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The CIA’s Relationship with Apartheid South Africa | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

0:04
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:30
Speaker 2: My name is Jerm. This is Jerm Warfare, the battle
0:33
Speaker 2: of ideas.
0:34
Speaker 3: We've never spoken about the CIA's connection to apartheid South Africa.
0:39
Speaker 3: And when I did a little bit of digging, I
0:42
Speaker 3: saw there was a very strong link.
0:45
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
0:47
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, it is correct. I think, yeah, you have
0:50
Speaker 1: to look at the larger, you know, it should be
0:52
Speaker 1: noted that the CIA is the instrument of the White House.
0:55
Speaker 1: I mean, they do a lot of the dirty work,
0:58
Speaker 1: so they get the bad reputation. But I mean, they're
1:02
Speaker 1: carrying out a larger policy and really they're getting their
1:07
Speaker 1: orders from the White House. And, you know, the White
1:10
Speaker 1: House is beholden to the financial oligarchy in the United States.
1:14
Speaker 1: So they often, and that was the central point of
1:17
Speaker 1: Philip Agee in his book Inside the Company, a CIA diary,
1:21
Speaker 1: to understand that the CIA, bad as they are, they're
1:27
Speaker 1: carrying out a larger policy and they're being given orders
1:31
Speaker 1: to do certain things and they do it in their
1:34
Speaker 1: own way. Of course, they do have access to block
1:38
Speaker 1: funds in part through the theft of Japanese gold. And
1:43
Speaker 1: I have an article coming out about this Later this fall,
1:47
Speaker 1: it's drawn from a book by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave,
1:51
Speaker 1: wrote an excellent book on the theft of the Yamashita gold.
1:54
Speaker 1: This was gold that Japan had looted from its colonies
1:58
Speaker 1: prior to World War II. And Edward Lansdale was an
2:03
Speaker 1: OSS operative who tortured a Japanese general and his driver.
2:10
Speaker 1: then disclose the whereabouts of this gold that the CIA
2:14
Speaker 1: then stole. So that gave them access to this black
2:17
Speaker 1: fund to carry out all these dirty operations. And there
2:23
Speaker 1: were some rogue elements, I think, that evolved out of
2:25
Speaker 1: that network that started doing some of their own stuff.
2:29
Speaker 1: But largely, they are carrying out orders, again, of Washington
2:34
Speaker 1: and the White House. So if you look at something
2:35
Speaker 1: like South Africa, there's a larger policy at play The
2:40
Speaker 1: United States basically moved in to want to replace European
2:45
Speaker 1: colonial powers in the era of decolonization and to access
2:50
Speaker 1: the mineral wealth of Africa. And they did that in
2:53
Speaker 1: a variety of ways throughout the continent. But I think
2:56
Speaker 1: solidifying ties with the South African apartheid government was very
3:01
Speaker 1: crucial in the era of decolonization, 1950s, 1960s. through the
3:08
Speaker 1: 1980s and ultimately demise of apartheid. And we can discuss
3:11
Speaker 1: the arrest of what we know of CIA. One thing
3:15
Speaker 1: we know is how the CIA play the role in
3:18
Speaker 1: the arrest of Nelson Mandela. Yeah.
3:22
Speaker 3: I mean, this is very interesting, Jeremy, because what you
3:28
Speaker 3: find when you look into this is the U S
3:30
Speaker 3: government slash CIA, uh, basically had one continuous policy, but
3:37
Speaker 3: they changed it on the outside the whole time so
3:40
Speaker 3: that there was a facade. All they were interested in
3:42
Speaker 3: really was the minerals. So they would be opposed to apartheid,
3:45
Speaker 3: they would be in support of apartheid, they would oppose
3:48
Speaker 3: the ANC, they would support the ANC, whatever it took
3:52
Speaker 3: to maintain control of the minerals.
3:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think, you know,
3:58
Speaker 1: they collaborate with South African intelligence services and military who
4:03
Speaker 1: helped doing a lot of the dirty work like countries
4:05
Speaker 1: like Angola. You know, the U.S. and CIA were trying
4:09
Speaker 1: to establish some control there like in Angola after the
4:12
Speaker 1: Portuguese left and with the oil in Angola. And South
4:17
Speaker 1: Africa was kind of spearheading involvement in the dirty war
4:21
Speaker 1: there and support for the UNITA rebels. One book called
4:26
Speaker 1: them apartheid's contras and opposing the MPLA, which is a
4:30
Speaker 1: more leftist group. Although eventually it took power and wanted
4:33
Speaker 1: to establish national control, nationalize the oil. Although when it
4:39
Speaker 1: gained power, ultimately, I think they'd been co-opted. And it's
4:43
Speaker 1: a very corrupt government currently. It's still led by the MPLA.
4:48
Speaker 1: But that was one use. South Africa had a strong
4:51
Speaker 1: military that could be used for proxy war than controlling
4:55
Speaker 1: other African countries. And then, I mean, South Africa itself
4:59
Speaker 1: is extremely rich in mineral wealth and oil, I believe. So,
5:06
Speaker 1: you know, they wanted to have a good ally there.
