PROPOSED AID TO ANGOLAN REBELS REOPENS OLD DEBATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000705950003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: December 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000705950003-6
13 December 1985
PROPOSED AID TO ANGOLAN.REBELS REOPENS OLD DEBATE
BY BARRY SCHWEID
WASHINGTON
The Reagan administration's decision to ask Congress for $15 million in
secret military aid to rebels in Angola is reopening a quarter-century-old
-debate on the wisdom and morality of American involvement in the internal
affairs of other nations.
Liberals are primed to fight U.S. covert aid as unwise and immoral, while
Secretary of State George Shultz, traveling in Europe, has urged allied
governments to drop their "tactical differences" with the United States and
support the controversial policy.
The Angolan request is due to go to the Senate and House Intelligence
committees during the Christmas recess. CIA officials and Chester Crocker, the
assistant secretary of state for African affairs, already have begun briefing
the committees in secret.
While the U.S. plan surfaced here, Shultz was in London, lecturing a
British-American group Tuesday _ and, by extension, the West European allies _
on the correct mix of "power and diplomacy."
"Diplomacy does not depend on good will alone," Shultz said in an appeal for
support. "It does not depend on good intentions alone. Sometimes it depends on
single-mindedness and will."
Referring to U.S. diplomatic efforts to end the war in Angola, he said
"diplomacy is unlikely to work unless there is effective resistance."
Translation: Ship arms to the anti-Marxist rebels there to give diplomacy a
helping hand.
Back here at home, meanwhile, a senior State Department official defended
U.S. covert aid as consistent with America's appeal to all sides in the southern
African wars to negotiate instead of taking "the military option."
The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, explained: "We are
not negotiating with Angola and with South Africa. We in the mediating position
want to have the maximum amount of tools to work with."
In other words, the United States can provide weapons to one side since it is
not really part of the conflict. Besides, the official said, the Soviet Union
has sent 1,200 advisers and $2 billion in military assistance to the Marxist
government in Luanda over two years.
The U.S. strategy is to threaten to arm the anti-Communist National Union for
the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in order to induce the Angolan
government to accept a U.S.-backed plan for a phased withdrawal of some 35,000
Cuban troops from the African country.
Earlier this year, the Clark amendment, which had barred covert U.S. aid to
Angolan rebels for a decade, was repealed. However, many members of Congress
question the administration's strategy _ and may have a chance to put it to a
test vote next year.
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000705950003-6