for UNITA), but there is no evidence

that Cuba and the MPLA knew about it. What they knew—and indeed it was public knowledge—was that the proAmerican Zairean government of Mobuto Sese Seko had sent troops into northern Angola on Roberto's side. By May, Portugal was no longer making any attempt to police even the main crossing points with Zaire and it was reported that over one thousand Zairean soldiers were in northern Angola.41

Angola, warned Neto, "was being subjected to a silent invasion by soldiers. from Zaire."42

By late July, Angola was in the throes of civil war and Havana finally geared into action. From August 3-8, a seven-man Cuban delegation, led by a very senior military officer, Raúl Díaz Argüelles, was in Angola. "Their mission was to pin down on the ground with the leaders of the MPLA exactly what aid they wanted, the objectives they expected to achieve with this aid, and the stages in which the aid should be given."43 They also brought Neto the $100,000 he had requested six months earlier. [See doc. 5]

Neto wanted Cuban military instructors. He did not have a precise figure in mind, but he was thinking of no more than a hundred men who would be spread out among many small training centers. He also wanted Cuba to send weapons, clothing, and food for the recruits. On the basis of this request, Díaz Argüelles drafted a proposal for a military mission "that would include 65

officers and 29 noncommissioned officers and soldiers for a grand total of 94 compañeros."44

This plan was reworked in Havana after Díaz Argüelles returned. The revised plan contemplated the dispatch of 480 men who would create and staff four training centers (Centros de Instrucción Revolucionaria or CIRS). Some 5,300 Angolans would be trained in these CIRS within three to six months.

Cuba would send the weapons for the instructors and for the recruits in the CIRS, as well as enough food, clothing, camping gear, toiletries, medicine, cots, and bedclothes for 5,300 men for six months. The CIRS would begin operating in mid-October.45 In other words,

Cuba decided to offer Neto almost five times more instructors than he had requested. In Risquet's words, “If we were going to send our men, we had to send enough to fulfill the mission and to defend themselves, because too small a group would simply have been overwhelmed."46

Contrary to the widespread image of the Cuban intervention in Angola, Havana had been slow to get involved. The documents that I have seen do not explain this delay, and I have not been able to interview those protagonists who could provide an answer, notably Fidel and Raúl Castro. Perhaps there was, on Cuba's part, a reluctance to be drawn into what could become an open-ended conflict. Perhaps there was reluctance to jeopardize relations with the West when, after a long period of isolation and hostility, they were markedly improving: for the first time, the United States was interested in a modus vivendi with Cuba;47 the Organization of American States was preparing to lift its sanctions; and West European governments were offering low interest loans. Perhaps Cuba had feared that the dispatch of military instructors would offend even friendly African countries like Tanzania; or perhaps the attention of the Cuban leaders was distracted by the preparations for the first Congress of the Cuban Communist party that would be held in December. "The revolution was institutionalized in 1975," remarks Risquet. "It was a year of never-ending work. This may have played a role. And the situation in Angola was quite confused. In the first months of 1975 there was very little discussion in the sessions of the Political Bureau about Angola. Our focus was on domestic matters."48

claim that Cuba did not move sooner to help the MPLA because the Soviet Union did not want it to. But can one seriously argue that Cuba needed Soviet permission to send $100,000 to Neto? Others may repeat the canard that Cuba sent 200 military instructors to Angola in the spring of 1975,51 but the evidence flatly contradicts this. In the absence of a satisfactory explanation, one can only note that the Cuban leaders were focusing on domestic matters and that relations with the MPLA since 1967 had not been intense. In July Cuba finally shifted gears. It was as if the music had suddenly changed; Cuba had made its choice, and Operation Carlota was born.

On August 21, Díaz Argüelles was back in Luanda as the head of the fledgling Cuban Military Mission in Angola (MMCA). He reported to Abelardo (Furry) Colomé, the first deputy minister of the Armed Forces. His reports from late August through October (all handwritten) are kept in the archives of the Centro de Información de la Defensa de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias and are a very important source on the evolution of the Cu52 ban presence.

