Blowback - S6 Episode 8 - "Cut Off Their Hands"

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

The Reagan Doctrine puts Angola in the crosshairs as aid to UNITA is uncorked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now, this does not mean, as some would have us, believe, that we're in imminent danger of nuclear war. We're not. As long as we maintain the strategic balance and make it more stable by reducing the level of weapons on both sides, then we can count on the basic prudence of the Soviet leaders to avoid that kind of challenge to us. They're presently challenging us with a different kind of weapon, subversion and the use of surrogate forces, Cubans, for example. We've seen it intensifying during the last 10 years as the Soviet Union and its surrogates moved to establish control over Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cambodia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and recently closer to home in Nicaragua and now El Salvador. It's the fate of this region, Central America, that I want to talk to you about tonight. The issue is our effort to promote democracy and economic well-being in the face of Cuba.

and Nicaraguan aggression, aided and debited by the Soviet Union. It is definitely not about plans to send American troops into combat in Central America. Each year, the Soviet Union provides Cuba with $4 billion in assistance, and it sends tons of weapons to foment revolution here in our atmosphere. The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise. We do not start wars. We will never be the aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression, to preserve freedom and peace.

We help our friends defend themselves. Welcome to Blowback. I'm Brendan James. I'm Noah Colwyn. And this is Season 6, Episode 8, Cut Off Their Hands. Last episode, we saw the first term of Ronald Reagan. We saw the arrival of a new right-wing political order in Washington, one that supported anti-Soviet military action all over the world. From Granada to Afghanistan, Reagan fanned the flames of conflicts started by his predecessor

Jimmy Carter and started a few new ones of his own for good measure. In Southern Africa, this meant the introduction of constructive engagement, led by the State Department official, Chester Crocker. Rather than push away apartheid South Africa, the U.S. deepened its ties to the state of white rule in southern Africa, increasing bilateral trade and investment. In turn, the idea was that South Africa would undertake domestic political reforms, in addition to reaching an agreement on ending its military occupation of Namibia. But instead, South Africa kept up and intensified its ongoing war on Angola. It maintained its grip over Namibia.

And despite agreeing outwardly to American diplomatic overtures, South Africa's leaders preferred victory on the battlefield. While the Angolan economy teetered and the U.S. continued to withhold recognition of the MPLA government in Lwanda, South Africa and its guerrilla sponsee, Jonas Savimbi's Unita, ramped up their attacks. The Angolan's leaned harder than ever on the Cubans, who had sent tens of thousands more reinforcements to fend off both South Africa and the resurgent threat from Unita. And after some bruising defeats, the Angolans cut a deal with the South Africans, with the condition that Namibia's liberation movement, swap up.

be denied access to Angolan territory. This episode, we will see how that peace deal came apart. We'll see the re-election of Ronald Reagan and another attack on the Clark Amendment, the Senate's prohibition on aid for Unita. And we shall also see an even tighter embrace of Jonas Savimbi, not too long before the Iran-Contra scandal explodes into public view. We'll see changes from Luanda, not unlike those made by other third world governments around this time, such as Vietnam, reforms meant to better connect their country to the world economic system.

And we'll also begin to see the tide turn against South Africa, not necessarily on the battlefield, but among American public opinion, a critical development, right as the Reagan Revolution. gets going. And let's never stop shaping that society which lets each person's dreams unfold into a life of unending hope. America's best days lie ahead. And you know, you forgive me. I've got, I'm going to do it just one more time. You ain't seen nothing yet.

The first four years of Ronald Reagan's presidency were down and then up, Handicapped by a crappy economy after his inauguration, Reagan's disapproval ratings steadily climbed upward until the middle of 1983, where they peaked around the mid-50s. But 1983 had been a year of economic turnaround. The rate of inflation fell to just over 3%, after beginning Reagan's term at over 10%.

By early 84, polling showed that Reagan's improving image came down to his handling of the economy, while voters still remained skeptical of his hard-line, cold warrior foreign policy. There was a certain irony to all this. One of the Reagan administration's earliest priorities had been to dramatically increase the Pentagon's budget at the same time it sought to trim social welfare. Quote, in the last two years of the Carter administration and the first four years under Reagan, writes journalist James Fallows. Military spending rose by an average of 8% a year after allowing for inflation. Although much of Reagan's foreign policy was an intensification of

Carter's, there was a notable uptick in hurrah moments from the White House. In a 1981 incident that would later inspire the climax of the movie Top Gun, American fighter planes took down two Libyan jets during an exercise over the Mediterranean. In Central America, Reagan also began arming the right-wing government in El Salvador, as well as the Contras in Nicaragua and Honduras, putting weapons and aid into the hands of serial human rights abusers, fighting leftists. There was also the deployment of the U.S. Marines to Lebanon in 1982, supposed peace-keeper. who quickly became combatants in the ongoing Lebanese civil war.

Eventually, they left the country when their barracks was bombed in 1983, killing 241 Marines and a few dozen French troops. But the Peace de Resistence was the autumn 1983 invasion of Granada, a tiny island country in the Caribbean, led by a socialist government. The invasion itself was a fiasco, rife with fall. claims about mass graves, as well as logistical fuck-ups. But for Reagan, and much of the American public, it successfully expelled what he on the campaign trail had called Vietnam syndrome,

a supposed American reluctance to get involved in foreign conflicts. God bless you. Thank you all very much. I ought to be an American. Don't forget right to me and I glad. With the return to something resembling normal cost of living standards, voters returned Reagan to office in November of 1984, with one of the most lopsided victories in American history. He beat ex-Vice president Walter Mondale by a popular vote margin of 59 to 41 points, securing every vote off the Electoral College except for the District of Columbia and Mondale's own Minnesota. Reagan's re-election had clear implications for foreign policy. The Hawks in his administration, like CIA director Bill Casey, or Pentagon Chief Casper

Cap Weinberger, had been empowered in the first term, but in term two, they would be unleashed, part of a policy outlook that Reagan's admirers in the press called the Reagan Doctrine. In the third season of our show about the Korean War, we talked about the major foreign policy debate of that era, the rollback of communism versus the containment of communism. If the preceding decades had been defined by containment, the Reagan doctrine brought back the spirit of rollback. And a prized Reagan proxy, of course, was Jonas Savimbi, who was fighting the government of Angola, where the MPLA still benefited from Cuban troops and substantial Soviet aid.

