For long, international affairs experts had alluded that the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, masterminded some of the political upheavals in parts of the developing world, especially in Africa. Now, a former CIA intelligence officer, John Stockwell, has declared that the US government played an active role in the overthrow of Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah, in a military coup in 1966 while he was out of the country.
In his book, In Search of Enemies, Stockwell states that an official sanction for the coup does not appear in CIA documents, but notes that “the Accra station was nevertheless encouraged by headquarters to maintain contact with dissidents. It was given a generous budget, and maintained intimate contact with the plotters as a coup was hatched.”
The ex-spy officer states that the CIA in Ghana got more involved and its operatives were given “unofficial credit for the eventual coup”.
A declassified US government document written after the coup described Nkrumah’s fall as a “fortuitous windfall. Nkrumah was doing more to undermine American interests than any other Black African leader”.
Stockwell also discussed the US opposition to the MPLA regime in Angola in the 1970s. Three competing groups fought for control of Angola after its independence from Portugal in 1975, with the MPLA under Augostino Neto, taking over the capital, Luanda.
As the Chief of CIA’s covert operations in Angola in 1975, Stockwell states that the US decided to oppose the MPLA, as it was seen to be closer to the Soviet Union, and support the FNLA and UNITA instead, even though all three were getting help from communist countries. According to him, the CIA then helped secretly to import weapons, including 30,000 rifles, into Angola, through the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A declassified US government document detailing the discussion between the Head of the CIA, the Secretary of State and other top officials indicated the support the CIA gave to the forces fighting the MPLA. The US continued to support UNITA through much of the civil war as Cuba was backing the MPLA.
