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Kissinger in Angola: The Influence of Personality on Foreign Policy

Working Paper · December 2016

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The CIA, Kissinger, and Angola: The Influence of Personality on Foreign Policy

Introduction

The Cold War made way for new standards of foreign intervention in the name of

national security to be set. As a Cold War superpower, the United States took the task of

containing Communism upon itself, and used the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a method

of controlling how events abroad unfolded. Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s,

countries across Africa were gaining their independence from their respective colonial powers

and setting up their own governments. This led to the involvement of both Cold War

superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, to seek to exert their dominance in attempts to gain

the newly independent countries’ loyalty during the Cold War. Thus, by the mid-1970s,

American intervention across Africa was less of a unique endeavor, so American involvement in

the Angolan Civil War when it broke out in 1975 was not surprising. However, that is not to say

that involvement was widely accepted. Those who paid attention to America’s role in Africa

largely opposed the American contributions made to the Angolan civil war, deeming it

unnecessary and doomed to be fruitless.1

American involvement went ahead regardless of its unpopularity as was insisted on by

the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. Even though those within the CIA were trying to deter

Kissinger, Kissinger’s insistence on countering any Soviet move around the globe to show

American dominance in the post-Vietnam and Cold War contexts led to unnecessary and

damaging CIA involvement in the Angolan civil war. All of this was happening while Kissinger

was travelling around the world; meeting Mao in China, stopping in Indonesia, and making his

way through Europe.2 This illustrates a relative disconnect between Kissinger and his interest in

1
John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1978), 68.
2
Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 679-680.

Angola via the CIA, as he was busy making other diplomatic moves. Yet, this did not stop him

from trying his hand at a putting forth a covert paramilitary operation in Angola in 1975.

In light of the broader American historical contexts of Watergate, the Vietnam Syndrome,

and the Year of Intelligence, Kissinger’s failure in Angola offers a dynamic case study of how

different levels of American government interact with one another. Ultimately, Kissinger’s

interest in dominating American foreign policy was self-defeating, and his efforts to pursue

covert action in the Angolan Civil War brought forward tensions between branches and within

executive bureaucracies, and eventual American failure in Angola.

Historical Context

Before going into analysis, it is important to historically situate the CIA as an entity, as

well as the role it had in foreign countries. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was officially

established under President Truman after he nullified a number of existing intelligence agencies

to create one coherent agency in 1947, the CIA.3 The CIA would operate to prevent the spread of

Communism abroad, as the Cold War was the major focus of international relations into the

1950s. To do this, the agency was given the power to operate in covert means where need be.

During the 1950s, CIA-backed coups installing U.S.-friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala had

caused the agency to stretch their covert operations too far. The CIA was becoming an

orchestrator of global politics in the name of national security against Communists and potential

Communists, which caused anti-American sentiment in the countries they intervened. This kind

of covert action abroad only increased into the 1960s and led to a further decline in CIA

credibility.

3
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, (The CIA and American Democracy: Third Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2003), 18.

1
 The 1960s was also a time when the U.S. was becoming more involved across Africa, as

many countries were gaining their independence from former colonial powers. Most notably, the

US, along with the CIA, had been operating in the Congo from 1960 to 1965 during the

complicated aftermath of Congolese independence and what is now referred to as the Congo

Crisis.4 In typical Cold War era fashion, the United States viewed the new Congolese

government under Patrice Lumumba to be too left-wing and wanted set up the right-wing, anti-

Lumumba military general, Joseph Mobutu, as their preferred leader in the Congo. The CIA even

went so far as to draw up assassination plans for Lumumba, and Lumumba was killed in 1961. It

is still debated as to whether his assassination was directly from the CIA, from Mobutu, or if the

CIA knew about assassination plans in progress and chose to not intervene.

The 1970s saw a number of influential events unfold that had an impact on how CIA

involvement in Angola played out. In the years just before involvement in Angola in 1975,

Richard Nixon was in the White House with Henry Kissinger as his National Security Advisor.

Their combined personalities made for an interesting administration. On one hand, Kissinger

enjoyed the public sphere, and on the other, Nixon opted for the public sphere when he could,

with both of them having equally paranoid and intense personality characteristics.5 Unfortunately

for Nixon, his paranoia led him to have the Watergate hotel wired, to eavesdrop on the

Democratic Party Headquarters in 1972.6 When the Watergate scandal and its immediate cover-

up came to the surface in 1974, Nixon resigned and the American public was in shock, with their

4
Ellen Ray, et al., Dirty Work 2: The CIA in Africa, (New Jersey: Lyle Stuart Inc., 1979), 11.
5
Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 91-92.
6
Ibid, 434.

2
faith in the government toppled.7 The Ford Administration took over, with Henry Kissinger as

Secretary of State.

Not long after Nixon resigned, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in April of 1975 and

Ford immediately evacuated Americans from the country, marking another fatal blow to public

opinion on American foreign policy. Together, Watergate and defeat in Vietnam offered clear

examples of why the public needs to be more critical of Congress instead of just accepting

clandestine American foreign policy as the only solution to winning the Cold War.8 As these

revelations of potential wrongdoings were being circulated by the media in 1975, this year is

often called the “Year of Intelligence.” Congressional investigations were working against the

presidency, and the presidency was working against the congressional investigations to save

face.9 With all of this overlapping public discontent, Kissinger pushed for American foreign

policy to extend into Angola.

