Shattering the "Shell of Constraint" in Angola: U.S. Covert Collusion with Apartheid South Africa, 1974-1976 Open Access

Abstract

This thesis explores the period from 1974 to 1976 when Angola gained its independence from Portugal but also became embroiled in a civil conflict among three rival liberation movements. Whereas previous historiography has focused on how different international actors, including the United States and the Soviet Union, came to support the three Angolan factions along the Cold War ideological divide, this thesis focuses on another little-discussed and highly sensitive development unfolding concurrently. This work examines the U.S. government's decision to covertly collude with the apartheid regime in Pretoria in encouraging and orchestrating a South African invasion of Angola. Ultimately, this military incursion failed, the U.S. Congress opted to terminate funding for its clandestine Angola program and South African troops were defeated at the hands of the Cuban-supported liberation movement. Tragically, such international interventions further exacerbated an Angolan conflict that would drag on, with brief interludes, until 2002. The U.S. government subsequently and vehemently denied it had ever played any role in encouraging South Africa's military intervention in Angola. Meanwhile, South African leaders evinced sentiments of betrayal and abandonment by the United States. This thesis will attempt to marshal recently declassified primary source materials and archival evidence to reach beyond what scholar Robin Hallett calls the "official smoke screen" of "stringent censorship, governmental denials and simple lies" about these developments. Holding both the South African and the U.S. sides of the relationship within the same frame of analysis, this thesis seeks to illuminate the internal architecture of covert collusion. The goal is to understand, as much as is currently possible, the structural and contingent factors and flaws that drove the United States and apartheid South Africa together into a joint, but ultimately unsuccessful, military venture in Angola; how did "the unthinkable come to emerge under the guise of wisdom and prudence?"

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction, Historiography, and Argument........................................................................................1

Chapter I- Civil Conflict in Angola: The Context and Chronology for Covert Collusion..................................6

Chapter II- Framing the U.S. Perspective: Structural and Contingent Factors and Flaws.............................11

Chapter III- Framing the South African Perspective: Isolation in an Increasingly Hostile World....................39

Chapter IV- The Unceremonious End of an Intervention: Severing Links and Ties......................................63

Conclusion and Parting Observations.................................................................................................71

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	History
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	History, General
Keyword	Cold War U.S.- South African Relations 1974 Henry Kissinger Angola 1976 Diplomatic History CIA Southern Africa U.S. Angolan Civil War South Africa 1975
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Anderson, Carol , Emory University
Committee Members	Harbutt, Fraser J, Emory University Scully, Pamela F, Emory University

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