Cuba, Angola, and Henry's Realpolitik

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Ex-CIA Man Criticizes Kissinger

By GEORGE GEDDA
.c The Associated Press

  
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's support
for the anti-communist faction in Angola's civil war during the
mid-1970s was a major contributor to instability in southern Africa
at that time, a former CIA official contends.

Robert Hultslander served as CIA station chief in Angola from August
to November 1975, a time when the country became a Cold War
battleground as it gained independence after centuries of Portuguese
colonial rule.

Concerned about another Soviet conquest after the fall of South
Vietnam in the spring of 1975, the Ford administration launched a
covert operation in Angola to prevent the leftist MPLA from gaining
power over two rival groups.

In response to Kissinger's thesis that an MPLA victory would have a
destabilizing victory in southern Africa, Hultslander said: ``Of
course, the opposite proved true. It was our policies which caused
the destabilization.''

Efforts to reach Kissinger for comment were not immediately
successful.

Hultslander's comments were in response to questions posed by Piero
Gleijeses, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University, in
preparation for his newly published book, ``Conflicting Missions:
Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976.''

Excerpts of Hultslander's comments and other documents were released
Monday by the National Security Archive, an independent,
non-governmental research institute and library located at The George
Washington University in Washington.

Hultslander said, ``Kissinger was determined to challenge the Soviet
Union, although no vital U.S. interests were at stake,'' according to
the documents.

Congress voted to end the covert U.S. operation in late 1975. The
MPLA prevailed in the struggle, but has faced armed resistance from
the UNITA rebels ever since.

During the Reagan administration, the congressional ban on U.S.
involvement in Angola was lifted, and military aid was secretly
funneled to UNITA for roughly six years.

Ironically, hopes for peace in the devastated country grew Saturday
when the UNITA rebels said they intended to sign a cease-fire this
week with the MPLA.

Hultslander said he came to the view in 1975 that the MPLA was better
suited than UNITA or a third faction, the FNLA, to govern the
fledgling country.

``Despite the uncontested communist background of many of the MPLA's
leaders, they were more effective, better educated, better trained
and better motivated,'' he said.

``The rank and file also were better motivated, particularly the
armed combatants, who fought harder and with more determination.''

As part of this tumultuous period, South Africa sent troops to Angola
to fight the MPLA, prompting Cuba to send troops in the MPLA's
defense.

Gleijeses, citing information from newly declassified documents, said
the United States initiated its covert operations in Angola weeks
before the arrival of any Cubans, not afterward, as Washington
claimed.

Cuba eventually sent 50,000 troops to Angola, finally withdrawing in
the early 1990s as part of a U.S.-brokered deal.

AP-NY-04-01-02 1816EST
 
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