The Angolan Civil War officially began in 1975, following the Angolan War of

Independence (1961-1974), between three main parties: the Frente Nacionale de Libertação de

Angola (FNLA), the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), and the União

Nacional para e Independência Total de Angola (UNITA). The MPLA was the Marxist-based

faction that drew its main support from intelligentsia and was led by Agostinho Neto, who

shaped the MPLA along Marxist ideals. The FLNA was led by the anti-communist Holden

Roberto, who was more nationalist and military-oriented, and wanted international recognition of

his government as the official government of Angola. The third faction, UNITA, was led by

Roberto’s foreign minister Jonas Savimbi who broke away from the FLNA because of ethnic

7
Kathryn S. Olmsted, Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and the
FBI, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 1.
8
Olmsted, Challenging the Secret Government, 5.
9
Ibid, 4.

3
tension and other personal reasons; UNITA was arguably the most conservative of the three

groups.10

Being the Marxist faction, the MPLA was supported by mainly the Soviets, and by Cuba

as well, however they were not supported by Communist China. China believed that having Neto

as the Angolan leader would strengthen the Soviet Union’s international power too much. They

wanted keep the Kremlin’s power at bay so that the Soviet Union did not have the power to put

more pressure on them to join their stream of socialism. China aligned with the U.S. to support

the FLNA and UNITA; 11 these two factions were further supported by Great Britain, West

Germany, Belgium, and South Africa, with the U.S. being the main ally.12

The involvement of Cuba in the Angolan Civil War was significant because it was such a

small and far away country to Angola. As a proxy of the Soviet Union, Cuba contributed about

36,000 soldiers to fight for MPLA victory between November of 1975 and April of 1976. By

1988, Cuban soldiers numbered over 55,000 in Angola. 13 Although not strong enough to topple

American strength on its own, Cuba played a vital role in the eventual MPLA victory.

Together, with the fragile setting in the U.S. and in Angola, a rather complicated

backdrop appears, illustrating just how multifaceted the issue of Angolan independence was at

the time. The U.S. did not want the MPLA gain control of Angola, and under the direction of

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, CIA operations in Angola gained serious ground in 1975.

Provisions for U.S. involvement in Africa were intentionally vague, and stated that CIA

involvement in Africa was to be a provision of material, support, and advice to create a stable

10
Thomas H. Henrikson, “People's War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,” The Journal of Modern
African Studies. Vol. 14. No. 3. (1976), http://www.jstor.org/stable/15974, 379.
11
Westad, The Global Cold War, 226-227.
12
Gerald Bender in American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance, Second Edition, edited by Rene
Lemarchand, (Washington: University Press of America, Inc., 1981), 87.
13
Piero Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-
1991, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 9.

4
climate in newly independent African countries, leaving out the mention of Angola

specifically.14

With this flexibility, the CIA provided over 22 million dollars in covert support to the

FLNA and UNITA by the fall of 1975.15 Beyond monetary aid for the FLNA and UNITA,

Kissinger’s plans for Angola culminated into the covert CIA Operation, IAFEATURE.

IAFEATURE was in place to secretly launch a paramilitary program against the MPLA under

the CIA, and was kept top secret so that it did not have to be explained to the public in the

aftermath of the recent failure in Vietnam.16 On the flipside of the defeat in Vietnam, Kissinger

wanted to redeem American foreign policy from this failure and saw Angola as the place to do it;

he wanted to prove that the U.S. was still the global world power.17 The public feared another

Vietnam in Angola, and in the wake of Watergate during the Year of Intelligence, their fears

were not irrational.

Kissinger’s Stronghold on U.S. Foreign Policy and the Fight Against Communism

Prior to official American involvement in Angola, Kissinger was a leading figure in the

Nixon Administration’s fight against Communist threats abroad. Under President Nixon,

Kissinger was able to run most of American foreign policy by becoming very close with Nixon

and personally advising him on foreign policy matters. How genuine Kissinger’s closeness was

to Nixon is questionable, as Kissinger often played on the President’s insecurities in order to

strengthen their relationship and was known to “stroke his [Nixon’s] ego” to gain the President’s

14
Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 47.
15
Stephen R. Weissman, “CIA Covert Action in Zaire and Angola: Patterns and Consequences,” Political Science
Quarterly, vol. 94. no. 2. (1979), accessed November 10, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2149851, 283.
16
Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 68.
17
Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 89.

5
trust.18 Because he trusted Kissinger, Nixon gave him the responsibility of dealing with the press,

and Kissinger used this opportunity to put his own spin on what the public was told about

American foreign policy.19

Also prior to direct involvement in Angola, Kissinger had been strengthening his

influence on the CIA. As historian Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones notes: before manipulation of

information, control of information had to come first, and this happened for Kissinger when he

worked with President Nixon in 1969.20 Kissinger and Nixon had an efficient working

relationship because of their shared personality traits of “intensity and stamina,” but these

similarities also led them to work against each other at points. The intensity often translated into

paranoia, and the two were known to be suspicious of one another.21 As mentioned, the two grew

quite close. Although this closeness was not on a personal level, it allowed for Kissinger to

quickly gain control of American foreign policy, with Kissinger exerting “extraordinary

influence” over the CIA.22 As an extension of his influence on the CIA, Kissinger’s support for

certain policies or operations had serious weight on decision making in the CIA.