Díaz Argüelles' first order of business was to obtain Neto's approval for the 480-man military mission and four large CIRS. "Comrade Neto accepted our offer with great emotion," he informed Colomé in late August. "He was moved. He asked me to tell Fidel that

they accept everything."53

The members of the MMCA began arriving in late August, and they kept coming through September, all on commercial flights. There were slightly over 100 by early October. The others came aboard three Cuban ships that had left Havana on September 16-20: the Vietnam Heroico and the Coral Island docked at a beach near Puerto Amboim "where no one lives" on October 5 and 8 respectively; the La Plata reached Punta Negra (Congo Brazzaville) on the 11th. Díaz Argüelles described their arrival in a lengthy report to Colomé.54

The three ships brought the weapons and equipment for the CIRs, including 12,000 Czech rifles for the Angolans. (They could not give them

Soviet weapons because in 1965 Moscow and Havana had signed an agreement that Cuba would seek the Soviets' permission before sending weapons it had received from them to a third party.) They also brought the trucks to transport the men and materiel to the CIRS. (The Cubans had correctly surmised that the MPLA would be unable to provide sufficient transportation.) There were problems, however, with the trucks that came aboard the Vietnam Heroico and the Coral Island, which "arrived in poor condition," Díaz Argüelles told Colomé,

and we had to repair a great many of them. . . . When I told you how important it was that the equipment arrive in good condition I was thinking about this kind of problem, because I knew that we would have to transport most of the men and material in our own trucks. The distances here are very great . . . and there are neither mechanics nor spare parts... Comandante, this is the largest operation we have ever undertaken and we are doing it in the worst conditions and circumstances. With little time for planning and with almost no knowledge of and experience in the country... we have had to improvise as we go along ... It is a task of enormous magnitude

.. I have taken the steps necessary to start the training on October 15 ... so that the troops will be ready on November 5,55

By October 18-20, almost on schedule, the instructors, recruits and equipment were in place and the four CIRS were ready to start operations. On paper, the MMCA had 480 men, 390 of whom were instructors in the four CIRS and seventeen of whom were a medical brigade. (There were 284 officers.) Actually, there were almost 500, because a few civilian pilots had been sent at Díaz Argüelles' request to fly the small civilian planes that the MPLA had acquired and some specialists in air traffic control and handling cargo at ports were also attached to the MMCA.56

Meanwhile, the civil war continued. The FNLA controlled Angola's two northern provinces bordering on Zaire, where it had its supply line in men and material (which included, beginning in August, equipment sent by the

CIA). "Well armed, the army of the FNLA has but one obsession: Luanda," reported Le Monde in late August. One of Roberto's lieutenants boasted, "We have tanks. There is no force that can stop us from entering Luanda ... We will take Luanda and it will be a bloodbath." "57 In mid-September, the head of the CIA Task Force on Angola wrote, "Mobutu committed his elite Seventh "Mobutu committed his elite Seventh and Fourth Commando Battalions ... and the tide swung back in favor of the FNLA north of Luanda."58 The MPLA stopped their advance on September 26, just north of the village of Quifangondo at Morro do Cal, 26 kilometers north of Luanda. As independence day (November 11) approached, Roberto's impatience grew. "The troops of the FNLA ... will be in the capital on Tuesday," he declared on Friday, October 17. Over the next few days, he kept repeating that his troops would enter Luanda "within 24 hours."59

On October 23, Roberto's forcesabout 3,500 men, including some 1,200 Zairian troops 60-attacked Morro do Cal. But the 1,100 defenders, which included about 40 Cubans, held firm. This was the first time that Cubans participated in the fighting. Five days later, a group of Cuban instructors fought again, with the MPLA, east of Quifangondo to recover the village of Quiangombe.61

The MPLA had been gaining ground on the other fronts. "The present military situation favors the MPLA," wrote Díaz Argüelles on October 1.62 U.S. intelligence agreed. In a lengthy September 22 report, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the State Department warned: "Since the outbreak of fighting in Angola in March, the MPLA has achieved an almost unbroken series of military successes... It is in complete control of Luanda and the surrounding areas In the past two months it has won virtually complete control of the coast from Luanda south to the Namibian border and thereby has gained unimpeded access to five major ports." It was also in control of Cabinda, from which it could not be dislodged "without strong outside backdislodged "without strong outside backing-i.e., direct Zairian military inter

vention." It held key areas in eastern Angola (including virtually all the diamond-rich Lunda district). From its positions along the southern coast it was extending its control "well into the interior," threatening UNITA's core areas. Finally, the report pointed out, "Of major political significance is the fact that the MPLA controls 9 of Angola's 16 district capitals and is contesting a 10th at Luso in eastern Angola.”63