Now, with Reagan's re-election secured and his doctrine in place, the Hawks would go after the Clark Amendment. They would try their hardest to make Jonas Savimby into a respectable name in Washington, and they would be helped in this by sharp reverses to diplomatic gains made just the year before. Chester Crocker, the State Department official in charge of African affairs

was a condemned man from both the left and the right. To the left, he had been a canny manipulator, an effective shield for South Africa as the apartheid government acted with impunity at home, in Namibia,

in Angola, and elsewhere. And to the right, Crocker was a carbon copy of the State Department hands who had quote-unquote lost China to Marxism a few decades. earlier. Quote, Mr. President, why is Chester Crocker trying to sell 20 million black Africans into slavery? Ran the title of one open letter written to Reagan by such hardliners. The problem with

constructive engagement or linkage, as these people saw it, was that it undercut Jonas Savimbi, boosted the pro-Soviet terrorist organization Swapo in Namibia, and spit on Washington's friends in Pretoria. Inside the White House, these pro-Sivimbi Hawks were led by Bill Casey, Reagan's trigger-happy CIA director, who was scaling up anti-Soviet proxy wars around the globe. We spoke with Chas Freeman, who worked in the State Department's Africa Bureau at this time, later serving as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

And he gave us the flavor of how Casey maneuvered. There was an internal battle in the Reagan administration between the CIA and Crocker. And every once in a while, when the CIA seemed to be getting his way, Crocker would call the private secretary of Margaret Thatcher and say, you know, Margaret Thatcher, mommy needs to counsel her son, Ronald Reagan, not to do this thing. And then a Charles Poll would call over and persuasion. Wade Reagan to take a call for Martin Aggie's Hatcher, and she would tell him, Ronnie, don't do this thing, whatever it looks. Now, the heartliners did have something to kvetch about with Reagan.

Even as they facilitated a relationship with Savimbi, Crocker's and Secretary of State George Schultz's aim in Angola was national reconciliation, not a Unita victory. Though Crocker approved of Savimbi as an asset to pressure the Cubans and the Angolans, his lack of full enthusiasm for Savimbi created tension between the State Department and Savimbi himself. And in Mozambique, after the softer leftist government there, cut ties with Soviets and guerrilla groups, the Reagan administration tried to send them some aid, leading American right-wingers to tear their hair out, seeing the abandonment of another valued friend,

the anti-communist Renamo faction, which was fighting that soft left government. But it would be wrong to say that diplomacy was carrying the day, even if the diplomat Chester Crocker's preferred policy was winning out. South Africa and its allies continued to operate however they pleased militarily, to the point that the supposed diplomatic achievement of the past year, The Lusaka Accords between the MPLA and South Africa was already on the Fritz. In mid-July of 1984, South African commandos blew up oil pipelines in Angola's Cabinda province,

followed a few days later by the mining of ships in Luanda Harbor. Quote, Unita claimed credit for both operations, writes historian Piero Glehissas, but U.S. officials knew better. It had been Praetoria's hand, attempting to put an economic squeeze on Angola's throat. And almost a year later, in April 1985, the Angolan military again, quote, intercepted a nine-man South African commando team near Gulf's oil storage tanks in Malango. The South African defense forces immediately issued a flat denial, but a few hours later, it reversed itself. One of the prisoners confessed the real target. We were attacking Gulf oil.

Glehess adds, This was not the first time that the SADF had carried out sabotage missions in Angola, but it was the first time it had been caught red-handed. One month prior, Chester Crocker had been celebrating the delayed completion of the Lusaka Agreement, under which South Africans were supposed to be totaled. gone from Angolan territory. Following the attack on the Gulf oil tanks, the next phase of those talks

were scuttled by the Angolans. Glehissus argues that Pretoria's attacks, in addition to its continued opposition to any Swapo government in Namibia, illustrate that Luanda and Pretoria had different, virtually incompatible priorities. Quote, the entire negotiation was built on quicksand.

Near simultaneously, South Africa moved ahead with plans to create its own puppet government in Namibia based in the capital of Windhock. It was a move to exclude Swapo against the letter of a UN resolution and which subsequently opened up South Africa to another round of global criticism. But in the din of condemnations that reigned on South Africa from abroad, writes Clahesis, One friend stood firm, Jonas Savimbi. Although very much his own man, even Savimbi could not have afforded to bite a hand that fed him so well. And South Africa, in turn, needed all the friends it could get.

The apartheid government of South Africa said today that it's willing to sit down and talk peace with black nationalist leaders from Namibia and Angola. South Africa's foreign minister says he'll place no conditions on a conference of all parties in the area. Among those invited would be the leaders of the militant Southwest African People's Organization. Throughout President Reagan's tenure, writes researcher Kenneth McQuena. Quote, President Reagan did not merely avoid criticizing the South African government. In fact, despite overwhelming evidence of widespread exploitation and oppression of the black majority, Reagan repeatedly praised the Bata administration for making substantial reforms, end quote. This was the policy of constructive engagement or linkage in a nutshell.

But Reagan went even further than merely praising South Africa's hardline leader P.W. Balta. His White House loosened export controls for the apartheid state. In 1982, for example, the Commerce Department green lit the same. sale to South Africa of more than 2,000 shock batons, powered at 3,500 volts. And the year before, South Africa had restarted its chemical and biological warfare program, Project Coast, on the correct assumption that the Americans wouldn't punish them for it. Among the reforms for which Reagan had praised the South Africans was a new constitution,

which gave some rights to Indians and, and by that nation's vernacular, mixed or colored people. But it continued to exclude blacks. A CIA analysis published in 1986 describes what happened next. Quote, many blacks saw the constitutional changes as denying them any hope of increased political rights, and they gave up on Praetoria's intermittent

and slow reform program. violent resistance to government authority broke out in black townships, at first over economic grievances, but within a year largely motivated by a political agenda of total resistance to government authority. Despite the massive efforts to contain it, violence in black townships has resulted in some 2,000 killed in unrest-related incidents since September 1984, end quote. As a consequence, writes Pierre O'Glahesus. Quote, in late 1984, for the first time in U.S. history, South Africa became the subject of widespread debate in the United States, end quote.