When events in Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and Latin America were unfolding as part of

the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, Kissinger was the foreign policy czar who had to devote

his attention to this area of the globe. He was not truly paying attention to what was unfolding in

Africa before 1975.23 Instead, he remained focused on intervention and squashing Communist

threats in Asia and Latin America as the main rivals of American national security. For Kissinger

18
Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 26.
19
Ibid, 27.
20
Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 179.
21
Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 91.
22
Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 179.
23
Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 236.

6
and Nixon, China stood out as a special point of interest.24 Opening up a door to Communist

China became one of the “pet projects” of the Nixon administration, and Kissinger was tasked

with bettering relations between the U.S. and China. Kissinger was not initially as enthusiastic as

Nixon was with strengthening the Sino-American relationship, but Kissinger’s Soviet anxiety

lead to his push for rapprochement with China.25

In one of Kissinger’s major memoirs, The White House Years (1979), the role of China in

strengthening American foreign policy becomes clear. Kissinger used China as an entry point to

strengthening relations with the Communist world, and by 1969, this was a part of Kissinger’s

grand strategy of triangular diplomacy.26 Triangular diplomacy was essentially the U.S.

exploiting the relationship between Communist China and the Soviet Union, to create a three-

way détente between the countries, with the U.S. at the helm.27 Kissinger was not pushing for

covert operations through the CIA in order to elevate American standing in China because Nixon

and Kissinger were orchestrating something larger. This was to use China as a counterweight

against the Soviets. Kissinger’s emphasis on triangular diplomacy caused him to view regional

conflict in terms of involvement on the Chinese and the Soviets, not in terms of a local struggle,

which is seen in the Angolan Civil War.28

In 1972, a rearranging of priorities would take place for Nixon as a result of the exposure

of his bugging of the Watergate apartment complex to eavesdrop on the Democrats in 1972. This

left Nixon to scramble to cover up this misdeed and focus on how to keep the scandal at bay, and

served to further cement Kissinger’s influential position within government. Nixon became

24
Ibid, 234.
25
Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect, 32-33.
26
Henry Kissinger, The White House Years, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979), 191.
27
Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect, xvii.
28
Ibid, xviii.

7
obsessed with the unfolding and cover-up of Watergate over the next two years, which left

Kissinger to have more control over foreign policy without interference from Nixon.29 Due to the

cover-up of the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned in 1974 and left Kissinger to further fill the

vacuum of information control and foreign policy decision-making.30 Thus, by the mid-1970s,

Kissinger’s influence was already set up to enact his desired American foreign policies.

Funding for Angolan civil war from the CIA started slow and escalated once Kissinger

saw the Angolan conflict as a viable landscape to pursue the fight against communism abroad.

By January of 1975, the CIA had been increasing its aid to the FNLA under Holden Roberto, but

Kissinger was more occupied with the Fall of Saigon in the following April to truly grasp what

was happening in Africa.31 Because Angola was only seen as a moderate threat to Kissinger early

in 1975, he had not yet pushed for covert CIA involvement. Kissinger’s initial reluctance was

also because of the recent American foreign intervention failure in Vietnam; he knew he had to

be careful in pursuing involvement in yet another foreign country.32 As Kissinger’s interest in

Angola grew, he felt that in order to prevent public backlash in the wake of Vietnam, he had to

pursue covert operations to keep as much secret from the public as possible while still inserting

the CIA into Angola.33 This was gaining ground for Kissinger in the spring of 1975, at the same

time that he and the CIA were being questioned for domestically spying on Americans as a part

of the Year of Intelligence enquiries.

In the New York Times article, “Kissinger Denies Involvement In Domestic Spying by

CIA,” published on May 5th, 1975, Kissinger, former Director of Central Intelligence Richard

29
Ibid, 289.
30
Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 190.
31
Westad, The Global Cold War, 222.
32
Isaacson, Kissinger, 482.
33
Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 48.

8
Helms, and then current CIA chief William Colby were all noted as denying any domestic

spying.34 The article also reported on the alleged CIA assassination plots, specifically those on

Castro, and Kissinger again denied knowing anything about this.35 The significance in this lies in

the fact that this article was on the first page of the New York Times, indicating a lack of public

trust in the CIA, as articles on front pages are printed first to sell papers. The public was

suspicious of domestic spying by the CIA, and suspicious of Kissinger specifically. However, the

focus still remained on Castro in Latin America, rather than alleged assassination plots in Africa,

such as the plot against Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. Public attention in America was still

lacking when it came to CIA covert operations in Africa in the spring of 1975, but in the context

of the Year of Intelligence, the public was quick to question any moves made by the

Administration.