By mid-October, with the MPLA continuing to gain ground, a conservative British newspaper observed, "FNLA and UNITA know that they must improve their positions by November 11 or risk being left out in the cold," while the Rand Daily Mail reported that the MPLA was “making a vigorous fourpronged drive on Nova Lisboa," Savimbi's capital in the central highlands, and the South African military instructors attached to UNITA mused disconsolately "that the UNITA forces... are not in a position to offer the necessary resistance to the FAPLA [the MPLA armed forces] without help."64 Meanwhile the Portuguese military was pulling its units back toward Luanda in preparation for withdrawal by November 11.

It has been said that the MPLA was winning because of the Cuban troops. But there were no Cuban troops, only instructors, and none had participated in any fighting until the handful fought at Morro do Cal on October 23. The real explanation for the MPLA's success is perhaps provided by the Zambia Daily Mail, which was unsympathetic to the movement. After noting that the MPLA was "almost certain to emerge as the dominant force" once the Portuguese departed, it stated: "There is a sense of purpose and a spirit of belonging among MPLA members and sympathizers which the two other movements cannot match."65

The imminent victory of the MPLA forced South Africa, which had been providing weapons and military instructors to the FNLA and UNITA since late

August, to make a decision. "The choice lay between active South African military participation on the one hand and— in effect-acceptance of an MPLA victory on the other," writes a South Afri

can military historian. Prodded by UNITA, the FNLA, Mobutu and the United States, Pretoria decided to escalate. "The go-ahead was given on October 14." 66

That day, a South African column crossed into Angola from northeastern Namibia (South-West Africa). For the first few days the column moved west just north of the border. Then it veered north-west deep into Angola. 67 The South Africans advanced at full speed, sixty or seventy kilometers a day, meeting scant and ineffectual resistance. Sa da Bandeira (Lubango) fell on October 24; Moçamedes, the major port of southern Angola, on the 28th.

At first Díaz Argüelles underestimated the gravity of the threat. There were no Cubans in the area, and he had no clear idea of the strength of the enemy. "The MPLA still has the advantage, only ten days before independence," he concluded at the end of October. "The enemy, ill-prepared and dispirited, including the Zairian army units... is giving us the breathing space to train the [MPLA] battalions."68

On November 2 and 3, Cubans participated in the fighting for the first time since the battles for Morro do Cal and Quiangombe on October 23 and 28. This time, the military instructors joined in the fight to defend Benguela from the advancing South Africans. "We were facing the best organised and heaviest FAPLA opposition to date," wrote a South African, Cdr. Jan Breytenbach, who led one of the invading units.69

Outgunned and outnumbered, the defenders of Benguela withdrew. Savimbi crowed: "Some time ago I promised you that there would be military surprises in Angola," he told the press in Kinshasa. "We are now witnessing the disintegration of Neto's troops on Angolan territory. Today I promise you even greater surprises be

fore November 11, because we know

that there are only nine days left."70 On November 6, Benguela was in South African hands. The next day Lobito, twenty miles north of Benguela and Angola's major commercial port, fell. "We were, evidently, on our way to Luanda," writes Breytenbach. "Fresh troops were being deployed from South

Africa and the whole campaign was beginning to look more South African than Angolan."71

The South Africans, however, echoed by the entire Western press, absolutely denied that their troops were fighting in Angola and attributed the victories to a revived FNLA and UNITA. The MPLA, on the other hand, denounced the South African invasion as early as October 22.72

As the South Africans were closing in on Benguela, the MPLA's Political Bureau "met in an emergency session" and listened to Neto's proposal: to ask Cuba for troops. "There was unanimous agreement," states a wellinformed account. Central Committee member Henrique Santos, who had studied and trained in Cuba in the 1960s, immediately flew to Havana. bearing the MPLA's request.73 The Cubans' response "was, I can say, immediate," writes an MPLA leader.74 On November 4, Cuba decided to send troops to Angola. "That same day the head of the MMCA was instructed to make arrangements with the MPLA for "75 our planes to land in Luanda.

