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CONFLICTING MISSIONS ENVISIONING CUBA louis a. pérez jr., editor CONFLICTING MISSIONS HAVANA, WASHINGTON, AND AFRICA, 1959-1976 PIERO GLEIJESES the university of north carolina press chapel hill and london To Setsuko Ono and Letterina Gleijeses CONTENTS Acknowledgments xiii Note on Citations xv Abbreviations xvii Prologue 5 1 Castro’s Cuba, 1959–1964 12 2 Cuba’s First Venture in Africa: Algeria 30 3 Flee! The White Giants Are Coming! 57 4 Castro Turns to Central Africa 77 5 Che in Zaire 101 6 A Successful Covert Operation 124 7 American Victory 137 8 Cubans in the Congo 160 9 Guerrillas in Guinea-Bissau 185 10 Castro’s Cuba, 1965–1975 214 11 The Collapse of the Portuguese Empire 230 12 The Gathering Storm: Angola, January–October 1975 246 13 South Africa’s Friends 273 14 Pretoria Meets Havana 300 15 Cuban Victory 328 16 Repercussions 347 17 Looking Back 373 Appendix 397 Notes 399 Bibliography 503 Index 539 ILLUSTRATIONS ‘‘Let me take you to the Casbah’’ 33 Sara Perelló, a Cuban doctor in Algeria 34 CIA-sponsored mercenaries lead captured Zairean rebels to be hanged 72 Smiling mercenaries argue for the privilege of doing the stringing up 73 Che Guevara with Angolan rebel leaders in Brazzaville 83 Havana and Moscow, 1964: ‘‘The tone was bitter’’ 94 Víctor Dreke, Che’s closest aide in Zaire 138 The Cubans leave Zaire 144 Che bids farewell to his men 147 The Cubans go to the Congo 162 The Cuban ambassador and two North Vietnamese doctors in Brazzaville 167 ‘‘The best gift’’: Cubans carry out the first vaccination campaign against polio in the Congo 169 Angolan guerrilla women 180 Amílcar Cabral visits the Cuban military camp in Brazzaville 198 They called him ‘‘The Wizard’’: A Cuban doctor in guerrilla territory in Guinea-Bissau 200 The first Cuban woman to fight in Africa 205 Castro as a Soviet puppet in Angola 306 Quifangondo: The battle to control Luanda 310 South African prisoners of war 322 ‘‘Lord Kissinger Needs You’’ 335 ‘‘Knuckle-rapping’’ 336 Castro plans his next move in Angola 342 Castro to South Africa: Withdraw or face a Cuban attack 344 Kissinger discovers Africa 391 MAPS Cuba 2 Africa 3 Algeria 40 Rebel Areas in Zaire, August 1964 65 Fizi-Baraka, Eastern Zaire, 1965 110 Central Africa 161 Cabinda, Angola 176 Dembos and Nambuangongo, Angola 179 Guinea-Bissau 186 Angola 234 Northern Angola 267 The South African Advance into Southern Angola 302 The Battle of Quifangondo, Angola 309 Military Situation in Angola, mid-November 1975 313 Angola, Central Front, November–December 1975 315 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Setsuko Ono read this manuscript with insight and care. She was a tough but gracious critic who could always find the right words. Her comments, ever so insightful, ever so intelligent, stimulated me throughout my journey. Her literary flair, her talent and her sensitivity are clearly evident in her own book— chronicling her professional experience in international development—which will soon appear in Japan and, I am confident, in the United States. I benefited from the assistance and advice of Isaac Cohen, Margaret Crahan, Jim Hershberg, William LeoGrande, Wayne Smith, Gisela García Blanco, Chris- tine Messiant, Peter Kornbluh, Arne Westad, Teresita Múñoz, Sergio Guerra, Jose Abilio Lomba Martins, Lars Rudebeck, Lou Pérez, Joti Kohli, Kathrin Klein, Isabelle de Ruyth, Ben Jones, Jennifer Taylor, and Christopher Leroy. My visits to and from Africa—at a time when my eyesight was very poor—would have been far less restful without the warm hospitality of my friend Elizabeth Faroudja in Paris, and my research in the Belgian archives would have been far less produc- tive without the assistance of Ambassador Jean de Ruyth. Bringing this manuscript to press was eased enormously by the professionalism and grace of Elaine Maisner and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina Press. Every archive I visited had a professional and courteous staff, but I have a particular soft spot for Regina Greenwell at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Jim Yancey at the Jimmy Carter Library. At SAIS, where I teach, three superb research librarians—Barbara Prophet, Kathy Picard, and Linda Carlson—helped me with great skill and good cheer. At the Central Committee of the Commu- nist Party of Cuba, in Havana, Ivys Silva Jomarrón coordinated the flow of de- classified Cuban documents with admirable efficiency, grace, and tact. When I began my research, I saw Ivys as a stern guardian; now I consider her a good and esteemed friend. I suspect I would still be waiting for a visa to do research in Cuba had it not been for my dear friend Gloria León, who was then the head of the U.S. section at the University of Havana. I had