Increased Involvement in Angola and Increased Backlash

Things started to change by June of 1975. At this point, Kissinger had increased his focus

in Africa as a way to strengthen American image globally. To enhance American image,

Kissinger wanted to persuade the CIA to push for covert engagement in the Angolan Civil War

against the Soviet-backed MPLA. In late June of 1975, Kissinger, President Ford, Secretary of

Defense James Schlesinger, Joint Chiefs of Staff General David C. Jones, and Director of

Central Intelligence William Colby held a National Security Council meeting in the White House

to discuss the situation in Angola. Much of the minutes of this meeting remain redacted, but

Kissinger’s insistence of American involvement in Angola was clear. The group discussed the

possibility of a diplomatic offensive in Angola, to which Kissinger responded that “if we appeal

34
Nicholas M. Horrock, “Kissinger Denies Involvement in Domestic Spying by CIA,” New York Times, (May 6,
1975), 1.
35
Horrock, “Kissinger Denies Involvement,” 12.

9
to the Soviets to not be active [by pursuing a diplomatic offensive], it will be a sign of

weakness.” Kissinger warned of the unpredictability of Angola, and claimed that it “is an area

where no one can be sure of its judgements.”36

Revealing his talent for manipulation, Kissinger used daunting and dramatic language to

illustrate the situation in Angola as he saw it. By giving the impression that there was no way to

tell how the Angolan Civil War would play out, Kissinger pushed forward the idea that the U.S.

had better get involved in Angola through tangible, or covert, means before it was too late. The

U.S., through the CIA, needed to support the FNLA and UNITA to prevent the dominance of the

Soviet-backed MPLA. This view wholly disregards the idea that the Angolan Civil War was

indeed that, a civil war. Kissinger was positioning Angola in a wider East versus West context.

However, Kissinger had not developed any concrete plans at this point. By discussing this not

just with the President, but also with high ranking members of the CIA, Kissinger was setting the

precedent for CIA participation with Presidential approval.

Kissinger’s plans for Angola were materializing by July 1975. He wanted a covert

paramilitary operation. In this same month, desk officer stationed with the CIA in Angola,

Brenda MacElhinney, had already identified the CIA Angola program, and IAFEATURE

specifically, as a mistake that would be detrimental to the United States.37 In discussion with the

CIA’s Chief of the Angolan Task Force, John Stockwell, MacElhinney argued that under

Kissinger’s control, the United States was risking its international status because it was publicly

committed to an embargo on arms to certain Angolan factions, while secretly wanting to launch

36
“US National Security Council Meeting Minutes on Angola,” June 27, 1975, History and Public Policy Program
Digital Archive, National Security Archive, contributed by Piero Gleijeses. Included in "Southern Africa in the Cold
War, Post-1974," edited by Sue Onslow and Anna-Mart Van Wyk.
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/118161
37
Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 68.

10
the covert paramilitary program, IAFEATURE. When Stockwell tried to take this argument to

his superiors, they dismissed Stockwell and told him to implement policies without offering his

own opinion on them.38 This marked a beginning of CIA disunity, as some within the CIA were

finding Kissinger’s policies to be rather damaging to the US’s image abroad.39 However, because

this started coming from lower-ranking CIA personnel, it was easily brushed off as not

something that needed to be taken seriously.

As the year progressed, so did Kissinger’s interest in the Angolan situation as a means of

proving that American foreign policy still had merit against the fight versus Communism. At the

end of September of 1975, Kissinger was meeting with high-ranking Chinese officials and other

U.S. delegates to discuss international relations over dinner. Throughout the minutes of this

meeting, Kissinger imposed his own viewpoints on the Chinese. For example, when discussing

Angola, he stated that “as long as the Soviet Union is active in Africa, it is important to China …

Why let the Soviet Union stretch this far [into Africa]?” 40 Here, Kissinger is making the

assumption that Soviet presence in Angola was as threatening to American standing in the global

order as it was to the Chinese. Kissinger also stated that he realized Angola offered no great

importance to the US, other than as a symbol of American strength versus the Soviets.41 This

indicated the fact that Kissinger was not ignorant to what little military or political importance

Angola could offer the United States, and instead he chose to position Angola’s relevance in the

East-West framework of the Cold War.

38
Ibid, 69.
39
This dissent was not wholly widespread, and was more of a disapproval from the higher-ups who went along with
Kissinger’s policies anyway. See Walter Isaacson’s Kissinger: A Biography, 676-679.
40
United States Department of State, “The Soviet Union; CSCE; Europe; Japan; Angola; Indochina; the President's
China Trip; the Global Strategic Situation; Korea: Memorandum of Conversation,” Digital National Security
Archive, September 28, 1975, Accession Number: KT01796, 20.
41
Ibid.