In November and December, anti-apartheid protests became a daily occurrence nationwide, breaking into news coverage around the country. In mid-December, for example, civil rights icon Rosa Parks, and leaders of the American Jewish community were arrested for civil disobedience outside the South African embassy in Washington. A consumer boycott movement, as well as a revived effort to put sanctions on South Africa,

began to take root in Western countries. South African Bishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role as a non-violent campaigner against apartheid and met with Reagan in the Oval Office. Tutu pleaded with Reagan to push for an end to apartheid and to support a ban on investment in South Africa until it happened. The Gipper brushed him off, writing in his diary afterward that the problem with ending apartheid would be black-on-black violence. Quote, the bishop seems unaware, even though he himself is black, that part of the problem is tribal, not racial.

If apartheid ended now, there would still be civil strife between the black tribe. and quote. There was also a new wave of international sympathy and support for the African National Congress, the primary group resisting apartheid directly in South Africa. One of the ANC's leaders, Nelson Mandela, had served in prison for about 20 years by this point, having been arrested by the white regime in the early 1960s, with CIA help. sensing correctly that public opinion was swinging more against South Africa than at any point before, P.W. Bota made an offer to free Mandela, so long as the ANC surrendered its arms, functionally giving up the fight.

In February 1985, Mandela's daughter Zinzi read aloud Nelson's response to this offer, in a speech in Soweto that has since become the stuff of legend. My father says, I am a member of the African National Congress. He's been a member of the African National Congress, and I will remain a member of the African National Congress until the day I die. We spoke with historian Piero Glehissas about this moment and how it influenced another group of people to more directly intervene in the fight against apartheid, the Cubans.

And then you have the beginning. in the summer of 84 of the revolt in the townships, which impressed the whole world including in the United States. That's when you have the beginning of the anti-apartheid movement

in the United States in a serious way. And it impresses the humans very much. I remember reading the minutes of a conversation in Havana between Raoul Castro

and Joe Slovo was the Secretary General of the South African Communist Party and the leader of military arm of the N.C. In which Raul says, we need to learn about South Africa. Talk to us about Atalya. Tell us what we can do to help you. Washington also now had to contend with the upsurge in Africa. anti-apartheid sentiment, but from the other direction, writes Glehesas. Quote, that Americans had discovered the evils of apartheid, albeit belatedly, complicated Reagan's

policy of constructive engagement. A growing number of members of Congress began calling on the administration to impose sanctions on South Africa. An unusual jungle summit meeting in southern Africa, in Angola. It was a Conference of Rebel Leaders from Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Laos, and Angola, all fighting Marxist governments. As Peter Kent reports tonight, they agreed to cooperate in their efforts. Even as the United States appeared to be in a conflicted place over South Africa, with the possibility of a Reagan administration imposing sanctions on Pretoria, things were looking up for Jonas Savimbi and Yanita.

Throughout 1984, and despite the MPLA Praetoria-Lusaka Accord, writes Fred Bridgland, Savimbi had an assured supply of weapons and other materials from South Africa. A U.S. intelligence officer told me that in 1983, the rate of South African weapons deliveries had tripled, end quote. And as we've discussed, Savimbi and Unita and the South Africans, had translated those arms into battlefield gains. With these notches under his belt and an enthusiastic chorus in the right-wing press, Savimbi was able to embrace the role of Freedom Fighter, a label that President Reagan had been peppering his speeches with more and more as the years went by.

In fact, the term Freedom Fighter was coined by a right-wing political activist an adventurer named Jack Wheeler. In 1984, Wheeler had traveled to Savimbi's base at Jamba and filed a glowing profile of the Anita Leader for Libertarian Reason magazine. It was Jack Wheeler, according to the Washington Post, who got the phrase, Freedom Fighter, to be thrown around Reagan's speeches like it was a preposition. He was, in the words of one young conservative, the Indiana Jones,

of the right. He traveled to far-off places, met with anti-communist guerrillas, and then made their case in the United States. And in 1985, reports the Washington Post, Wheeler got the notion that all the guerrilla leaders he had met should convene in, quote-unquote, liberated territory, a media event of the first magnitude. So he persuaded Lou Lerman, the drugstore tycoon, former New York Kubernetes candidate and president of Citizens for America to sponsor a happening, end quote. The ammunition is live, the training is in deadly earnest. These guerrillas call themselves Unita. Their enemy is the Cuban-backed government of Angola, which they see as a tool of Soviet expansionism. These American conservatives are trying to make Unita an American tool of sorts.

by joining its firepower with other anti-Soviet guerrilla groups. Citizens for America has the blessing of the White House, but no official backing. The Americans brought guerrilla leaders from Nicaragua, Laos, and Afghanistan to Unita's remote headquarters for a strategy session. Jack Wheeler's co-pilot in setting up this endeavor was a 26-year-old Jack Abram. Former president of the college Republicans, then flack for South Africa, future lobbyist for anybody who'd pay, and eventual convict in 2006 on corruption charges. Together, Jacks Wheeler and Abramoff organized in June 1985 what they called the Democratic International, but which became better known as the Jamba Jamboree.

The citizens for America organizers are hoping this gathering of anti-Soviet guerrilla leaders in a remote corner of Angola will provide immediate benefits in downtown Washington. Washington. The Nicaraguan contra delegation was obviously impressed by training and firepower demonstrations put on by the South African-backed Unita troops. In an interview over 20 years later with a documentary filmmaker, the ex-Ragan speechwriter turned disgraced congressman Dana Rorabacher, he gave one account of where the idea for the event came about.

