The World Was Going Our Way (102 page)

Read The World Was Going Our Way Online

Authors: Christopher Andrew

Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Accounts, #Espionage, #History, #Europe, #Ireland, #Military, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Modern (16th-21st Centuries), #20th Century, #Russia, #World

 
 
23.
Africa: Introduction
 
 
 
1
. Davidson et al. (eds.),
South Africa and the Communist International
, vol. 1, pp. xxii, xlv, 2-5.
 
 
2
. McClellan, ‘Africans and Blacks in the Comintern Schools’.
 
 
3
. Superintendent E. Parker, ‘Secret Report on Communist Party Activities in Great Britain Among Colonials’, 22 April 1930; cited in Howe,
Anticolonialism in British Politics
, p. 66.
 
 
4
. Suchkov, ‘Dzhomo Keniata v Moskve’, pp. 120-21.
 
 
5
. Davidson et al. (eds.),
South Africa and the Communist International
, vol. 1, pp. xxii, xlv, 12-23; vol. 2, pp. 46, 123, 239-40, 297-9.
 
 
6
. Lonsdale, ‘Jomo Kenyatta, God, and the Modern World’, pp. 31-3.
 
 
7
. Kirpichenko,
Razvedka
, p. 162.
 
 
8
. G. Vassiliev, quoted in Guimarães,
The Origins of the Angolan Civil War
, p. 161.
 
 
9
. Heldman,
The USSR and Africa
, p. 44.
 
 
10
. Kirpichenko,
Razvedka
, p. 162. The Department was later divided into two, the Ninth and Tenth, responsible for, respectively, Anglophone and Francophone Africa; see Appendix D.
 
 
11
. Nkrumah,
I Speak of Freedom
, pp. 262-3.
 
 
12
. Nkrumah,
Africa Must Unite
, p. 174.
 
 
13
. Mandela,
Long Walk to Freedom
, pp. 123-4, 137-8, 436, 562.
 
 
14
. See below, p. 442.
 
 
15
. Leonov,
Likholet’e
, p. 144. There is no suggestion that President Kerekou was involved with the KGB. He was unaware that his administration contained a number of KGB agents: LUR, who worked in the presidential office (k-8, 444), whom the KGB vainly hoped might be a future president; DODZH, one of his ministers (t-1, 188); ZINS, an intelligence officer (t-1, 189); and the diplomat DAG (vol. 4 ind., app. 3).
 
 
16
. See below, pp. 452-9.
 
 
17
. Leonov,
Likholet’e
, p. 144.
 
 
18
. Andrew and Gordievsky,
KGB
, p. 557. A GRU resident in Ghana and a KGB resident in Zambia, who were summoned back to Moscow during the Brezhnev era, were among a number of Soviet intelligence officers in Africa who were recalled for drunkenness (k-17, 129; vol. 8, app. 2, item 118).
 
 
19
. See below, pp. 454, 455, 459, 461.
 
 
20
. Guest,
Shackled Continent
, pp. 47-8; Andrew and Gordievsky,
KGB
, p. 558.
 
 
21
. See below, pp. 443, 463-5, 470.
 
 
22
. Previously the Communist Party of South Africa, it changed its name to the South African Communist Party in 1953.
 
 
23
. Guest,
Shackled Continent
, p. 231.
 
 
 
24.
The Cold War Comes to Africa
 
 
 
1
. General Calliès to Premier Edgar Faure, 4 April 1955, Vincennes, Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre, 1H/1103/Dossier (D) 1. We are grateful for this reference to Mathilde von Bülow, author of a path-breaking forthcoming Cambridge University PhD thesis on Franco-German relations and the Algerian War.
 
 
2
. k-3, 120.
 
 
3
. Horne,
A Savage War of Peace
, pp. 137-8.
 
 
4
. Ibid., pp. 404-6.
 
 
5
. Heldman,
The USSR and Africa
, p. 62.
 
 
6
. Kirpichenko blames the failure on ‘a schism in the leadership of the Algerian revolution’ in August 1962. Kirpichenko,
Razvedka
, pp. 79ff.
 
 
7
. On French suspicions of Anglo-Saxon conspiracies in the French Empire, see Andrew, ‘France: Adjustment to Change, ’ pp. 337, 339.
 
 
8
. vol. 6, ch. 14, part 4; Holland, ‘The Lie that Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination’, pp. 5-6. On KGB cultivation of
Paese Sera
and
Le Monde
see Andrew and Mitrokhin,
The Sword and the Shield
, pp. 300, 469- 470.
 
 
9
. Andrew,
For the President’s Eyes Only
, p. 253.
 
 
10
. Kirpichenko,
Razvedka
, pp. 97-8.
 
 
11
. Barron,
KGB
, p. 323.
 
 
12
. Shelepin to Khrushchev, memorandum No. 1861-Sh, 29 July 1961; decree No. 191/75-GS; vol. 6, ch. 5, part 5, p. 178. See above, p. 40.
 