11
Opposition Against Kissinger from Individuals during the Year of Intelligence

As a part of the increased demand to hold the government accountable for their secrecy

during 1975, there were a rising number of individuals who went against Kissinger and his desire

to enter Angola. In the fall of 1975, Kissinger felt so strongly about entering onto the Angolan

stage through covert means that the Assistant Secretary of State of African Affairs, Nathaniel

Davis, felt he had to resign because he did not agree. Directly opposite of what Kissinger was

vying for, Davis was in support of a non-intervention resolution to the Angolan Civil War.42

Kissinger ignored Davis’s advice on a diplomatic or political solution, and refused Davis’s

request to attend the 40 Committee43 meeting, which would decide if the U.S. should engage in

covert operations in Angola.44 Not only was Kissinger refusing to listen to experts on the matter,

but he was nullifying their positions so they could not oppose his desire for covert war. Davis

named his clash with Kissinger on the subject of Angolan involvement as one of the main

reasons of resigning his position of Assistant Secretary of State of African Affairs.45 Davis’

resignation later became the basis of Senator Dick Clark’s Clark Amendment as a measure to

stop aid to Angola, and this will be picked up on later in this paper.

Yet, Kissinger still had a stronghold on U.S. foreign policy because he was able to

convince President Ford of the necessity of Angolan intervention. Kissinger explained Angola in

terms American credibility to the President, saying that it in the aftermath of Vietnam, Ford

needed to prove the viability of his foreign policy through Angola using covert action.46

Kissinger had the ear of the president, and objections from experts on the matter, such as Davis,

42
United States Embassy, South Africa, “South African Press Says U.S. Government Becoming Increasingly
Concerned Over Developments in Angola,” Digital National Security Archive, September 1975. Accession Number:
SA00526, Document Number: 03394, 1.
43
Branch of the US government that reviews any potential major covert operations or actions.
44
Isaacson, Kissinger, 676-677.
45
Ibid, 2.
46
Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect, 412.

12
were brushed aside. With this influence, Kissinger, with Ford’s approval, made way for the 40

Committee to meet a handful of times in the latter half of 1975 to discuss increasing covert aid to

Angola. Each time the amount of approved covert funds was increased; July’s 14 million dollars

turned into 25 million in August, and then 32 million by November.47

In November of 1975, information was being leaked regarding Soviet influence in

Angola as a part of the overarching ‘Year of Intelligence.’ Specifically, Iowa Senator Dick Clark

was publicly seeking a ban on aid to Angola without providing details on this aid. Instead of

providing details, he wanted to alert the public of U.S. involvement in Angola and urged them to

probe further.48 With this, it was becoming public knowledge that Cuba and the Soviet Union

were gaining legitimate ground with the MPLA, and that the CIA was underestimating the

MPLA success.49 Because the public was voicing its criticisms, CIA Director William Colby had

to defend the CIA and the need for covert aid in Angola as the “only way” to stop the MPLA

from gaining control in Angola.50

If the MPLA had control of Angola, that meant that the Soviets won, and the Americans

had to count this as another failure in the East-West struggle; again, invalidating the legitimacy

of the local civil war for independence in Angola. Colby, following Kissinger’s rhetoric, cited

Cold War interests as the main reason for maintaining presence in Angola against the Soviets,

not to help Angola on a local level.51 Yet, the CIA did not really have the funding for their

approved amount to be maintained, let alone doubled. In a 40 Committee meeting on November

21, 1975, Colby stated that they were “fresh out of money” and would need to obtain approval

47
Bender, American Policy in Southern Africa, 87.
48
Olmsted, Challenging the Secret Government, 150.
49
Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 194-195.
50
Walter Pincus, “CIA Aid in Angola Defended,” The Washington Post, November 8, 1975, A7.
51
Ibid.

13
for the redirection of funds from the Department of Defense if they wanted to increase aid to

Angola again.52

Kissinger and Senator Dick Clark, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, directly

clashed on their opinions on what to do in Angola. Clark strongly disagreed with Kissinger’s

view that the U.S. should intervene covertly in Angola, and saw it necessary to “save the

Secretary from himself” and stop him from being able to enact further covert operations in

Angola.53 Kissinger was seen as stretching too far with his Cold War ideology, and was unable to

convince almost all of his peers of Angolan intervention to strengthen the US’s global standing.

Senator Clark was in no mind to let Kissinger move forward with his covert aid to

Angola, and in December of 1975, he proposed an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act.

This amendment would cut off any covert aid to Angola, and it received the endorsement of the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee; it became known as the Clark Amendment.54 This

amendment was named as Section 404 of the International Security Assistance and Arms Control

Act of 1976.55 This marked an important turning point in the decline of Kissinger’s heavy

influence on the CIA. He went from being the main voice of CIA operations, to having people

question his motives; some even questioning his sanity.56

Unfortunately for Kissinger, the Clark Amendment was only the beginning of the

legislative measures enacted to stop CIA covert operations in Angola. President Ford vetoed the

Clark Amendment, but Senator John Tunney was not going to let that be the final answer.

52
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXVII, Southern Africa, (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 2010), https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v28/d139
53
Bender, American Policy in Southern Africa, 87.
54
Ibid, 102.
55
Ronald R. Walters, “The Clark Amendment: Analysis of US Policy Choices in Angola,” The Black Scholar, Vol.
12, No. 4, War and the Third World, July/August 1981, accessed November 10,
2016, http://www.jstor.org./stable/pdf/41066776.pdf, 4-5.
56
Isaacson, Kissinger, 675.