From the 2010 documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money. The host of the Democratic International was Jonas Savimbi, while the three visiting anti-communist factions were Laotian guerrillas, Nicaraguan Contras, and Afghan Mujahideen. A group called Citizens for America organized the shindig. Its funder, Lou Lerman, was born to the right-aid family fortune and had been recently defeated by Mario Cuomo in the New York governor's race. Lerman was an excitable voice for far-right causes, such as anti-Soviet proxy wars, and returning to the gold standard.

The original guest list for the Jamboree had to be trimmed because of political difficulties, reported Newsweek at the time. Quote, the Pakistani government blocked the departure of Afghan rebel leaders, and Lerman had to settle for the movement's representatives in Washington. Renamo, the anti-communist rebel organization from Mozambique, was also invited, but South Africa refused to allow them passage to Angola. The Cambodian rebels, also known as the Khmer Rouge, were also no-shows, though rebel leader Sonsan passed on a message of solidarity. Still, to Lerman's credit, it isn't often, or indeed ever, that you airlift Afghans, Nicaraguan contras, and lotion insurgents to the headquarters of Jonas Savimbi's Unita." Despite South Africa's absence from the event, and Savimbi, as ever, declined to mention his biggest patrons, a reporter from the Miami Herald did notice that, quote,

most of the vehicles, food and soft drinks available in Jamba, were of South African origin. Reporters and dignitaries arrived on an overloaded DC3 propeller plane, which was nicknamed the Vomit Comet. And at the end of the jamboree, while Lou Lerman quickly ditched the event after his own remarks in a different plane, the delegates and the press spent more than 24 anxious hours at the desolate air strip waiting for the Vomit Comet, according to Newsweek. quote, during a long night in the jungle, the party huddled around a fire as you need a troop stood guard. Shortly before dawn, a lion roared, and everyone jerked awake.

The tenderfoot's because they thought it was the plane and the old jungle hands because they knew it was a lion. Organizers handed out copies of the Declaration of Independence to stress their belief that American democracy is the way to victory. There was even a message of support from President Reagan, delivered, and New York millionaire. Their goals are our goals. Good luck. And God bless you. Sincerely, President Ronald Reagan.

Reagan's letter sounded like a ringing declaration, noted Newsweek. But the presidential blessing was in fact rather tepid. Lerman's original plan had called for Reagan to make a video cassette greeting the delegates. But the National Security Council, preferred a more subdued approach that an NSC aide described as a way to, quote, express our support, but keep our distance. Still, Reagan's dealers, George Shultz, and Chester Crocker, were not pleased with the attention-seeking tactics here,

which they viewed as what Crocker called South Africa's wishful thinking on its political situation. That this was as staged as a PR event could be was clear to its attendees. A reporter for the New York Times noted that, quote, the translator for the Lausian group seemed not too sure of the name of his host, referring to Mr. Savimbi repeatedly as Dr. Zimbabwe, the name of another African country, end quote. Although most journalists and historians directly credit Jack Wheeler and Jack Abramoff with organizing the jamboree, Chester Crocker in his memoir suggests its inspiration came from someone else.

CIA director Bill Casey. Says Crocker, how exactly did Lerman dream up the idea of carrying the Pat Buchanan Bill Casey battle cry to the remotest reaches of Angola's Kwondo-Cubango province? Who do you suppose drafted the letter

and lobbied tirelessly until it was approved and signed by Reagan or his signature machine? Who coordinated the logistics, communications, press coverage, and security of travelers from around the world, into a military camp, appearing on no published map, in a war zone accessible only to South African military pilots and friendly air service contractors.

End quote. In Washington, the House today broke a four-year foreign aid impasse. It approved a $12,700 million authorization bill that includes U.S. aid to rebels fighting in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Angola. The Senate passed the compromise measure yesterday, and the bill now goes to the president who is expected to sign it. Not since 1981 have the Senate and House been able to resolve policy disputes and agree on a foreign aid bill. With the jamboree behind them, the Savimbi lobby in Washington now had something more meaningful to offer Unita. The second boost to

Savimbi's cause, writes Elaine Windrich, quote, came with the repeal of the Clark Amendment, which occurred in the Senate and in the House a month later in July 1985. Jonas Savimbi was ecstatic. For nine years, the United States had been specifically prohibited from sending open aid to factions in the Angola conflict. Much as open aid was prohibited to Nicaragua's anti-communist Contras.

But now, Now, said Savimbi in a radio address, there is a possibility for the world's most powerful country economically and technologically to render more open assistance for our struggle, end quote. Luanda, furious about the breakthrough for Savimbi, ended its peace talks with the South Africans. Major newspaper editorial boards largely criticized Reagan's pro-Sivimbi moves. The Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, and New York Times, all characterized it as part of Reaganite plans to fan the flames of war on at least three different continents.

And privately, that was also the position of Reagan's own State Department. In the fall of 1985, two of the biggest pro-Sivimbi voices in Congress, Florida Democrat Claude Pepper and New York Republican Jack Kemp, they began the push for an offensive. official $27 million aid package to Unita. Although Crocker and Schultz had supported repealing the Clark Amendment, they were Reagan men after all, they wanted any new aid to be covert support. Overt support would be impossible to get delivered, given that neighboring countries did not recognize Savimbi's and South Africa's struggle as legitimate. A fact that Schultz reports reportedly could not get through the heads of Pepper, Kemp, and their Senate counterpart,

Bob Dole. Some administration officials wish the right wing would pipe down. The president wants to send Zimbi some covert aid, but as one official here put it, the more they shout about it, the harder it is for us to do anything. Deborah Potter, CBS News, the State Department. So this aid package was scuttled. In an unusual team-up of Liberal Democrats and the Reagan administration, itself. But four days after the spat with Kemp, Reagan authorized yet another secret program

to hand Savimbi lethal aid, approved at $18 million a few months later. If that doesn't seem like much of a commitment against the hundreds of millions or billions in today's money committed by the Cubans and Soviets over the years, that's because it wasn't. As was the case a decade earlier, under Kissinger in 1975. The U.S. now merely wanted to tie down the Soviet Union and its allies, not to take out the MPLA. Chester Crocker says as much in his memoir. We could help in specific areas and make a contribution to Unita morale.