broached the idea of this book in Cuba in late and had received polite expressions of interest, but when I tried to re- turn to Cuba the following spring to begin the research, I was unable to obtain a visa. Gloria began pestering the Cuban authorities on my behalf. She also en- listed the help of her friends, among them Oscar García, dean of the Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales of Havana, who lent his prestige to my quest and invited me to lecture at his institute. Finally, in December , I set foot in Havana again. There I met Jorge Risquet, a Central Committee member who had played an important role in Africa for many years and who had been in Guatemala as a young man. I had written a book about Guatemala. Risquet read it, found it honest (although ideologically weak), and a link was established that led to the authorities’ decision to grant me access to the archives. None of this would have been possible without Gloria’s relentless efforts and Oscar García’s courage in sponsoring a foreigner who not only has contacts with CIA officials as part of his academic research but was rumored to be a CIA agent himself. My debt to Gloria has grown over the years. Throughout, she has remained my invaluable adviser. She helps me understand things Cuban. I hate to think how many gaffes and faux pas I would have made during the six years I re- searched this book had I not been able to count on her advice and guidance. In Havana, I acquired thousands of pages of documents and also three dear friends who helped me to understand their country: Antonio López López, a lover of history, taciturn, warm, and deeply intelligent; Hedelberto López Blanch, an irreverent and brilliant journalist; and Roberto González Gómez, one of Cuba’s most insightful intellectuals, who read several drafts of my manuscript and was unstinting with his penetrating criticism. Several protagonists graciously read all or part of the manuscript: in the United States, Assistant Secretary Nathaniel Davis, Under Secretary Joseph Sisco, Tom Killoran (the consul general in Luanda in ), and Robert Hults- lander (the CIA station chief there in ); in Cuba, Jorge Risquet and Víctor Dreke, Che Guevara’s closest aide in Zaire; in Angola, Lúcio Lara, one of the most prominent leaders of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of An- gola. To them, and to all those who agreed to be interviewed for this book, I give my sincere thanks. And I offer my sincere thanks also to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for a grant for research and writing and to the Latin America and Africa programs of the Social Science Research Council: their generous assistance made it far easier for me to do research in Cuba, Africa, and Europe. I also received travel grants from the John F. Kennedy Library, the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, and the Gerald R. Ford Library. And now I come to the person to whom I owe the greatest intellectual debt, Nancy Mitchell. I have never met anyone who writes as well as Nancy. What- ever literary merits this book may have, they are largely due to her skill. This is my first debt. But Nancy has done more than improve my prose. A superb scholar, she has nudged me and pushed me—she shoved me, at times—forc- ing me to probe deeper, to avoid easy conclusions that addressed only part of the problem. She has made me search into corners I wanted to overlook, dig deeper when I thought the job was done, and she has driven me to despair with her relentless demands for more intellectual rigor and stronger evidence. Not only did Nancy egg me forward, she also helped me find the answers. This is my second debt. Writing a book can be a lonely endeavor. Nancy was there through my seven years of researching, writing, and rewriting: she read every draft. She helped make it fun. This is my third debt. Ever more, I hope that our collaboration will continue through all my books, and all of hers. NOTE ON CITATIONS cuban archives The majority of the documents I acquired from Cuban government archives are from the archives of the Centro de Información de la Defensa de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, Havana (CID-FAR). Therefore, when a Cuban docu- ment is cited, the reader may assume that it is from the CID-FAR, unless otherwise indicated. I have deposited photocopies of the Cuban documents I cite in the library of the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. (see p. 503). cuban names Cubans have two family names but generally use only one (usually, but not always, the first) in everyday life. Throughout the manuscript I follow the common usage, except to distinguish between two people with the same pre- ferred name.

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