5:11
Speaker 1: and establish a trade framework with South Africa itself, and
5:16
Speaker 1: then use South Africa to help control as much as
5:21
Speaker 1: they could the entire continent.
5:24
Speaker 3: So just building on some of your work, I've got
5:28
Speaker 3: a bit of a summary here. So speaking of the
5:32
Speaker 3: policy agreements, you had various phases. So around the 1950s
5:36
Speaker 3: to 1960s, the U.S. had an open friendship built on
5:43
Speaker 3: uranium and military, as you just pointed out. Phase two
5:46
Speaker 3: would have been around the 1970s to 80s, which would
5:49
Speaker 3: have been the constructive engagement era. So polite cover for
5:53
Speaker 3: joint dirty wars, as you said, in Angola, Namibia, Mozambique.
5:56
Speaker 3: And then phase three would have been post-94, which is
6:00
Speaker 3: the quietest phase. That was the pivot to partner status
6:04
Speaker 3: with the actual history being buried under freedom of information
6:09
Speaker 3: request refusals.
6:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is accurate. And I think the ANC was
6:14
Speaker 1: viewed as a threat because the African National Congress, I
6:19
Speaker 1: know there were divisions within that organization, but there was
6:22
Speaker 1: a leftist faction. And Mandela led the leftist faction. He
6:27
Speaker 1: was considered to be a communist. and proxy of the
6:31
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. And that's why the CIA was centrally involved
6:35
Speaker 1: in his arrest. And I first learned about this in 2006.
6:40
Speaker 1: I got my first academic job after I got my PhD.
6:45
Speaker 1: I taught for three years as a visiting professor at
6:48
Speaker 1: Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and And my office, the guy
6:53
Speaker 1: next to me was an English professor named John Ricard,
6:57
Speaker 1: who was a very popular professor, really nice guy. And
7:01
Speaker 1: he had been active in the Vietnam anti-war movement. And
7:05
Speaker 1: we used to talk about politics all the time. And
7:08
Speaker 1: then one day he mentioned that his uncle, you know,
7:11
Speaker 1: and I actually started, that's when I started teaching. teaching
7:14
Speaker 1: a course on the CIA. And so we got to
7:18
Speaker 1: talking about my course. And so he knew a lot
7:21
Speaker 1: about that topic. And then he mentioned that his uncle
7:24
Speaker 1: arrested Nelson Mandela, Donald Ricard. And then an article came
7:31
Speaker 1: and he said a bit about it. And actually, he
7:33
Speaker 1: had kind of rebelled against his family because he was
7:37
Speaker 1: into poetry and literature and was part of the 60s movements.
7:42
Speaker 1: I think his father was also in the CIA, father
7:45
Speaker 1: and uncle. His father worked, I think, with the uncle
7:50
Speaker 1: in South Africa and other parts of Africa. And then
7:54
Speaker 1: there was an article in Time magazine about five years ago.
7:57
Speaker 1: And I think because Donald Ricard was very old and dying,
8:02
Speaker 1: he actually publicly disclosed. I think what John Ricard told
8:06
Speaker 1: me may not have been public knowledge at that point.
8:09
Speaker 1: But then prior to his death, his uncle got in
8:14
Speaker 1: touch with a Time magazine reporter and Richard Stengel, who
8:18
Speaker 1: published an article in Time magazine based on Donald's disclosures
8:23
Speaker 1: about his role in the Mandela arrest and tipping off
8:27
Speaker 1: the South African authority and playing a key role in
8:31
Speaker 1: the arrest. And he died a few weeks later after
8:36
Speaker 1: the article was published, Donald Ricard. And he was unapologetic.
8:40
Speaker 1: He was like, well, he was, and I was just
8:42
Speaker 1: reviewing things. the article before the show. And he's like, well,
8:45
Speaker 1: you know, the Soviets were gaining a foothold, this kind
8:48
Speaker 1: of analysis, you know, the Soviets were gaining a foothold
8:51
Speaker 1: and Mandela was a bad actor, you know, in league
8:54
Speaker 1: with the Soviets. And we had to, you know, uh,
8:58
Speaker 1: but it's tough to that. And that was in 1962.
9:00
Speaker 1: And then, you know, he was in prison for 27
9:03
Speaker 1: years and that became a world, you know, human rights, uh,
9:10
Speaker 1: a spotlight. I mean, dark side of apartheid. But, you know,
9:14
Speaker 1: so it's not surprising that the CIA would be behind that.
9:18
Speaker 1: And I mean, generally, yeah, they viewed, I've seen some
9:20
Speaker 1: documents in my own research, you know, in the National
9:23
Speaker 1: Archive in 1960s and some of the Africa files, like
9:27
Speaker 1: in the State Department, they refer to the ANC as
9:30
Speaker 1: this Marxist group. Terrorists.
9:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:35
Speaker 1: At times they were referenced in that way. Yeah, they
9:38
Speaker 1: really had it in for Kwame Nkrumah because he, you know,
9:43
Speaker 1: when he became the Ghanaian, Ghana was the first country
9:46
Speaker 1: to obtain their independence from Britain in 1957 under Nkrumah's leadership.