But there was no question of creating conditions for a Unita victory. The underlying Angolan military balance was beyond the reach of anything under consideration in Washington. Still, the Savimbi lobby was adamant. Conservatives plan to make aid for Angolan rebels, their primary foreign policy objective next year, reported the New York Times. And this week, the administration,

which had been supporting American corporations in Angola, suddenly changed its mind. We point out of them that they're in the middle of a war zone, that they're also in the middle of a, Rather hot political debate in this country. Chevron refused to be interviewed for this story. American conservatives are now saying that no one will get the Republican nomination for president in 1988 who does not support Jonas Savimbi, the African socialist.

Last episode, we discussed the capture of the Angolan town of Mavinga, how in 1981, Unita took control of that fortified town, which it then used to demonstrate to the form. press just how much control it had over the Angolan Southeast and East. In the four years since Mavinga's capture, the Angolans, Soviets, Soviets, and Cubans had not just twiddled their thumbs over its fall. They instead spent much time considering how to win it back. The debate, which began in early 1984, was emblematic of the difference between the Cuban and the Soviet approaches to the war, writes Clehesses. Quote, the Cubans favored almost continuous small-scale operations

that would involve all the Angolan brigades. The Soviets frowned on this. These small operations don't produce results, complained one senior Soviet officer. By late 1985, the Angolans had warmed up to the Soviet idea of a big offensive to take back Mavinga. Operation Second Congress, as it was dubbed, began on August 18th, deploying 6,000 men accompanied by 60 Soviet advisors. Still convinced the Soviets were wrongheaded in their thinking, the Cubans had notably declined to participate. The offensive, if anything, was perhaps too successful when it began.

Unita was unable to stop the MPLA forces, and South Africa was forced to show its hand. As the Washington Post put it, South Africa revealed the quote-unquote open secret of its support for Savimbi by deploying the largest number of South African forces to Angola since 1975 to stop the MPLA advance on Mvinga.

Still overseas, there's been another attack by South Africa against its neighbor Angola. The South Africans call it a preemptive strike against what they say are guerrilla forces preparing to attack in Namibia or southwest Africa, which South Africa rules. South Africa withdrew its semi-permanent troops from Angola in June, but warned there could be cross-border raids. Although the Angolan forces were forced to retreat later that autumn, as the Cubans had

predicted what happened, per Glehessus, the revelation of extensive South African military support for Savimbi, which had previously been the stuff of off the wrecked. or on background information in news articles, this revelation would create new problems for you need a support in the U.S. as well as at the United Nations. At the same time, the failure on the ground of this MPLA offensive had deepened Fidel Castro's desire for a new strategy in Angola, quote, one that would force the South Africans out permanently. His first move was to pressure the Soviets. He told them that South African air superiority over Southern Angola had to be defeated.

His exact words were, South Africa has its hands in Angola. It is time to cut them off. I think that if we hit them hard, we will deepen the crisis of apartheid. In February 1986, Castro arrived in Russia for the inauguration of the Soviet Union's new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he would be meeting for the first time to pitch him on sending air support to Angola. Though Castro was an honored guest of the event, they turned him down on the air support. As Gorbachev's first months unfolded, still more requests from the Cubans were turned down as well.

But militarily, fortune favored the Angolans. Unita had launched an offensive in the summer of 1986 on the town of Quito Canevali with South African assistance. Not only did this Unita attack fail, but the MPLA replied with a successful tank counterattack. I have never seen people run so fast, recalled South African officer Jan Breitenbach. And thereafter, a kind of military stasis again prevailed. things may have been looking up for the MPLA on the war front, but the domestic situation was still as grim as ever. In addition to the ongoing debt crisis choking most of the third world, the 1986 decline in the price of oil led to a loss of more than $200 million for Angola's coffers.

There was also, writes Piero Glehessus, quote, the incompetence of the government and the growing corruption, what President Dos Santos himself called, quote, the excessive centralization in the methods of socialist planning, the excessive bureaucratization in the conduct of the economy, the disorganization and poor administration of state companies, the galloping in discipline, and the rampant corruption. The country's ills, Glehest, continues, were multiplied by the war.

Not only did the war force the government to divert a large, large share of its resources to the military budget, 46 to 47% in 87, according to an authoritative Polish report. But Praetoria and Jonas Savimbi systematically attacked economic targets, end quote. A New York Times reporter, James Brooke, who visited Luanda in January 1986, wrote that continuing attacks by Mr. Savimbi's guerrilla army, Unita, is blamed for rendering the diamond mines unprofitable, for destroying the food exporting sector, and for forcing suspension of most development projects in the interior.

Persistent hunger, if not outright, famine was one consequence. A UN report estimated that 120,000 tons of emergency food aid was required for Angola that year. According to Brooke, once a food exporter, Angola now imports most of its food. In this nation, twice the size of France, just 2% of the arable land is under cultivation.

At its second Congress in December 1985, the Angolan government reaffirmed its faith in the socialist development option, writes economist Fatima Mora-Rouro. Okay. But, quote, the oil market collapse of 1986, the failure to restore pre-independence production levels, the decline in living standards coupled with growing popular discontent and external financial pressures, forced the government to rethink the basic principles of its central planning economic philosophy, end quote. In his interview with James Brooke, Angola's top

central banker said that his country was interested in joining the International Monetary Fund. Another devastating problem in day-to-day civilian life was landmines. Not unlike the events in our past seasons covering Korea, Afghanistan, and Cambodia, the use of landmines in Angola, often unsophisticated but deadly all the same, was all too common. They were a cheap and effective way to deny territory in wartime, regardless of who they eventually blew up. A correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor painted a grisly picture after visiting Angola in the summer of 87. They wrote that some 15,000 Angolan civilians have lost arms, legs, or both, in what one UN aid official terms, this war that strikes from farm to farm. village to village, and then moves on again.

The reporter continues, quote, Western diplomats and aid workers here believe that Savimbi's men are the main culprits. Unable as yet to mount a conventional offensive on government strongholds near Luanda, the capital, Unita has in recent years focused much of its activity on economic targets. Transport vehicles are ambushed on main rural roads, the crucially important railway from Bengela on the coast into the east of Angola has been routinely targeted. It should also be mentioned that Cuba at this time, and despite its unwavering presence of tens of thousands of military and civilian personnel in Angola, was hurting. The global debt crisis and a drought, Rezschlahesus, meant that by 1986, the value of Cuba's hard currency receipts had sharply decreed.

and it was unable to meet its obligations to its Western creditors. This would affect economic growth and living standards, which had steadily improved in the early 1980s. But Cuba's economic straits still did not change its policy in Africa. The Reagan administration will play host to an African rebel leader next week. Jonas Simbibi will be asking the president for help in his 10-year-old guerrilla war against the Soviet-backer. Marxist government of Angola. Congress cut off USA to the Angolan rebels in 1976, and many on Capitol Hill are bitterly opposed to resuming it. We have more from Deborah Potter.

These rebel forces in Angola may soon get some help from the United States. President Reagan has tentatively decided to send them at least $15 million in secret military aid, and there are moves in Congress to supply even more in humanitarian assistance. Whatever was actually happening in Africa, the Savimbi lobby only seemed to grow more passionate in the middle of the 1980s. Some of it was ideological, and some of it was a set of particularly strong connections in the Reagan White House. But some of it was money. Protted by his battlefield losses, writes the Washington Post. Quote, Savimbi pursued an idea that had always offended some members. of his guerrilla organization. He began shopping for an influential Washington lobbying firm

to assist in prying open the aid pipeline from the United States. It did not take long to find help. Last month, Chevron warned that Abe to Savimbi may trigger reaction against U.S. commercial interests throughout Black Africa, and banker David Rockefeller said it would needlessly endanger American lives and American property. The opponents argue that, US support for the rebels would force the Soviets to step up their involvement and could lead to an escalation of violence.

There is an old saying, African saying, when two elephants fight, grass suffers. We don't want to be the grass. Opponents of Abe de Savimbi believe it can still be blocked, and they've got some allies within the administration. The United States has been trying to mediate between Angola and South Africa, and some officials warn that open support for the rebels would doubt. any hopes of a U.S. brokered peace. Beginning in the summer of 1985 to the tune of $600,000 a year, or roughly $2 million in 2025 numbers, Jonas Savimbi retained the services of the high-profile D.C. lobby shop, black,

Manifort, and Stone. With his money, quote, Savimbi received monthly updates on the shifting political moods in Washington and on the nuances of opinion in the national media. He was meticulously coached on everything from how to answer his critics to how to compliment his patrons. Throughout 1985 and into early 1986,

Black Manifort and Stone built on the enthusiasm for Savimbi among the key organizations of the new right, such as the Heritage Foundation and Conservative Cause. At the end of January 86, Savimbi flew to the United States for what would be his biggest press coup yet. The rebel leader was, quote, already assured a Sunday night segment on CBS's 60 Minutes, followed by appearances on ABC's Nightline and PBS's McNeill-Lear News Hour, as well as a possible cover story in Time magazine.

After 10 years, why do you think suddenly you've become? such a big deal here in the United States. What's your analysis of that? First of all, I think I have to take that opportunity to thank all my friends here, who have worked very hard to repeal the Clark Amendment. That was a tragedy. Because in 1976, when the Clark Amendment was voted, it was a green light for the Russians to invade our country. Then that was repealed, and they came here to thank them. And to tell them now, we should go ahead to try to get a democratic society in my country. What happens if you don't get any aid from the United States?

I hope that the American public, the Congress and the administration, they will understand that we will go on fighting because there is a resolve from our people to fight. We fought it alone for 10 years. And again, it will be a pity if with this new doctrine of Gorbachev to destroy the resistance movement. If Angola becomes a Soviet base, then the whole southern Africa may go. While Savimbi didn't end up on the cover of time,

a headline in the magazine did note Washington had rolled out the red carpet for an African rebel. He gave too many interviews to list and issued stern warnings to U.S. companies not to do business in MPLA-controlled Angola. In private, Savimbi received assurances that, yes, many more millions of dollars in secret aid were on the way. And, best of all, Savimbi even scored an official photo op with the big man himself, Ronald Reagan, in the Oval Office. There was an unusual meeting at the

White House today. President Reagan, as you know, very often meets with visiting heads of foreign governments. Today, his guest was a rebel leader trying to overthrow a government that President Reagan doesn't like. Jonas Savimbi is here in Washington seeking support for his efforts to overthrow the Marxist government of Angola in southern Africa. Sovimbi came to the White House today as sources revealed that the administration is already committed to some $15 million in covert aid to his forces, making Savimbi our contra in Africa. This week, the administration which had been Supporting American corporations in Angola suddenly changed its mind. We point out of them that they're in the middle of a war zone, that they're also in the middle of a rather hot political debate in this country.

By far the most rapturous reception for Jonas Savimbi, however, was at CPAC, the annual blockbuster event for the biggest names and organizations in conservative politics. They stood and they shouted their support for Savimbi, the Angolan rebel leader who's become the the darling of the American conservative movement. And I pay you my tribute. I follow you and pray for you and thank God for you. The debate over aiding Savimbi's rebels has been called an ideological Super Bowl. And last night's dinner had all the trappings of the big game. From the marching band to the cheering section, roaring approval when Savimbi asked for help.

Southern Africa will go. Moscow, unless we resist, unless we stop them in Angola. The conservatives have made support for Savimbi a political litmus test, and this was a chance for would-be Republican candidates to show they're on the team. We support the free people of Angola who are fighting for liberty and independence. Your cause is our cause. Savimbi was also profiled quite negatively in the mainstream American press. But those stories were a drop in the bucket.

