PONDERING COVERT AID IN AFRICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140094-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 20, 2007
• Sequence Number: 94
• Publication Date: May 19, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/22 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140094-6 STAT
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE A-1, 24-.
THE WASHINGTON POST
19 May 1978
Pondering Covert Aid in
By Murrey Marder
Washington Post Statt writer
White House strategists for at,
least two months have attempted to
develop a plan to permit the United 1.
States to funnel sophisticated arms
and funds clandestinely to African
guerrilla _ forces fighting Soviet:
backed Cuban troops in Angola and
Ethiopia. - -
This objective is an underlying
motive, according to authoritative
sources, behind the frustration ex-
pressed by President Carter to con-
gressional leaders on Tuesday. Car-
ter complained - about restrictions
:on White House ability to help be-
leaguered. friendly governments re-
sist. communist aggression.
"That was just.the-tip of the ice-
berg," one knowledgeablesource
said yesterday in referring to the)
accounts that reached the public.
Visible now is the new Western
aid and air-rescue mission to Zaire,
in the wake of the border-crossing,
from guerrillas into Zaire's rich'
copper belt.
That double 'Operation has been:
launched with unpublicized appre
hension by some officials inside the
Carter administration that it is?
as one put it, "a first step into the;
quicksand-on the Vietnam model." I
Others strongly disagree, insisting
that in Zaire the Carter administra-,
Lion is involved only in "aid and
humanitarian" objectives.-,* i
But apart from what is happen-
ing around Kolwezi there is a webs
_of- strategic concern especially pre-;
occupying Carter;.aitd his national
security- affairs adviser, Zbigniew-
Briezinski.' .
Brzezinski, who :left . Washington
yesterday' . forChinais described by
informed sources as at least as "o b-1
sessed" with the Soviet-Cuban pr"
jection - of military power into
Africa as was former- secretary- of
state Henry A. Kissinger . over-
Angola in 1973.78. - ' -? .
"To Brzezinski, what is at. stake
Is a fundamental test of the-validityl
of American-Soviet, detente, and he
is determined to do anything he can
to thwart the Russians' Cuban "mer-
ceiiaries or surrogates in Africa.
In Peking, Brzezinski evidently wills
`encounter similar attitudes. China has I
-its own anti-Soviet involvement and,
stake in Africa. The New China News
Agency reported from Peking yester-
?-day that in a meeting between Chi-
nese. Foreign Minister Huang Hua and
Zaire's ambassador to Peking, "The
ambassador informed him of the!
grave situation of .the renewed inva?
Sion-of. the Shaba region engineered;
by-the Soviet Union and executed byj
Cuban mercenaries," and that Huang;
replied that China will "firmly sup-1
port" Zaire in its "just struggle to re-
- pulse the Soviet-Cuban mercenaries ..
Where Brzezinski and Huang will
go from there is an open question.
According to sources in Washing.
ton, .. Brzezinski wants, the United
States to shake free from the Vietnam]
war-inspired -curbs on presidentiaij
power enough to permit U.S. aid forclandestine operations in Africa "toll
pin down the Cubans" and limit their!
'ability to stretch into other advens1
Lures=notably in Rhodesia.
One concept. is to furnish sophistt .
cated U.S. weapons, and money, to the l
supporters of the major guerrilla wart
-that has been continued in Angola!
since 1976-by Jonas Savimbi's United'
Front for the Total Independence of
Angola. Savimbi's UNITA covertly re-
ceives support from a consortium of
.nations, as well as South Africa.
The nations involved all deny this,
.when, they publicly address -the sub?E
:ject at all. The size of "the consorti-
um's" investment is reported by_some
-sources to be in the "$30 million to
$40 million range." One Washington
source said yesterday "that figure is
too high," and other sources put the
investment in. guerrilla warfare at
closer to $20 million. Another concept - that has - been
pushed behind the scenes is to encour-
age greater covert assistance by Saudi
Arabia and other wealthy anti-Marxist
nations to the various liberation
fronts fighting- in Ethiopia's Eritrean
Province. Ethiopia this week launched
a major offensive to crush that seces.
sionist movement, claiming it has sup.
port from the Soviet Union, Cuba,.
East Germany and other communist:
nations.
The extent to which President Car-,
ter completely shares these pereep-i
tions- attributed to. Briezinski about;
what must be done to resist the So-
viet-Cuban thrust In Africa is ? note
clear---even to some of the most sen-i
for administration officials.
There is burgeoning concern at? the
top of the administration, - (as in
Congress) about the" scope of Soviet.
Cuban adventurism in Africa, among;
Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance,'
Defense Secretary Harold Brown and:
others, even - includ ng many of the
pro-A.fricanists who-were dismayed by
Kissinger's. fixation on the super ,
power struggle in Africa. =... .. ;
But what Is in profound dispute be-;
hind the scenes Inside the administra-I
tion is what the United. States should,;
or can, do about it. One large fear is'
.that. 'the Carter administration,!
through preoccupation with Soviet Af-
rican ventures, may end up jeopardiz-=
lug the strategic nuclear arms limita-
-tion negotiations just as Soviet For-
eign Minister Andrei Gromyko is due!
In the United States for near-climac-
tic negotiations. -
In many -respects, the Internal
struggle of 1975 'Over clandestine
American support to anti-Marxist fac-i
Lions in Angola's civil war is being re{.
peated-but this time more in the
open, forced there by the limitations-
imposed on Angola by Sen.: Dick
Clark (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senj
ate. Foreign Relations subcommittee
on Africa, and others.",,, "Let the Cubans have their Vietnamm
in Africa," one senior adtninistratio
official pungently said yesterday.:
"There is no reason for us to get pan-'
icked and plunge into the quicksandl
with them.". 9i
This is -a predominant view across-
the State Department, and it is re-;
ported to be shared as well by many*
officials in. the Pentagon, and. in the:
`Central Intelligence Allen which j
ran e . venture in Ango a that'
was lopped off by Congress. .
Beyond the.Carter administration's:
~o~mesn .
Approved For Release 2007/06/22 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140094-6