9:51
Speaker 1: And he was trying to forge a pan-African union and
9:55
Speaker 1: was more of a socialist leader, wanted to nationalize Ghanaian
9:59
Speaker 1: resources and forge a pan-African union. And he was providing
10:03
Speaker 1: training ground for liberation movements across Africa. So he was
10:08
Speaker 1: viewed as like public enemy number one. And a lot
10:10
Speaker 1: of those documents are like, and they said, oh, and
10:13
Speaker 1: he's even having hosting the ANC. Because I think Nkrumah
10:18
Speaker 1: and Ghana hosted some ANC people who are being trained
10:22
Speaker 1: there in guerrilla tactics there. The CIA was monitoring that.
10:29
Speaker 1: That was one reason the CIA, with the British, backed
10:32
Speaker 1: a coup against Nkrumah because they were hosting the ANC
10:37
Speaker 1: and training them in guerrilla warfare. Then there was a
10:39
Speaker 1: coup in 1966 carried out against Kwame Nkrumah that the
10:45
Speaker 1: CIA and British intelligence were very central to. And that
10:49
Speaker 1: was disclosed in John Stockwell. He was an important, we
10:52
Speaker 1: discussed already in the show, CIA whistleblower who ran the
10:55
Speaker 1: CIA operation in Angola in 1975-76, Operation IA Feature. And
11:03
Speaker 1: he didn't work in Ghana, but he worked in Burundi,
11:08
Speaker 1: and he had access to a lot of the dispatches.
11:11
Speaker 1: So he got wind of the CIA MI6 coup against Nkrumah.
11:16
Speaker 1: which brought in this right-wing kind of pro-British government that
11:22
Speaker 1: put a stop to the pan-Africanism and the efforts to
11:26
Speaker 1: support the ANC and the anti-apartheid movement.
11:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Britain a couple times there,
11:33
Speaker 3: and Margaret Thatcher quietly supported apartheid for the longest time
11:43
Speaker 3: in her, what's the word? She wasn't president. She was
11:47
Speaker 3: prime minister. What's the word I'm looking for? I can't
11:49
Speaker 3: say presidency. Her prime ministry? Is that the right word?
11:53
Speaker 1: Prime ministership, I think.
11:56
Speaker 2: Well, you know what I mean.
11:57
Speaker 3: And only around 1988, which was about two years before
12:00
Speaker 3: she left office, did she come out and oppose apartheid.
12:05
Speaker 3: And she also referred to Mandela as a terrorist.
12:09
Speaker 1: And that was similar to the Reagan– actually, it was
12:11
Speaker 1: Reagan who– and his ambassador to South Africa was a
12:16
Speaker 1: guy named Chester Crocker, I believe was the name. And
12:20
Speaker 1: he was this kind of arch neoconservative. And he coined
12:24
Speaker 1: that term constructive engagement because there had been efforts to
12:28
Speaker 1: impose sanctions and cut off ties. But that was the
12:34
Speaker 1: policy approach of Reagan, constructive engagement. And they didn't outright
12:38
Speaker 1: say we support the philosophy of the government, but basically
12:43
Speaker 1: they warm relations, reestablish relations and trade. And there was
12:51
Speaker 1: a lot of covert activity. It was kind of ramped up,
12:55
Speaker 1: you know, with William Casey, the head of the CIA,
12:59
Speaker 1: and using South Africa because the Reagan administration revitalized. Like
13:03
Speaker 1: the war in Angola, there had actually been an effort,
13:06
Speaker 1: and there was a congressman named Dick Clark from Iowa
13:11
Speaker 1: who pushed the Clark Amendment to bar U.S. aid to
13:15
Speaker 1: the UNITA forces in Angola, the right-wing anti-communist movement. faction
13:21
Speaker 1: in Angola. But under the constructive engagement, the Clark Amendment
13:26
Speaker 1: was repealed. And so the U.S. basically solidified a tie
13:31
Speaker 1: with South Africa so they can fight this dirty war
13:34
Speaker 1: in Angola to try and remove the MPLA and access
13:40
Speaker 1: Angola's oil. So South Africa was key to that strategy.
13:45
Speaker 1: And Mozambique as well with the Frelimo, with the left-wing
13:50
Speaker 1: group that defeated the Portuguese and they were targeted. And
13:54
Speaker 1: the Reaganites were supporting Renamo, which was heavily a right-wing
13:58
Speaker 1: group that they were carrying out a lot of terrorist acts.
14:02
Speaker 1: And that was fronted through apartheid South Africa. So South
14:08
Speaker 1: Africa was key to a regional strategy in the Reagan
14:11
Speaker 1: administration of revitalizing these guerrilla wars and using South Africa
14:18
Speaker 1: as a proxy. And there is a good book I
14:20
Speaker 1: can recommend by William Minter. It's called Apartheid's Contras. That
14:25
Speaker 1: goes into a lot of detail on the Reagan policy
14:28
Speaker 1: and what I'm discussing.
14:31
Speaker 3: A very interesting undercurrent is the quote-unquote communist threat. I mean,
14:36
Speaker 3: it was effectively a boogeyman that was used very effectively.
14:42
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, as you're pointing out, the core
14:46
Speaker 1: issue is control over resources. I mean, American interests were
14:51
Speaker 1: not too dissimilar from the European countries in Africa. And actually, yeah,
14:57
Speaker 1: like Kennedy, because I've analyzed Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's foreign
15:00
Speaker 1: policy in Africa. And some people, they have this tendency
15:03
Speaker 1: to idealize and romanticize Kennedy and say, oh, he was
15:07
Speaker 1: against colonialism and he would have stopped the war in Vietnam.
15:11
Speaker 1: But actually, as I investigated it, well, firstly, Vietnam is
15:16
Speaker 1: another issue we don't have to go into. But Kennedy
15:18
Speaker 1: actually escalated dramatically U.S. involvement in South Vietnam. And with
15:24
Speaker 1: regard to Africa, what I found was that, yes, he
15:28
Speaker 1: was against colonialism. He was against British and French and
15:31
Speaker 1: Belgian colonialism because he wanted American companies to be able
15:35
Speaker 1: to profit and seize more control. So like in the
15:39
Speaker 1: Congo policy, yeah, he supported the removal of the Belgians.
15:46
Speaker 1: And what I found, that he was very close with
15:48
Speaker 1: a guy named Maurice Tempelsman, with a very sinister character.
15:53
Speaker 1: who died actually only this year. And he was on
15:55
Speaker 1: the board of the National Endowment for Democracy. And he
15:58
Speaker 1: was a big-time funder of the Democratic Party for decades.
16:03
Speaker 1: And he was one of the very, very rich men
16:05
Speaker 1: in the diamond and mineral industry. And he saw an
16:09
Speaker 1: opportunity to take control of the Congo's mining sector and
16:16
Speaker 1: and actually he had a company, I believe it was
16:19
Speaker 1: a subsidiary of the Oppenheimer Diamond Company, which you know
16:25
Speaker 1: more about than me. His company were subsidiaries of Oppenheimer,
16:30
Speaker 1: and he drove the Kennedy and U.S. policy in the
16:33
Speaker 1: Congo and the consolidation of the power of Joseph Mobutu.
16:37
Speaker 1: He was very close with Joseph Mobutu personally, and his
16:41
Speaker 1: agent was Larry Devlin, worked for the CIA. See, the CIA...
16:46
Speaker 1: They do all the dirty work, but they support larger
16:48
Speaker 1: interests like this guy, Templesman. And this guy, Larry Devlin,
16:52
Speaker 1: was a CIA station chief in Congo. And he was
16:56
Speaker 1: actually a key figure behind the assassination of Patrice Lumumba,
17:00
Speaker 1: Congo's first prime minister who had wanted to nationalize the
17:05
Speaker 1: mineral wealth. And then later, Devlin did all kinds of
17:09
Speaker 1: covert shenanigans in Congo to help elevate serving the larger
17:14
Speaker 1: Kennedy-Templesman policy of elevating Joseph Mobutu, who was a proxy
17:21
Speaker 1: of the United States. And he allowed Templesman and his
17:24
Speaker 1: companies to come to dominate the mining industry in Congo
17:28
Speaker 1: and make billions of dollars And yeah, Tempelsman, well, a
17:34
Speaker 1: number of Kennedy, close Kennedy advisors went to see Devlin
17:39
Speaker 1: after he left the CIA, went to work directly for Tempelsman,
17:42
Speaker 1: although he's probably always working for him. And a number
17:45
Speaker 1: of top Kennedy people, including Theodore Sorensen, was a top
17:50
Speaker 1: Kennedy speechwriter, I believe. I have some of the information
17:53
Speaker 1: in this article I published. on Kennedy's foreign policy of
17:57
Speaker 1: some of the Kennedy people who went to work directly
17:59
Speaker 1: for Templesman. And I believe even John F. Kennedy Jr.
18:03
Speaker 1: may have worked for him. And Jackie Kennedy ended up,
18:06
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever married, but after John F.
18:09
Speaker 1: Kennedy died, she became his boyfriend. So this guy was very,
18:15
Speaker 1: very close to the Kennedy family, let's just say. And
18:19
Speaker 1: this is like a key guy. He was making a
18:23
Speaker 1: fortune in Africa. And he's funding the Democratic Party. He
18:27
Speaker 1: ends up working with the National Endowment for Democracy, which
18:31
Speaker 1: is an adjunct of the CIA. And so it's people
18:36
Speaker 1: like that. And then there's another guy, Harold Hochschild, I
18:39
Speaker 1: looked into. And he also made a fortune in mining,
18:43
Speaker 1: including in Zambia. And he ended up financing the African-American Institute.
18:48
Speaker 1: It was a CIA... subsidiary that brought, you know, African
18:54
Speaker 1: leaders to the United States basically for education and to
18:57
Speaker 1: be groomed. So, you know, because they wanted to groom
19:00
Speaker 1: leaders who would open business opportunities for American interests like
19:06
Speaker 1: Temple's Men. and Hochschild and people like that. And they're
19:09
Speaker 1: the ones who are funding the political, you know, the
19:13
Speaker 1: parties in the U.S. And they're working hand in glove
19:16
Speaker 1: with the CIA. So, and I think Templesman had a
19:19
Speaker 1: lot of investments in South Africa and may have been
19:23
Speaker 1: a kind of behind-the-scenes player in U.S. policy. Although he
19:27
Speaker 1: lied more with the Democratic Party, the Republican, you know,
19:31
Speaker 1: in the 80s that really, I think the Democrats... wanted
19:36
Speaker 1: to distance themselves because they became the party of civil
19:41
Speaker 1: rights in the United States when Lyndon Johnson passed civil
19:46
Speaker 1: rights legislation. So they couldn't identify too close with apartheid
19:50
Speaker 1: South Africa. But, you know, they kept it under the ground. But,
19:54
Speaker 1: I mean, even with the Ian Smith government in Rhodesia,
20:00
Speaker 1: southern Rhodesia, Officially, the U.S. policy like in the 70s
20:05
Speaker 1: was to have sanctions. But like the sanctions were being
20:08
Speaker 1: evaded and there was no attempt to enforce those evasions.
20:12
Speaker 1: So and there were like covert ways that arms were
20:16
Speaker 1: getting into Ian Smith. And I think the same kind
20:19
Speaker 1: of thing was at play with apartheid with the Democrats.
20:22
Speaker 1: And then the Republican were more open with this constructive
20:25
Speaker 1: engagement policy and openly aligned with them and supporting them.
20:31
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you and I, well, we didn't.
20:34
Speaker 3: I mentioned to you last time we spoke that COVID
20:39
Speaker 3: operations were absolutely happening in terms of military. The Helderberg
20:44
Speaker 3: air crash is a very good example of precisely that.
20:48
Speaker 3: What happened was South Africa was being sanctioned by most
20:51
Speaker 3: of the world and still needed to get military stuff
20:56
Speaker 3: into the country. And so the Helderberg was One such example,
21:00
Speaker 3: it was a Boeing that flew from Taiwan and crashed
21:03
Speaker 3: off Mauritius because it had contraband on it that exploded,
21:10
Speaker 3: which exposed what was going on. And that was meant
21:16
Speaker 3: to go to Angola.
21:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. It was a place of great intrigue.
21:25
Speaker 1: One thing I'm aware of, I found in my research
21:30
Speaker 1: where there were coup plots against Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia
21:35
Speaker 1: directed by the South African Intelligence Service. But I think
21:39
Speaker 1: the CIA was the kind of mastermind of those plots
21:43
Speaker 1: because Kaunda had been on the radar. And I have
21:46
Speaker 1: some knowledge of that country because I spent about six
21:49
Speaker 1: months there. My ex-wife was from there, and I did
21:53
Speaker 1: research in the Zambian archives there. And, you know, Kaunda
21:59
Speaker 1: was a socialist leader when he came in in 1964.
22:03
Speaker 1: And he was also kind of like Nkrumah, supporting a
22:06
Speaker 1: lot of liberation movements and leftist movements across Africa. They
22:11
Speaker 1: provided a sanctuary for the– a lot of the ANC
22:14
Speaker 1: people went into Zambia, the safe haven. And he also
22:20
Speaker 1: nationalized the copper. Zambia is very rich in copper. And now, actually,
22:25
Speaker 1: it's– there's a lot of interest in Zambia. with so-called
22:30
Speaker 1: clean energy, required a lot of copper. And they're really
22:35
Speaker 1: ramping up mining operations. Now, Coenda had tried to nationalize,
22:40
Speaker 1: and he did go forward with the nationalization. And he
22:42
Speaker 1: was opposing the war in Vietnam, because the files I
22:45
Speaker 1: were looking at that were available were more from the
22:47
Speaker 1: late 60s, early 70s. And it was discussed like Cohen
22:52
Speaker 1: was opposing the Vietnam War. And he nationalized the copper industry.
22:57
Speaker 1: And that made him a target. They were monitoring in
23:01
Speaker 1: Zambia what went on in Chile with the coup against Allende.
23:06
Speaker 1: Because that was Zambia's number two as far as copper production,
23:09
Speaker 1: Chile number one. And when the socialist Allende came in Chile,
23:14
Speaker 1: the CIA maneuvered to overthrow him. and install the fascist
23:20
Speaker 1: General Pinochet. So Zambia's and Coinda's government saw that unfolding,
23:25
Speaker 1: felt that they were next on the CIA's hit list.