Savimbi's full court press had gotten results. Quote, what Black Manifort and Stone achieved further reported Time magazine was quickly dubbed Savimbi Sheik. Doors swung open all over town for the guerrilla leader, who was dapperly attired in a Nehru suit and ferried about in a stretch limousine, end quote. The writer John Judas, reporting for In These Times magazine, was one of the few U.S. journalists who pointed out how the Unita lobby wheel might be self-greasing. Quote, Savimbi will bank the money from the U.S., which he will use not only for weapons, but also to pay for public relations in Washington. Black Manafort and Stone, with Jack Kemp in tow, will agitate for more aid,

and so on, and so on. The largest portrait in the main camp of the Unita rebels pays tribute to the two men viewed as saviors here. Unita leader Jonas Savimbi and Ronald Reagan. The Marxist government controls two-thirds of Angola with the help of Soviet advisors and 30,000 Cuban troops. Unita protects its third with South African and now American help. This year, with President Reagan's backing, Congress approved tens of millions of dollars worth of American military equipment to the Unita rebels. On Savimbi's shopping list were expensive

stinger anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank weapons. I'm telling you that we got all we have asked President Riga to give us. Last week, the Reverend Jesse Jackson toured Angola. He left critical of U.S. policy here. If we can respect Angola now to come here and work and come here and pump oil and come here and sell farm products, we can respect them enough.

to recognize them officially and have a sound diplomatic relationship. In March 1986, the UNITA aid program really got going, with communications equipment, anti-tank missiles, on top of what would be the crown jewel in the anti-communist guerrilla arsenal. That spring, Savimbi finally received one of the highest priority items on his wish list. Stinger, anti-aircraft missiles, to shoot down sofas. helicopters, the same stuff the Mujahideen was getting in Afghanistan. Anti-communist guerrillas in Afghanistan and Angola have been at the front line in the fight against the spread of communism in the third world, and now they'll be better armed.

The Reagan administration has decided to give the rebels Stinger missiles. The Stinger is a U.S. made anti-aircraft missile. It's portable, shoulder-fired, and capable of hitting a helicopter or jet from a distance of five miles. There to be used to shoot down Soviet planes and helicopter gunships. According to the man who coined the phrase, the Reagan doctrine of supporting freedom fighters has come all the way out of the closet. The Stinger missiles and the new CIA support were supposed to be kept secret, in part, so that the weapons could be routed through Mobutu Seseko's Zaire, which, like other black-ruled African states, did not want to be seen working with South Africa.

But, despite leaks about the shipments to the news media, the operation proceeded apace. For the first time, notes Klahesas, CIA officers were stationed in Savimbi's Jamba base. Whilst the operation would quickly expand, writes scholar Subukwe Odinga, the CIA began the flow of military equipment to Savimbi, in March of 86, using a single C-130 transport aircraft,

chartered from St. Lucia Airways, and emblazoned with the airline's logo, to ferry supplies from Zaire to Yanita's Jamba headquarters in the southeast of Engold. So pleased was the agency with the efficiency of the operation that its then deputy director, Robert Gates, later called the airlift a masterpiece of logistical play. planning. End quote.

Aid that Unita's leader, Jonas Savimbi says, makes all the difference. In 1985, we did not have the support of the Americans. Now we have that support. And they are playing a decisive role here. Despite the massive influx of weapons and Savimbi's comments, which you just heard, 1986 was not a year of battlefield's success for Unita. And close to the end of the year, there would also be a political disaster in Washington, one that would frustrate Savimbi's D.C. cheerleaders for years to come.

Good evening. This is the CBS evening news. Dan Rather reporting. Even as the president and vice president promise full disclosure, another key witness summoned to Congress today disclosed nothing. The president's just resigned National Security Advisor John Poindexter took the fifth. on everything. Among other major developments tonight is the still unfolding secret double dealing of weapons to Iran and cash to the contras. Reliable Western intelligence sources estimate the total cost of the arms Iran bought to be over $100 million, and that the profits that were skimmed off and sent to numbered Swiss bank accounts could be double what was disclosed by Attorney General Edwin Meese. The Washington Post says the Swiss account used to handle profits from weapons sold to Iran was also used by the CIA to fund

other money provided by Congress to rebel groups in Afghanistan and Angola. According to intelligence sources, Swiss banks do contain a variety of CIA accounts through which pass money to support guerrilla movements in Angola, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua, programs that have been secretly approved by Congress. Congressional sources are saying tonight they do not believe CIA Director Casey has been totally candid in his appearances before committees. Ever since Ronald Reagan had been elected, some of the most powerful people in his administration worked overtime to secretly get weapons

to their favored freedom fighters around the world, in Nicaragua, in Afghanistan, and of course, in Angola. But in the fall of 1986, a key plank of these secret schemes came crashing down, literally. That October, a pilot working for the CIA, Eugene Hassel. was shot down by the left-wing Sandinistas, flying over Nicaragua. What now, Rambo, one of the militants who captured the pilot, reportedly asked him the next day. In Nicaragua, writes historian Greg Grandin, Hassanfuss confessed that he was part of a clandestine network

that was illegally supplying arms to the Reagan-supported Contras, flying out of Yopongo, El Salvador, and dropping weapons caches at arranged spots. Grandin continues. Quote, then, a few weeks later, on November 3, 1986, a Lebanese weekly newspaper was the first to report the other side of the story, that key Reagan administration officials, including Robert McFarlane, then Reagan's National Security Advisor, and Vietnam veteran and charismatic Catholic colonel Oliver North, an NSC staffer,

had visited revolutionary Iran and worked out an arm sale with representatives Ayatollah Ruhola Khomeini. Follow-up reports initially presented the operation as a bid by the White House to open a back channel with Tehran to negotiate the release of U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon. But then it was eventually revealed that the Prophet from the off-the-book's arms sales to Iran, which included the participation of Israel, were used to purchase the weapons being passed to the Contras. Congress, in 1982 and 1984, had prohibited the United States from providing military aid to the Contras. This was a workaround. End quote. In March of 87, Reagan, who had vociferously denied that

