him, "Stop rocking the boat and putting on the pressure
... another government agency is involved in the case."
Caidin said he warned the CIA, where ht: had a regular
continuation of my flight from Washington." The over- contact, that "somebody's going to blow the lid on this."
flight was recorded in a Federal Aviation Agency Incident They told him that they would look into it.
Report, filed July 2, 1965, detailing the presence of
Hawke's B-26 over "Prohibited Area 56" (White House
airspace). The report states in part: "White House called
in reference to a twin-engined silver-colored aircraft in
the above position and same heading." No violation has
been filed against Hawke, something Martin Caidin finds
incredible ". . . based on my experience as a pilot and as
a writer on air safety. You know, there is a saying among
pilots: `Crash, but don't fly over the White House.' "
Hawke was stopped again by authorities before leaving
the United States, in Portland, Maine, but again his "code
words" worked magic. From then on, and for the next
five transatlantic bomber deliveries, Hawke had no prob-
lems with U.S. authorities.
Hawke was also involved in the shipment of B-26 spare
parts to Portugal. Among the spares were Norden bomb
sights, machinegun accessories and Air Force B-26 tech-
nical manuals, supplied by two related Rochester con-
cerns, Surplus World and Morris Diamond Associates.
Employees of the surplus houses, Jack Bachman and his
brother Jerome, testified that Board had purchased the
equipment. They said they were in business to sell muni-
tions and didn't care who purchased them "as long as
their credit is good." "I'm World War III," quipped
Marger, "and I'm for sale to anybody who wants to buy."
The parts were loaded into a C-46, with U.S. Customs
men present, and flown to Portugal by Board and Griggers.
It was while preparing a second shipment of B-26 parts
that Hawke was arrested. Early in September he, Board
and de Montmarin flew the C-46 up and down the east
coast collecting spare parts at various cities. At each call
customs agents would question them, place some phone
calls and finally permit them to leave. For months every-
thing had been cool and now, suddenly, there was this un-
accustomed amount of heat. Board decided to postpone
the shipment while he "communicated with the right peo-
ple," and the trio went to Miami to cool their heels. Each
of them was followed by T-men. Board communicated
with the right people and left the country. Hawke and
[WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON, BOY?]
HERE HAD BEEN many blunders in "Operation
Sparrow," the government code name for the
B-26 caper. Security had been repeatedly
breached. A wide circle of per:;ons were now
privy to Sparrow's secrets. By mid-Augusf, according to
one Washington source, even Soviet intelligence had got-
ten wind of the affair. Furthermore, the fall 1965 session
of the UN General Assembly was approa' hing, the ques-
tion of Portuguese Africa was already on he agenda and
Washington had good cause to be worried. The U.S. dele-
gation knew that this time, the attacks of African nations
and the Soviet bloc would be directed not only at Portugal,
but at those nations supplying Portugal with arms. As the
Portuguese foreign minister said last year after conferring
in Washington with American officials: "The United
States appears to have adopted a more realistic attitude
toward Portuguese policies in the African ttirritories."
There is no question that concern for our world image
played a part in the decision to arrest I fawke and the
Count. Their arrest as "private smugglers:" was immedi-
ately seized upon by our U.N. delegation as evidence of
American innocence in the Portuguese African wars. It
is perhaps not a coincidence, either, that the trial was
scheduled to open this fall (a year after thc arrests) simul-
taneously with the convening of the General Assembly, at
which the question of Portuguese Africa was again ex-
pected to figure prominently. When the Tanzanian dele-
gate raised the B-26 question in the Security Council
last October 3, Ambassador Goldberg was able to reply:
"The only involvement of officials of the United States
government, therefore, has been in prosecuting a male-
factor acting against the laws of the country, and that
prosecution is being pursued vigorously by my govern-
ment." For all the government's vigor, the Buffalo jury
which acquitted the "malefactors" would have found
Goldberg quite difficult to believe.
Approved For Release 2000/08/27 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000300510002-4
DEC