Angola Essays -- essays research papers

In past centuries, Angola was among the areas most-devastated by the slave trade. In upstart decades, it has been afflicted with wars. However, in both eras, much of the violence was driven by powerful external forces. This is because Angola, with an abundance of oil and other resources, could develop into a truly prosperous country if lead and controlled by the right power. In 1975 Angola was released from colonialism by Portugal. This pivotal event in history sparked the posening of a massive scrap between many of the key players in world power. These key players included the United States, Cuba, China, and the Soviet Union. After reading three separate names of the crisis in Angola (U.S. Senate hearings led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a personal memoir by 1975 Assistant Secretary of State Nathaniel Davis, and a biography entitled In Search of Enemies A CIA Story by John Stockwell), I have come to several conclusions. Although these three men all held important po sitions in the U.S. government, quaternary contradictions exist in their chronologies of events. Of the discrepancies I found, all of them put Stockwell in opposition with Kissinger and Davis. I believe this is due to his position in the Central Intelligence Agency, where the greater availability of information was his advantage. Moreover, since all three accounts agree that the U.S. sake was essentially a covert operation led by the CIA, I feel the account written by Stockwell was the most valid of the three.When looking at the differences in chronologies, it is necessary to start from the beginning of the conflict. The first difference I found dealt with CIA involvement in Angola. Stockwell, an experienced, senior CIA case officer (Stockwell, 31), marked early July 1974 as the start of CIA support.In July 1974 the CIA began funding Roberto without 40 committeeapproval, small amounts at first, unless enough for word to get aroundthat the CIA was dealing itself into the race...Du ring the fall of 1974the CIA continued to fund Roberto, still without 40 committee approval... (Stockwell, 67).However, Davis describes that covert support did not begin until ... ...ola.In terms of Henry Kissinger, I believe that his knowledge of covert activity was underestimated. However, his immense focus on the Soviet Union throughout his replete(p) account precluded such information.With any event of such historical significance you are going to have many different opinions about the order of its events, oddly when the event concerns a number of world powers. In this case, all three accounts supplied factual information. However, the explanations of Davis and Kissinger did not account for classified information. Stockwell was at an advantageous position to debate the Angola crisis unencumbered. He was a member of the CIA and knew the interworkings of its plan, and for this reason I see his account as the most substantial.