The first Cuban troops-158 men from the elite Special Forces of the Ministry of Interior-left aboard two Cuban planes on November 7, arriving in Luanda two days later.76 Through the rest of November and December the Cubans succeeded in holding a line less than two hundred miles south of Luanda even though the South Africans enjoyed superiority in numbers and material. (North of Luanda, the Cubans swiftly defeated Roberto's motley horde.) There were numerous skirmishes and two small battles as the South Africans attempted to break through: at Ebo, on November 23-"Black Sunday," according to a South African historianthe Cubans scored a significant victory;77 and on December 12, at Bridge

14, fourteen miles south of the strate

gic village of Catofe, the South Africans took their revenge, but the Cubans quickly regrouped and stopped them before they could reach Catofe. The South Africans were impressed: the Cape Times reported on November 21 that "FNLA and UNITA commanders [maintaining the fiction that South Af

rican troops had nothing to do with it] greatly admired the courage of what they said were mercenaries from Cuba fighting with the MPLA." The official South African historian of the war writes, "The Cubans rarely surrendered and simply cheerfully fought until death."78 By late December, the Cubans finally reached rough numerical parity with the South Africans and prepared to go on the offensive. [doc. 6]

According to Westad, "After the creation of the MPLA regime [on November 11] the [Soviet] Politburo authorized the Soviet General Staff to take direct control of the trans-Atlantic deployment of additional Cuban troops, as well as the supplying of these troops with advanced military hardware." The Cuban evidence, however, tells a different story. Until January 1976, the it indicates, all Cuban troops and weapons were transported to Angola on Cuban ships and Cuban planes (Britannias and IL-18s) without any Soviet involvement. It was the Cubans' inability to find friendly places in which to refuel their planes that led them to seek Soviet help in late December. The Britannias and the IL-18s needed to refuel twice en route to Luanda. The second stop presented no problem: GuineaBissau was steadfast in its support. The problem was with the first stop. Initially, Barbados agreed, but under U.S. pressure it withdrew its permission on December 17; thereafter the Cubans used, in quick succession, Guyana and the Azores.80 In early January, the Soviet Union agreed to provide its IL62s, which could fly directly from Cuba to Bissau. The first IL-62 left Havana on January 9 with Cuban troops and Soviet pilots. (The Cubans had not yet been trained to fly the plane.)81

Risquet states that on 16 January 1976, Cuba and the USSR signed a military protocol in which the Soviets agreed to transport weapons for the Cuban troops in Angola.82 I have not seen the protocol. I have, however, two documents that support Risquet's statement: a January 29 letter from Risquet to Castro [doc. 7] and a January 30 note stating that two Soviet ships had left for Angola with the first shipment of weapons for the Cuban troops there.83

It is important to put Westad's comments in context. He writes that ". . . the Soviet General Staff ordered about sixty of their own officers to join the Cuban forces from Congo. These men started arriving in Luanda on the evening of November 12." In the Cuban documents in my possession there are only six references to Soviet officers in Angola, and all of them are related to the dispatch of Soviet weapons to Angola [for one, see doc. 7]; none mentions any Soviet input into military strategy. Furthermore, I have seen an additional file of documents that would prove conclusively how little Soviet officials had to do with Cuban military strategy and tactics. These are cables from Fidel Castro to the Cuban commanders in Angola. They demonstrate the extraordinary degree of control that Castro exerted over the conduct of the war. In February 1996 I was allowed to read these cables, but, unfortunately, they may never be released—not because they contain controversial material (even the most ornery Cuban censor would be hard put to find much to sanitize in them), but because only Fidel Castro can declassify them and he is busy with other matters.

My failure to obtain copies of these cables is all the more frustrating since many, particularly Americans, may read this story of the early relationship between Cuba and Africa and reflexively ask, what about the Soviet Union? Wasn't Cuba acting as a Soviet proxy?