14
Tunney proposed an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would block all American

covert aid to Angola, and the Tunney Amendment was passed by Congress with 54 votes to 22

on December 19, 1975.57 This was small-scale prevention, but by January of 1976, much bigger

bodies of representatives would be opposing Kissinger and the CIA, as well as the public. Here,

Congress is on the side of those who went against Kissinger. The disunity within and across the

American political setting was clear, but it was Kissinger who was at the losing end. The public,

Congress, and those within the executive and legislative branches had turned against him as a

part of the trend to question foreign policy motives in the Year of Intelligence.

In the New York Times article, “House Committee Report Finds CIA Understated Price of

Angolan Arms,” published on January 20, 1976, it is clear that the public responded negatively

to CIA Angolan Aid. The New York Times obtained portions of a House Committee report that

was investigating the use of CIA covert aid, and was able to point out that the CIA spent more on

aid in Angola than Congress, or the public, was aware of. A CIA spokesman declined to

comment, which certainly did not help the CIA’s standing with the general public. By relaying

this to the public through popular print media, the New York Times outlined its awareness of the

growing climate of suspicion from the public surrounding not just the CIA in general, but

surrounding Angola specifically. Beyond exposing the CIA for its less-than-truthful claims, the

article seemed to want to rile its readers up by stating that the CIA will not feel the repercussions

of their overspending, and that the readers, as taxpayers, would be the ones absorbing the costs.58

57
Bender, American Policy in Southern Africa, 103.
58
Crewdson, John M. “House Committee Report Finds CIA Understated Price of Angolan Arms.” New York Times.
January 20, 1976, 1-4.

15
Congressional Backlash and Hearings Questioning Angolan Involvement

By December of 1975, and Kissinger faced legitimate congressional backlash in his push

for CIA covert aid to Angola. The United States Senate held hearings before the Select

Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities on

December 4 and 5, 1975 regarding covert action. These hearing focus mainly on covert action in

Chile, but they do address how the situation in Chile should be kept in mind when moving

forward in Angola.

As these hearings took place during the Year of Intelligence enquiries of 1975, there was

an overall air of lack of trust in the government due to a break in Cold War consensus.59 Former

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs, Morton H. Halperin, stated that

trust in the government was eroded because of the government’s tendency to lie about covert

operations abroad.60 Government action was being held accountable by those within the

government for its lack of transparency. Interestingly, Kissinger was absent from these hearings

because he believed his presence would be “inappropriate,” which those present disagree with.

His role in Chile was discussed at length, especially in relation to how he repeatedly manipulated

the truth to preserve public opinion regarding covert CIA operations.61 No serious measures

against Kissinger’s influence of the CIA had been taken yet, but these hearings signal a growing

suspicion of Kissinger and the CIA’s covert operations.

Late January to early February 1976, the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the

Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate held hearings on U.S. involvement

59
Olmsted, Challenging the Secret Government, 4.
60
Intelligence Activities Senate Resolution 21. “Hearings before the Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate.” First Session. Volume 7. December
4 and 5, 1975. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1976.
http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94intelligence_activities_VII.pdf, 59.
61
Ibid, 2.

16
in the Angolan civil war, again marking an inquiry into CIA operations. The main purpose of

these hearings was to understand why the CIA wanted to continue to fund a covert war in

Angola, and if there was enough at stake in Angola to justify any American involvement at all.62

Senator Clark was present and he outright asked Kissinger, and the committee in general, how

the foreign policy of covert action in Angola should even be considered a viable option when it

lacked support from the public and from Congress. Clark also feared that Angola could become

another Vietnam, but asserted that this time the U.S. would be “sucked into the quicksand in

Africa.”63 This is the sentiment throughout the hearings, one of trying to understand why

Kissinger wants to be involved in Angola in the first place and to debunk any reason he had for

being there.

Kissinger’s prepared statement for these hearings were seeped in dramatic wording, he

referred to the “grave magnitude” of the Angolan situation in regards to the Soviet Union’s

“massive and unprecedented intervention.”64 Kissinger sought to explain the global importance

of Angola, and continued to argue for covert intervention for the sake of maintaining strength in

the face of Soviet presence. He emphasized global stability, and that by using non-intervention

solutions, the United States would be “emasculating” itself in front of the Soviets and the

Cubans.65 Kissinger viewing the loss of Angola to the Soviets in terms of masculinity is another

degree of separation between him and the regional conflict in Angola. From his view, United

States dominance and masculinity needed to be proven in this post-Vietnam era; the U.S. had

taken a serious foreign policy blow, and success in Angola could serve to assert American

62
Angola, “Hearings before the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations United
States Senate,” Second Session on US Involvement in Civil War in Angola, January 29, February 3, 4, and 6, 1976,
(Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1976),
https://babel.hathitrust.org./cgi/pt?id=pur1.32754074746417;view=1up;seq=1;size=125, 1.
63
Ibid, 4.
64
Ibid, 14.
65
Ibid, 15.

17
dominance once again. However, Kissinger’s backing of the factions who had less support in

Angola stopped victory for the U.S. before it even began.