 
13
. On Castro’s complaints, see above, pp. 45-6.
 
 
14
. Ben Bella also allowed Che to set up an Algerian base for Latin American revolutionaries through which arms were secretly channelled to Latin America. Ben Bella, ‘Che as I Knew Him’.
 
 
15
. Cabrita,
Mozambique
, p. 45.
 
 
16
. Ben Bella, ‘Che as I Knew Him’.
 
 
17
. Grimaud,
La politique extérieure de l’Algerie
, pp. 131-2.
 
 
18
. The only case noted by Mitrokhin concerned Service A forgeries against the Modibo Keïta regime in Mali; k-8, 555; there were doubtless other examples.
 
 
19
. Following Ben Bella’s overthrow, the KGB lost the services of an agent in his Information Ministry, codenamed AKHMED, who went into exile in France; t-2, 172. For the remainder of the Cold War, Algeria was governed by two military rulers - Houari Boumedienne (1965-78) and Chadli Benjedid (1979-92), whose forces were partly trained and equipped by the Soviet Union but who were wary of too close a relationship with Moscow; Lassassi,
Non-Alignment and Algerian Foreign Policy
, pp. 150-60. The KGB carried out a series of active measures designed to compromise members of their administrations whom it suspected of pro-Western tendencies (vol. 9, ch. 4; k-5, 808; k-8, 601).
 
 
20
. Barron,
KGB
, pp. 342-5.
 
 
21
. Rooney,
Kwame Nkrumah
, pp. 230, 241.
 
 
22
. Mitrokhin records that a series of bogus documents revealing supposed Western plots were passed to Nkrumah via a KGB agent, but identifies only two specific examples: the forged US intelligence report of plots against him which prompted his written protest to President Lyndon Johnson in February 1964 and the supposed attempt by the US military attaché in Somalia to mount a coup against the Somali government in May 1966 (denounced by Nkrumah in
Dark Days in Ghana
, p. 50): k-8, 555; vol. 6, ch. 14, part 2. The other fictitious plots by Western intelligence to overthrow African regimes publicly denounced by Nkrumah, such as an attempted coup in Tanzania, doubtless also either derived from, or were encouraged by, the KGB; Nkrumah,
Dark Days in Ghana
, pp. 48-51.
 
 
23
. Rooney,
Kwame Nkrumah
, p. 226.
 
 
24
. k-8, 555. The full text of Nkrumah’s letter to Johnson of 26 February 1964, not copied by Mitrokhin, is published in Rooney,
Kwame Nkrumah
, pp. 243-5.
 
 
25
. The most important agents identified in Mitrokhin’s fragmentary notes on Guinea and Mali appear to have been two senior intelligence officers: POZ in Guinea (k-8, 444) and ROK in Mali (k-8, 537).
 
 
26
. Though the United States and France were the usual targets of Sékou Touré’s paranoia, on at least one occasion he also accused the Soviet Union of plotting against him. In 1962, after African students in France had passed a motion denouncing oppression in Guinea, Sékou Touré bizarrely claimed that the Soviet ambassador in Conakry (who was subsequently withdrawn) had colluded with the French ambassador in Moscow to whip up student agitation against him. Anastas Mikoyan was swiftly despatched from Moscow to mend fences with the Guinean dictator. Kaké,
Sékou Toure
, chs. 5-7; Attwood,
The Reds and the Blacks
, pp. 63-4. On Sékou Touré’s main interrogation and torture centre, Camp Boiro, see also:
www.campboiro.org
.
 
 
27
. k-8, 555; vol. 6, ch. 12, part 5, p. 450.
 
 
28
. k-8, 555.
 
 
29
. Kalugin,
Spymaster
, p. 52.
 
 
30
. vol. 6, ch. 12, part 5, p. 451.
 
 
31
. Library of Congress,
Ghana: A Country Study
, ch. 5.
 
 
32
. The only case noted by Mitrokhin was that of one of Nkrumah’s former ministers, a KGB confidential contact codenamed AFORI, who was jailed for a year after the military coup and given $1,000 by the Accra residency after his release (k-14, 545). Mitrokhin did not record the total amount of assistance allocated to former members and supporters of the Nkrumah regime.
 
 
33
. Sanankoua,
La chute de Modibo Keïta
.
 