It is a frustrating question, for it requires one to prove a negative on the basis of incomplete information. Since no available documents bear directly on the question, I can only offer an informed opinion. There are two ways to address it. One is to look broadly at Cuba's Africa policy and its overall relationship to Soviet policy. The second is to analyze Cuban motivations in Africa.

During the period under consideration, Cuban and Soviet policies ran along parallel tracks in Africa. This was not a given: they could have been at loggerheads, as they were in Latin America through the mid-1960s because of Cuba's support for armed struggle there. No such clash, however, occurred in

Africa. In Algeria, for example, the Soviets had no objection to Cuba's very close relations with Ahmed Ben Bella's regime and seem to have welcomed Cuba's decision, in October 1963, to send a military force to help Algeria rebuff Morocco's attack. Similarly, in Congo Leopoldville the Soviets must have welcomed Guevara's column, since they were themselves helping the rebels. These parallel and often mutually supporting tracks are even more evident in the case of Guinea-Bissau. The Soviets began giving aid to the PAIGC in 1962, well before Cuba did. From June 1966, the Cuban military presence complemented and enhanced the Soviet role, since the Cubans were in charge of the increasingly sophisticated weapons provided by the USSR.

It follows, some may say, that the Cubans were mere cannon fodder for Moscow. But the fact that their policies ran along parallel tracks during this period did not make Cuba a Soviet agent or proxy. In fact, Cuba was following its own policy, a policy that happened to dovetail with that of the USSR. The case of Algeria is illustrative. The Cubans, at their own initiative, began supporting the Algerian rebels in 1961. Havana's decision to send troops in 1963 was taken less than two hours after a direct appeal by Ben Bella, making it unlikely that Castro would have had time to consult the Soviets even if he had wanted to.84 In the Congo, likewise, Cuban policy was evidently not coordinated with Soviet policy. The conclusion is suggested by the fact that Che, his men, and their weapons travelled to Tanzania via the cumbersome method of taking commercial flights even though they could presumably have arrived on the Soviet ships that at about the same moment were docking at Dar-es-Salaam.85 A firmer indication of this lack of coordination appears in "Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria (Congo)," the secret manuscript that Guevara wrote upon leaving the Congo. And certainly the Soviets played no role in the Cuban decision to withdraw. Castro left the decision to Guevara, his friend and commander-in-the field. [See doc. 3] The Soviet Union was not in the picture.

Cuba's policy in Africa was guided by Cuban national interest and ideology a fact which U.S. analysts well understood. When Che went to Africa in December 1964, U.S. intelligence followed his trip closely. "Che Guevara's three-month African trip was part of an important new Cuban strategy," wrote Thomas Hughes, the director of Intelligence and Research at the State Department. This strategy, he argued, was based on Cuba's belief that a new revolutionary situation existed in Africa and that Cuba's own interest lay in the spreading of revolution there because in so doing it would gain new friends who would lessen her isolation and, at the same time, weaken U.S. influence. There was only one reference to the Soviet Union: “Cuba's African strategy," concluded Hughes, "is designed to provide new political leverage against the United States and the socialist bloc. . . .The Cubans doubtless hope that their African ties will increase Cuba's stature in the nonaligned world and help to force the major socialist powers to tolerate a considerable measure of Cuban independence and criticism."86 This was a fair analysis of the pragmatic aspect of the policy, but it omitted the strong idealistic motive that also marked Cuban policy in Africa. Havana firmly believed that it had a duty to help those who were struggling for their freedom; it was this belief-not pragmatism-that led Cuba to help the Algerian rebels and risk the wrath of de Gaulle. As a PAIGC leader said, "The Cubans understood better than anyone that they had the duty to help their brothers to become free."87

This policy would not have been possible without the volunteers—men who freely chose to risk their lives and endure sacrifices in order to serve Cuba and help others. Just as Havana was not bowing to Soviet pressure by intervening in Africa, so too did individual Cubans volunteer of their own free will. In Angola as well, Havana was not acting on behalf of the Soviet Union, even though President Ford and Secretary Kissinger liked to speak of "the Soviet Union and their Cuban mercenaries.' "88 Rather, as former Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin