THE AFRICA DOSS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700010001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2006
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 21, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
Approved For R t MM/D7. : EMI-00901
21 Jan 1972
Lid LO
As British influence in Africa declined, so did British secret sere
sending hundreds of agents to African capitals like Accra, Lag
to buttress "sensitive" states against communism and protect
E. H. Cookridge continues his exclusive series on the CIA.
RE adventurous operations
often bordering on the bizarre
which the Central Intelligence
Agency pursued in many parts
of the world are usually /
They culminated in the abortive in-
vasion of Cuba in 1961. When Dulles
departed from the directorship of CIA
after the Bay of Pigs debacle, he
certainly left an indelible stamp of his
influence as the architect of the mighty
CIA edifice and its worldwide rami-
fications.
The policy of his successors has,
however, been no less forceful. CIA
activities under its present director,
Richard McCi't+rrah Helms, may
appear less aggressive because they are
being conducted with greater caution
and less publicity, and because they
have been adroitly adjusted to the
changing climate iii international poli-
tics. In the past CIA gained notoriety
by promoting revolutions in Latin
American banana republics, and sup-
porting anti-communist regimes in
South-East Asia. Its operations in
Africa were more skilfully camou-
flaged. For many years they had been
on a limited scale because the CIA had
relied on the British secret service to
provide intelligence from an area
where the British had unsurpassed ex-
perience and long-established sources
of information. But with the emergence
of the many African independent
countries, the wave of "anti-colonial-
ist" emotions, and the growing in-
filtration . of Africa by Soviet and
Chinese "advisers". British influence
declined. Washington forcefully
stepped, through CIA, into the breach,
with the avowed aim of containing
communist expansion.
Financial investments in new in-
dustrial and mining enterprises, and
;wish economic aid to the emerging
governments of the "underdeveloped"
countries, paved the road for the influx
of hundreds of CIA agents. Some com-
bined their intelligence, assignments
with genuine jobs as technical, agri-
cultural and scientific advisers.
The British Government - parti-
cularly after the Labour Party. had
come to power in 1964 - withdrew
most of their SIS and MI5 officials
from African capitals, though some
remained, at the request of the new
rulers, to.organise their own new in-
telligence and security services. CIA
Approved
A bloodless coup in Uganda in January last l
and installed Major-General Idi Amin as milil
a section of his troops). How far was the C;
protest in Santa Domingo. A pro-rebel poster attacks American intervennon
d (~
rte. ~.5
men began hurriedly to establish their
Kampala, Dar-es-Salaam, Lusaka, the
"sensitive areas' in danger of slipping
under communist sway.
By the mid-1960s several senior CIA
officials, such as Thomas J. Gunning
and Edward Foy,' both fQrmer U.S.
Army Intelligence officers, were firmly
established at Accra. They were later
joined by William B. Edmondson, who
had already gained his spurs in East
Africa, and Mrs Stella Davis, an
attractive, motherly woman; whom
Ch
FBI agent before joining CIA and
being employed at Addis Ababa,
Nairobi, and Dar-es-Salaam, acquir-
ing fluency in Swahili. By 1965 the
Accra CIA Station had two-score
active operators, distributing largesse
among President Nkrumah's secret
adversaries.
The Americans had every intention
of helping Ghana's economy by build-
ing, in co-operation with a British con-
sortium, the Volta Dam, thus provid-
ing hydro-electric power for the
MORI/CDF
no one would nave suspected o av: cOr, t i r,aetf