23:29
Speaker 1: And there were coup plots. There is evidence of coup plots,
23:33
Speaker 1: including one in 1981 where it was South Africa mounted
23:39
Speaker 1: a coup. It was an actual coup attempt against Coinda
23:42
Speaker 1: that was thwarted. And the CIA and, yeah. South Africa
23:49
Speaker 1: were supporting right-wing elements. And there were divisions within Coanda's
23:55
Speaker 1: own party, so they were trying to, a unit party,
23:58
Speaker 1: they were trying to exploit that and support the more
24:01
Speaker 1: right-wing faction that would privatize, you know, end the nationalization,
24:05
Speaker 1: privatize the copper, which occurred, and they supported Frederick Chaluba,
24:12
Speaker 1: who came in 1991 when Coanda was removed. And Chiluba
24:18
Speaker 1: ended up being extraordinarily corrupt. And they found the closet
24:23
Speaker 1: of his... He had all these fancy clothes. When Zambia's
24:27
Speaker 1: economy went into the doldrums, there was mass poverty. And
24:32
Speaker 1: he was ultimately hated. Because I have some experience with that.
24:38
Speaker 1: Even in his hometown, they hated this guy because he
24:41
Speaker 1: basically abandoned his own hometown.
24:44
Speaker 2: But.
24:46
Speaker 3: Well, the whole communist narrative, as you've argued, was a
24:51
Speaker 3: manufactured pretext anyway. I mean, the ANC's links to the
24:57
Speaker 3: Soviets were actually quite thin.
25:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, well, it is a point of pride
25:04
Speaker 1: for the Soviets that they supported the anti-apartheid movement, as
25:10
Speaker 1: well as the Cubans who supported the MPLA and also
25:15
Speaker 1: supported ANC in some ways. So it is a point
25:20
Speaker 1: of pride for those countries because those are you know,
25:22
Speaker 1: progressive movements. But in general, I agree with your point that,
25:28
Speaker 1: I mean, these were organic movements. You know, in the
25:30
Speaker 1: propaganda of the time, they tried to present, and this guy,
25:34
Speaker 1: Donald Ricard, If you read this Time magazine article, he's saying, oh,
25:38
Speaker 1: the Soviet threat and Mandela is just a pawn of
25:42
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. And obviously, that's not the case. They're
25:46
Speaker 1: fighting for their own cause and for their own country.
25:50
Speaker 1: And they may receive some support. They may have some
25:54
Speaker 1: identification there. with the Soviet Union. But in the African case,
25:58
Speaker 1: from my understanding, a lot of these African movements never
26:04
Speaker 1: really wanted to adopt a Marxist-Leninist model of government. Firstly,
26:11
Speaker 1: I mean, Marxist theory points to a transition from feudalism
26:17
Speaker 1: to capitalism in to socialism and African countries hadn't really
26:22
Speaker 1: experienced capitalism and they'd been colonized so they were you
26:29
Speaker 1: know thoroughly underdeveloped but they hadn't achieved that phase of
26:33
Speaker 1: capitalism to undergo the next phase to socialism and yeah
26:38
Speaker 1: it just it didn't many Africans didn't really take to
26:43
Speaker 1: it entirely they had some simple like I know in
26:45
Speaker 1: the Zambian case like Kaunda was a socialist, but he
26:49
Speaker 1: was not a communist. He never wanted to import the
26:53
Speaker 1: Soviet system into Zambia. And at times, I think he
26:59
Speaker 1: actually opposed the MPLA. And the same with the ANC.
27:05
Speaker 1: I mean, there were factional divisions, and there were some
27:09
Speaker 1: white communists who were supporting the ANC and the anti-apartheid struggle,
27:14
Speaker 1: but it's not clear that they wanted to institute a
27:19
Speaker 1: Soviet-style economy ever in South Africa. And they may have
27:24
Speaker 1: conceived it as a democratic system. I mean, a lot
27:28
Speaker 1: of American communists said that. They envisioned the kind of
27:32
Speaker 1: American variant of socialism that would be democratic socialism. adopting
27:41
Speaker 1: some aspects of the Soviet system. So my feeling is, yeah,
27:47
Speaker 1: it was used for propaganda purposes to scare the public
27:51
Speaker 1: and to distort the political situation to rationalize foreign intervention.
27:58
Speaker 2: Look, to be fair, I mean, I grew up in apartheid.
28:01
Speaker 3: And although South Africa is in a much better situation
28:05
Speaker 3: position in many respects to how it was during apartheid.
28:09
Speaker 3: It was very much safer. So, you know, it's a
28:12
Speaker 3: weird dichotomy because it wasn't this totalitarian hellhole that you
28:17
Speaker 3: might think. But it certainly is not that much better.
28:23
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it is better in many ways today,
28:24
Speaker 3: but I don't think it's that much better. I think
28:26
Speaker 3: that the country has been completely infiltrated. And that was
28:31
Speaker 3: the point that I was making at the beginning, that
28:34
Speaker 3: the system might have changed, but the controllers remained.
28:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're more of an expert than me, but
28:43
Speaker 1: my understanding was that a bargain was made at the
28:46
Speaker 1: end of apartheid that they would kind of keep the
28:49
Speaker 1: economic arrangements somewhat similar they were before in exchange for
28:56
Speaker 1: changing the political structure, at least on a surface level.