 
34
. Nkrumah,
Dark Days in Ghana
, pp. 30, 49-50, 158-60. The CIA station in Accra was in contact with some of Nkrumah’s opponents, but there is no convincing evidence that it was the mainspring of the coup. As President Johnson’s adviser Walt Rostow later put it, ‘We did not throw a match in the haystack’ (Rooney,
Kwame Nkrumah
, pp. 253-4). The claim that the Agency attempted to assassinate Nkrumah is fantasy. Under the military rule of General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong (codenamed GLEN) from 1972 to 1978, KGB hopes of influence in Ghana revived. An officer from the Accra residency, D. A. Dityayev, became Acheampong’s unofficial security adviser. With the assistance of LIR, a senior Ghanaian intelligence officer and confidant of Acheampong, the KGB was able to recruit four Ghanaian employees of the US embassy, including a servant, codenamed STEFEN, of the CIA head of station, whose house was bugged (though the bug was later discovered). A leading Ghanaian journalist, KAPRAL, also a confidant of Acheampong, was used to place active-measures articles in the press. With Acheampong’s overthrow in 1978 and execution in the following year, however, KGB influence once again went into decline; k-27, 185, 429-30; k-14, 750; vol. 6, ch. 8, part 4, p. 329.
 
 
35
. Nkrumah,
Dark Days in Ghana
, p. 157.
 
 
36
. Kaké,
Sékou Toure
, chs. 6-7. On Camp Boiro, see also:
www.campboiro.org
.
 
 
37
. vol. 6, ch. 8, part 4, p. 327; Andrew and Mitrokhin,
The Sword and the Shield
, pp. 243-4.
 
 
38
. Attwood,
The Reds and the Blacks
, pp. 68-77.
 
 
39
. Clapham,
Africa and the International System
, pp. 146, 290 n. 25.
 
 
40
. Sékou Touré had sought smaller-scale assistance from the West on a number of previous occasions.
 
 
41
. vol. 6, ch. 8, part 4, p. 327. Mitrokhin’s notes do not record Gowon’s reaction to the letter. However, a retired British diplomat has recalled to Christopher Andrew learning of the letter in 1973.
 
 
42
. k-8, 511. Mitrokhin’s notes give no indication of Hassan’s reaction.
 
 
43
. Lenrie Peters, ‘Satellites’ (1967); cited by Snow,
The Star Raft
, p. 105.
 
 
44
. Odinga,
Not Yet Uhuru
, pp. 292-3. The precise nature of this arms shipment and Odinga’s involvement in it remain obscure.
 
 
45
. Attwood,
The Reds and the Blacks
, pp. 249, 296; Snow,
The Star Raft
, p. 95. On Zhou’s African visits in 1963-64, see Scalapino,
On the Trail of Chou En-lai in Africa
.
 
 
46
. Mitrokhin noted the regular use of this codename in correspondence between the Centre and the Tanzanian residency (k-17, 85); it is likely to have been also used in communications with other African residencies.
 
 
47
. k-27, 498. Details of all African states with which the PRC established and broke off diplomatic relations from 1956 to 1970 are given in Larkin,
China and Africa 1949-1970
, pp. 66-7.
 
 
48
. Larkin,
China and Africa 1949-1970
, p. 127.
 
 
49
. Robinson, ‘China Confronts the Soviet Union’. Further KGB active measures were designed to persuade Mwambutsa not to restore diplomatic relations with Beijing. Forged documents on supposed PRC plots against the Burundi regime were also brought to the attention of President Mobutu of Congo (Kinshasa) in the belief that he would inform Mwambutsa, with whom he was on friendly terms; k-27, 498.
 
 
50
. Larkin,
China and Africa 1949-1970
, p. 129.
 
 
51
. Ibid., pp. 130-31.
 
 
52
. Ibid., pp. 134-5.
 
 
53
. The active measure was codenamed operation BURNUS; k-13, 354.
 
 
54
. Larkin,
China and Africa 1949-1970
, pp. 135-6.
 
 
55
. Snow,
The Star Raft
, p. 97. On relations between Kenyatta and Odinga, see the account by the US ambassador: Attwood,
The Reds and the Blacks
, chs. 18, 19. ‘Had [Odinga] loyally served Kenyatta and not tried to build up his own political apparatus’, Attwood believes, ‘he might have established himself as [Kenyatta’s] logical successor.’ Kenyatta was a regular target of KGB active measures accusing him of collaboration with the CIA; vol. 6, app. 1, part 2.
 
 
56
. Mitrokhin’s brief notes on KGB operations in Kenya suggest (but, because of their fragmentary nature, do not prove) a low level of success in penetrating KANU. KENT, the only KANU agent of any significance whose file he noted, had his campaign expenses paid by the Nairobi residency in 1974 but failed to be elected. His case officers were Boris Ivanovich Borisenko and Ivor Yanovich Pavlovsky; vol. 7, app. 1, item 98.
 
 
57
. Larkin,
China and Africa 1949-1970
, pp. 136-7.
 
 
58
. k-27, 498. Senegal recognized the PRC but did not maintain formal diplomatic relations; its expulsion of New China News Agency correspondents, the main PRC representatives in Senegal, thus amounted to an informal diplomatic breach.
 
 
59
. k-13, 344; k-27, 498.
 
 
60
. k-27, 498.
 
 
61
. Snow,
The Star Raft
, p. 123.

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