Furthermore, Kissinger’s statements attempted to remove the U.S. from blame for how

the situation would unfold in Angola, and instead stated that “the culprits in this tragedy … are

the Soviet Union and its client state Cuba.” He went on to blame Congress for “depriving” the

President of the ability to create an effective foreign policy in Angola, and that the U.S. needs

Angola as a friend on the African continent.66 His language completely evaded any responsibility

on the part of the U.S. His rhetoric is unsurprising, as he has been repeating this same sentiment

since he started to take notice of the unrest in Angola in June of 1975. The fact that he still felt

this way by January of 1976 poses the question of how much attention he really paid to CIA

involvement in Africa; a fruitless endeavor that he was constantly advised to reconsider.

At points, those present at the hearings seemed to use this as an opportunity to attack

Kissinger, by relaying Kissinger’s own quotes back to him to hold Kissinger accountable for his

inconsistencies. Specifically, one senator present stated Kissinger’s previous ‘Africa for the

African’s’ policy and asked why Angola should be different, as the use of American and CIA aid

to recruit mercenaries would not fall under Africa for the Africans. In response, Kissinger

claimed that American funds were not directly being used to recruit mercenaries in Angola, but

they could be used indirectly, depending on “how you define indirectly.”67 This response was

typical of Kissinger’s tendency to not answer point-blank questions, and in this case he fumbled

with the technicalities of the question asked to him. Kissinger was failing to justify covert

operations in Angola, and government entities were calling him on it. By making all of these

enquiries and using the Clark Amendment to physically stop the funds from reaching Angola,

66
Ibid, 16.
67
Ibid, 27.

18
Kissinger’s validity became nullified. He had been stopped at almost every angle to increase

covert operations in Angola, and was forced to scale back on his African policy and use

diplomatic and non-interventionist policies in Angola.

By mid-February of 1976, the majority of African states had recognized the MPLA as the

official government of Angola. Then, by the following March, the MPLA had control of the

central regions of Angola, marking MPLA dominance over the FNLA and UNITA factions.68

The American intervention into Angola had failed as the Soviet-backed faction remained the

dominant force in Angola, and the U.S. was left looking weak in the face of failure to the Soviets

abroad. Kissinger’s fears of ‘emasculation’ at the hands of the Soviets came true. In a meeting

between U.S. Secretary Counsellor Helmut Sonnenfeldt and NATO Secretary General Joseph

MAH Luns in May of 1976, Angola is noted as being one of the main reasons why the African

continent had become radicalized, and why faith in the West was on the decline.69 While this

may be a slight exaggeration of only Angola pushing forward radicalization of the African

continent, it still shows how government officials viewed the echoes of American failure in the

Angolan civil war.

Without any other options, Kissinger turned his stance on Africa into a more liberal and

‘American value’ approach. He emphasized moralism and diplomatic alliances with Africa,

while denouncing the previous assumed legitimacy of white governments in Africa.70 Kissinger’s

ability to adopt new viewpoints when it benefitted him seems almost admirable, but it does

signal his general inconsistent nature. The fact that it took him such failure with public and

congressional backlash to change his policies however, is daunting. His personality remained

68
Westad, The Global Cold War, 237.
69
United States Department of State Bureau of European Affairs Office of NATO, “Discussion of Angola, Africa,
and Cyprus with NATO Chiefs,” May 1976, DNSA Accession number: KT01953, 1.
70
Isaacson, Kissinger, 686.

19
the driving force behind his beliefs, when as a member of government, he should have allowed

logic and the advice of others to have more of an impact on his policies; and do so before he

pushes policy too far, like in Angola.

Post-Angolan Conflict Backlash

In April of 1976, the National newspaper published an article directly relating Angola to

Vietnam, in “Angola and the Memory of Vietnam” written by Charles Lipson. Written shortly

after Kissinger slowed his push for covert action in Angola in the Spring of 1976, this article

reflected public rhetoric as it was becoming increasingly critical of how the lack of discussion

between the administration and the public regarding foreign policy. Lipson offers his own

opinion as to why the government suppresses public discussion of important foreign policy

discussion:

“Deep divisions [between the public and administration] were likely to prevent decisive

action. Now even that approach is failing. Dissident bureaucrats, Congressmen and

committee staff have proved unwilling conform to a code of secrecy when their strong

preferences, and moral values, are overridden. A primary result is the unprecedented and

pervasive leaking of classified material.”71

This illustrates the reaction of the public to disunity in the CIA regarding foreign policy. In the

initial aftermath of 1975 as the Year of Intelligence, the public was aware of the clash, and as

Lipson outlines, it was something that had yet to be dealt with. As the various hearings and

subcommittees have shown, CIA covert action was first under review within the government,

which was something beyond general public rhetoric. That was until official reports and accounts

began to surface of the CIA’s misdeeds in Angola.

71
Charles Lipson, “Angola and the Memory of Vietnam,” The Nation, April 17, 1976, 460.

20
 After the immediate dust had settled of American and CIA failure in Angola, whistle-

blowing reports and accounts were published in retaliation to Kissinger’s misuse of the CIA as

an agency, and the agency’s willingness to go along with him. Specifically, the Pike

Committee’s 1976 report on illegal activities committed by the CIA, the Federal Bureau of

Investigation, and the National Security Agency, investigated the CIA’s involvement in Angola.