29:01
Speaker 1: giving blacks more access to power, but only a certain
29:05
Speaker 1: class of blacks could benefit. And the structure of the
29:11
Speaker 1: economy remained in place. And you had, I think, part
29:15
Speaker 1: of the bargain. And I think some viewed Mandela's kind
29:18
Speaker 1: of sellout because, yeah, initially he was part of the
29:22
Speaker 1: socialist wing of the ANC that wanted wealth redistribution, more
29:27
Speaker 1: socialist economic policies. But through the bargain that was made,
29:31
Speaker 1: he abandoned that. And South Africa followed a neoliberal economic
29:35
Speaker 1: model that has fueled these widening inequalities and out of control.
29:40
Speaker 1: crime rate. And so the situation in the country today
29:45
Speaker 1: is far from a good one.
29:49
Speaker 3: The CIA still refuses to declassify its key documents surrounding
29:54
Speaker 3: Mandela's capture. I mean, I think they released some documents
29:58
Speaker 3: in 2017. What do you think they're adding?
30:04
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Yeah, I mean, a lot, I think,
30:08
Speaker 1: came out because of Donald Ricard, so it's hard to
30:11
Speaker 1: know what more. With his revelations, which I think is pretty,
30:15
Speaker 1: you know, sound as far as the credibility, and this
30:22
Speaker 1: was somebody on his deathbed who was kind of coming clean, So,
30:27
Speaker 1: I don't know what more the documents could reveal. I mean,
30:30
Speaker 1: it would reveal probably just a mass surveillance operation targeting
30:35
Speaker 1: Mandela going back to the 1950s. It might reveal a
30:39
Speaker 1: Quennell Pro. One thing that the CIA was doing with
30:43
Speaker 1: these kind of Quennell Pro operations, what they did within
30:46
Speaker 1: the United States to try and sow divisions within radical
30:50
Speaker 1: or leftists or civil rights groups, was planting a genre
30:54
Speaker 1: provocateur to sow divisions and undermine more progressive elements and
31:00
Speaker 1: sow conflicts to weaken the group, and black in its
31:04
Speaker 1: public image, and maybe even any violent. Often provocateur would
31:10
Speaker 1: also carry out violent attacks, arson, or maybe killings to
31:15
Speaker 1: give a violent reputation to a group like the ANC.
31:20
Speaker 1: So I'm sure there was a lot of dirty stuff
31:22
Speaker 1: they were doing, and this fits a worldwide... I think
31:27
Speaker 1: there's evidence that the Quenalpro group And the quenal pearl
31:31
Speaker 1: only became known because There was a group of activists
31:36
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam era who were protesting the Vietnam War,
31:41
Speaker 1: and they felt there were infiltrators in their group. And
31:44
Speaker 1: so they broke into an FBI office, and they realized
31:48
Speaker 1: that there was a big boxing match between Muhammad Ali
31:52
Speaker 1: and Frazier and all the FBI agents. I guess they
31:56
Speaker 1: had their own spying of the FBI office and knew
31:59
Speaker 1: some of these FBI guys. And knew that they were
32:02
Speaker 1: all going to be watching this L.E. Frazier fight and
32:06
Speaker 1: going to a bar or something, getting drunk and watching
32:08
Speaker 1: the fight. So they picked that night. I guess in
32:12
Speaker 1: those days, the security was a little more lax and
32:15
Speaker 1: they were able to break in to this FBI office
32:18
Speaker 1: and stole these files. And actually, they were surprised. It
32:22
Speaker 1: was kind of just like a small operation to see
32:24
Speaker 1: if their group was being infiltrated. But they uncovered this
32:28
Speaker 1: massive program of counterintelligence going back to the 1950s, whereby
32:36
Speaker 1: the FBI was infiltrating left-wing and activists and civil rights
32:40
Speaker 1: groups to sow divisions and to plant provocateur to block
32:45
Speaker 1: in their reputation. And then more and more has come
32:48
Speaker 1: to light that this blueprint was used worldwide. You know,
32:52
Speaker 1: the Operation Gladio. More has come out about that, in
32:56
Speaker 1: part through an Italian parliamentary investigation, through a study by
33:00
Speaker 1: Daniel Ganzer that was published around year 2000, I think.
33:05
Speaker 1: We know that they were doing this in Western Europe.
33:07
Speaker 1: They were carrying out a false flag operation like in
33:11
Speaker 1: Italy and planting evidence on left-wingers to try and discredit
33:15
Speaker 1: left-wing groups. There's a book called Operation Splinter Factor that
33:20
Speaker 1: was written about Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union where
33:23
Speaker 1: they did this kind of quintal pro-style thing where they
33:26
Speaker 1: infiltrated communist parties and tried to sow divisions and paranoia
33:33
Speaker 1: and that may have fueled some Stalin's excess he became
33:38
Speaker 1: paranoid in part because there was genuine subversion going on
33:45
Speaker 1: and attempts to create rivalries and what they would do
33:50
Speaker 1: is they planted they outed a CIA agent and then
33:56
Speaker 1: had him associate with some people in the Communist Party
34:01
Speaker 1: to make it seem like they were traitors, that was
34:04
Speaker 1: one of the tricks they did. They had all kinds
34:06
Speaker 1: of tricks like that. So I think when the files
34:09
Speaker 1: are released, and I think I mentioned this to you,
34:11
Speaker 1: that last time I went to the National Archive, This guy,
34:15
Speaker 1: Lou Wolf, who's the founder of COVID Action Magazine, has
34:19
Speaker 1: been around for a long time, since the 60s, doing
34:23
Speaker 1: this kind of research. We met this old-timer also who's
34:26
Speaker 1: worked at the National Archive for like 40 years or something.