any of this was going on, was forced to own up to the burgeoning scandal, which was dubbed Iran-dash-Contra. And a now-unified Democratic Congress got to work forming committees to investigate the whole affair. A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true. but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. Iran-Contra is too vast and unwieldy a saga to fully explain here. There are too many bit players, U.S. politicians, cocaine traffickers, arms dealers, secret religious orders, and so on,

that take us away from the main thrust of our story. But, even as most of the Iran-Contra attention was focused on how Reagan had sent weapons to the Islamic revolutionary government in Iran, a smattering of news coverage indicated that Angola had been caught up in the racket as well. A key element of the scandal linked to CIA director Bill Casey was to use weapons captured on the battlefield, Soviet arms in Angola or Palestinian weapons in Lebanon,

and to take them and send them to freedom fighters, off the books. According to a memo obtained by the case, congressional investigators, Israel and China were proposed as partners for the Soviet weapons scheme. A story from the Guardian describes it, quote, the American idea in using Soviet weaponry was to disguise their origin and pretend they had been captured from Soviet-supported government forces. The memo proposed that China could, quote, produce an ongoing supply of Soviet-compatible arms, end quote, which it would deliver to Israel in return for modern Israeli weapons. Israel would then give the U.S. the fake Soviet weapons in exchange for even more advanced American

high technology weapons. China and Israel would each improve their arsenals, while the U.S. would have at its disposal, quote, a large and continuous supply of Soviet technology and weapons to channel to freedom fighters worldwide, mandating neither the consent or awareness of the Department of State or Congress, end quote. But the profits from the arms for hostages deal, also reportedly made their way to Jonas Savimbi. Sources told the New York Post that profits from the Iranian arm sale were used to purchase military hardware from China, adding that the CIA appears to have been aware that profits from the Iran arms sale were going to the Afghan and Angolan rebels, and quote.

questioners in Congress did not grill witnesses about Angola, however. This was despite the fact that one of the ringleaders, Colonel Oliver North, the military zealot on the National Security Council, often claimed that he had been a veteran of two wars, Vietnam and Angola. Quote, when North was in Angola, noted an L.A. Times reporter, remains unclear. North, fascinated with war in Angola, hoped networked, could grow beyond Iran-Contra effort, read one headline in the Wall Street Journal. Although one of North's main co-conspirators denied that arms had reached Savimbi and Unita through the Iran-Contra network,

a different source told the journal, Angola was a constant refrain with Ali. But ultimately, exactly how Angola fits into Iran-Contra has never been fully mapped out. quote, though elements of the Africa connection surfaced on a few occasions during testimony, wrote one critic of the investigation in a New York Times op-ed, committee members never pursued the angle, never asked a single question, or subpoenaed a single document relating to charges that the federal government was arming Anita, end quote. But there are some facts we do know.

One particular irony of the scandal was that when you, Eugene Hassanfus had been shot down over Nicaragua, he had been flying a plane for a CIA front company called Southern Air Transport. As it turned out, the MPLA government in Luanda, which was fighting the CIA, was also contracting with Southern Air Transport, having very few options for air cargo in Angolan skies. Apparently unaware of the company's history, reports the LA Times. The Soviet and Cuban-backed Angolan government in 1984 paid Southern Air Transport to run a busy airlift

that kept two Lockheed L-100 cargo planes flying nearly around the clock, according to diamond industry sources. The Angola contract accounted for about 65% of Southern Air Transport's income, end quote. Luanda, after learning more about Southern Air, promptly canceled its dealings with the airline. But while Angola's business with Southern Air was done, one of the CIA's most notorious proprietaries, or front companies, lived on. A decade later, in the mid-1990s, Southern Air Transport relocated to Columbus, Ohio. There, it fell into the control of Les Wexner, CEO of the parent company of Victoria's Secret and Abercrombie and Fitch. Wexner used the airline to bring merchandise from Hong Kong

to the States, and the person who reportedly arranged the sale and relocation of Southern Air Transport? Jeffrey Epstein, Les Wexner's financial advisor, suspected spy, reported blackmailer and convicted pedophile. After Iran-Contra, the Reagan administration could no longer afford to play Cold Warrior so aggressively. CIA director Bill Casey, who was as close to the center of the sprawling network of scheming as one could get, Casey died in May 1987 of a brain tumor. Defense Secretary Kapp Weinberger was tossed out and later indicted, though the charges went away. National Security Advisor, John Poindexter, was gone too.

The conditions, for the first time, in a long time, seemed healthy for diplomacy in Southern Africa. From ADC, this is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Good evening, the president has suffered a major foreign policy defeat. The scenario was this. The Congress voted four economic sanctions against South Africa. The president vetoed the bill. First, the House rejected his veto, and today the Senate overrooted as well. The sanctions are now law.

IBM today joined the caravan of U.S. corporate logos leaving South Africa, up to a point anyway. As General Motors did yesterday, IBM said it will sell its operations to a group of its own South African managers. CBS News correspondent Alan Pizzi reports. The tide had been turning at home, with Congress passing sanctions against the part-tide South Africa in October 1986. overriding a veto from Reagan. Bilateral negotiations with the Angolan's started up again in April of 87. Even the Cubans now believed, according to our archival documents, that it is possible to reach an agreement as the South African regime is now weaker than in the past, end quote.

Or, as Castro himself put it, the circumstances for a settlement have now ripened. But Castro was wrong, writes Piero Glehessus. Quote, the South Africans were not ready to negotiate seriously. They still dreamed of bringing Savimbi to power, and they were not interested in free elections in Namibia. The Angolian Civil War has become a test of superpower prestige on the African continent. The South African army is deeply involved here too. South Africa has quietly helped you need it for over a decade,

but its commanders now openly admit that South African troops have become directly involved in the fighting. The South African defense minister said his army was there to stop Soviet expansionism. Mike Betcher, NBC News, Southern Africa. Although there would be more diplomacy in the future and more discussion of how peace would come about in Angola, it would not be talks in conference rooms that dictated the next phase of this brutal conflict. It would be what happened in a small town in southeastern Angola, called Quido-Quanival.