The Pike Committee’s report was never officially published, but somehow Parts I, II, and III of

the Pike Report were leaked by one of the 207 government officials who had access to the

Report.72 In 1977, these were published in book form, with an introduction written by dissident

CIA case officer Philip Agee.

In the introduction, Agee outlined the major findings of the report. Regarding Angola, he

concluded that the Pike Committee was able to expose the removal of plausible deniability

regarding covert action, as the President always had to provide his approval. This provides

evidence that the CIA was never out of control, and was acting as a ‘rogue elephant’ under

direction of the President.73 This raises the question of if the CIA was truly a rogue elephant at

all, since all evidence pointed to Kissinger guiding the CIA with President Ford’s approval

during the Angolan conflict. It took actors who held different positions in the CIA and the

administration to pursue a means to an end in Angola, by calling attention to the covert aid and

then stopping it through legislative measures.

In the context of the Angolan Civil War and the backlash against Kissinger’s

involvement, the Pike Report holds more significance than just the exposure of the amount of

funding or length of involvement. It serves as an instance of whistleblowing against the

administration. As it was never officially published to the public, the fact that these three parts of

72
Philip Agee in The Pike Report, Central Intelligence Agency, (New York: Spokesman Books, 1977), 22.
73
Ibid, 17.

21
the Pike Report were leaked from one of the government officials plays into the overarching

theme of whistleblowing. This is seen through the exposure of CIA operations in hopes of

keeping the government in check in the post-Watergate and post-Vietnam era. If the Pike Report

had been officially published to the public, then perhaps certain important pieces of information

would be left out. Parts I and II of the Report contained secret information, and they would have

likely been removed for the public.74 Instead, people within the government saw it as their

responsibility to provide transparency during this heightened time of seeking government

accountability, when the actual government did not.

This whistleblowing is similar to Former Chief of the Angolan Task Force, John

Stockwell’s In Search of Enemies (1978), which was highly critical discussion of the CIA in

Angola and Kissinger’s role in the matter. Early on in the book, Stockwell was not only wanting

to hold the CIA accountable for their actions, but he specifically targeted Henry Kissinger as the

grand architect of the Angolan scheme. Stockwell often comes back to this; he called Kissinger

the “master chess player” of American intelligence and exposed Kissinger’s tendency to seek

opportunities to fight any perceived Communist threats to showcase American strength.75

Stockwell blamed CIA Director William Colby for giving Kissinger too much influence over the

situation because Colby was the “original good soldier,” and was always giving in to Kissinger

or the President, regardless of what it was. In this case, it was a paramilitary program in

Angola.76

The bulk of In Search of Enemies is Stockwell’s insider retelling of the CIA’s misdeeds

and series of counterproductive measures that added up to a failure in Africa. He focuses on

74
Ibid, 19.
75
Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 173 and 43.
76
Ibid, 44.

22
Kissinger’s leadership as being the driving force behind the CIA covert policies and

IAFEATURE.77 Stockwell validated most claims of CIA indecency in astounding detail, as he

was behind the scenes and willing to sacrifice his reputation for the sake of transparency.

Between the two, a pattern emerges of individuals feeling the need to come forward and

hold the CIA accountable to the American constitution, as the CIA and those within it were not

above the law. Both In Search of Enemies and the leaked Pike Report pointed to a public

backlash that saw Angolan involvement as the tipping point in CIA over-extension. With the

Watergate scandal, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and the coups of the 1950s not long ago in U.S.

history, it was only a matter of time when there would be serious critique of the legitimacy of the

CIA as an agency operating in a so-called democratic country.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Angolan civil war offers a dynamic look at how different levels of

American government interact with one another during the Year of Intelligence. In this case, an

event of local tensions was blown to international proportions due to Kissinger’s insistence of

American and CIA involvement in the name of Cold War global security. In the beginning stages

of Kissinger’s involvement in Angola, his personal beliefs and assumptions of how Angola needs

covert funding were thrust upon the CIA and anybody who went against him was seen as

ignorant, or as not worthy of having an opinion and dismissed from their position in government.

Then, as Kissinger’s Cold Warrior mentality grew stronger in the fall of 1975 over a country that

really held little substantial importance to the US, his contemporaries started to speak up against

his insistence on covert action because of the underlying pressure to operate more transparently

abroad. Members of government created legislature to stop covert funding in Angola, and

77
Ibid, 68.

23
committees were set up to investigate the legitimacy of Angolan involvement; Kissinger’s word

was not being taken as truth anymore. He had to change gears when it came to African policy,

but this calls into question the sincerity of his more diplomatic actions following Angolan

failure. Finally, once American failure in Angola became unavoidable, different whistleblowing

documents surfaced that deeply criticised Kissinger’s role in Angola. Together, this outlines a

linear decay of Kissinger’s Angolan policy: from starting strong as his reputation within the CIA,

to rapid demise that took his reputation within the CIA down with him in the post-Watergate and

post-Vietnam landscape.

24
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