34:29
Speaker 1: We were just talking to him in his office, and
34:32
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, there's a file in the CIA where
34:35
Speaker 1: there's like a million documents, and it has the tightest
34:39
Speaker 1: security code. And he's like, none of us are ever
34:45
Speaker 1: going to see those documents in our lifetime. And I mean,
34:50
Speaker 1: what is revealed in there? Well, I think it'll expose
34:53
Speaker 1: a lot of names of traitors, people who collaborated with
34:57
Speaker 1: the CIA in subverting the ANC, and people within the
35:03
Speaker 1: ANC who ratted on their own people. So, I mean,
35:09
Speaker 1: they're protecting personal reputation at this point. And probably those
35:13
Speaker 1: are probably very powerful people. Maybe today the South African
35:18
Speaker 1: government are the ones who collaborated with the CIA against
35:22
Speaker 1: Mandela back in the day. Or maybe, you know, their
35:27
Speaker 1: offspring or something at this point. But so, yeah, reputations
35:31
Speaker 1: are at stake and the wide scope of these programs
35:35
Speaker 1: to sow divisions, to. and carry out criminal activity and
35:40
Speaker 1: try and blame it on adversaries. And that's a modus
35:44
Speaker 1: operandi of the CIA that can be seen in Operation Phoenix.
35:49
Speaker 1: There's another case we know quite a lot about, but
35:52
Speaker 1: it's a worldwide strategy. And we see, I think it's
35:57
Speaker 1: being used in many different ways today. And that's, I think,
36:00
Speaker 1: one thing they're hiding, the extent of those programs and
36:04
Speaker 1: the people who they worked with and who are in
36:06
Speaker 1: effect can be viewed as traitors.
36:10
Speaker 3: But i mean often their strategy is that sort of
36:15
Speaker 3: post-cold war anti-communist kind of narrative but that itself is
36:21
Speaker 3: a boogeyman that that drums up emotions i mean sort
36:25
Speaker 3: of capitalist culture.
36:29
Speaker 1: But yeah i mean that's what they're trying to do
36:31
Speaker 1: today they're trying to demonize the Chinese Communist Party, accuse
36:36
Speaker 1: them of all kinds of crimes like a mythic genocide
36:40
Speaker 1: toward the Uyghur. They're trying to revive that Cold War culture.
36:44
Speaker 1: I mean, the Russophobia for the last 10 years, they've
36:47
Speaker 1: been pushing this anti-Putin, anti-Russia narrative to ridiculous levels. And
36:55
Speaker 1: I mean, they're trying to use that to justify intervention
36:58
Speaker 1: in Africa. Again, I mean, they're And if you read
37:01
Speaker 1: the New York Times, periodically there are these lurid articles
37:05
Speaker 1: about Russian involvement in Africa and how pernicious it is.
37:11
Speaker 1: And it kind of smacks of the Cold War. That's
37:13
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff they were putting out there throughout
37:15
Speaker 1: the Cold War to justify these kind of interventions we're describing,
37:20
Speaker 1: usually aligned with the worst forces on the continent and
37:25
Speaker 1: involved in all kinds of criminal activity. and targeting honorable
37:31
Speaker 1: people like Mandela.
37:35
Speaker 3: You mentioned John Stockwell earlier. He was the Angolan operations director,
37:42
Speaker 3: I think. And it was in his memoir where he
37:47
Speaker 3: said that it actually wasn't the U.S.
37:49
Speaker 1: That.
37:51
Speaker 3: created the pivotal turning point for the collapse of apartheid,
37:57
Speaker 3: but it was actually Cuba.
38:00
Speaker 1: Correct. Yeah, yeah. And Stockwell, I would recommend reading his
38:03
Speaker 1: book because he has an extended discussion of the propaganda.
38:07
Speaker 1: That's one thing that put him off about the CIA,
38:10
Speaker 1: how they deceived the public and they pumped in all
38:13
Speaker 1: this propaganda and like they were accusing the Cubans of
38:17
Speaker 1: committing atrocities. that actually were being carried out by right-wing
38:23
Speaker 1: rebel force in Angola. And some of these South African mercenaries,
38:27
Speaker 1: because the South Africans sent mercenaries, some of them were
38:30
Speaker 1: quite famous, like Nad Mike Hoare, I forget how you
38:35
Speaker 1: pronounce his last name, Bob Denard. These are kind of
38:39
Speaker 1: famous mercenaries who compiled an infamous record in Congo. and
38:45
Speaker 1: goal of atrocities, but the US media was blaming the
38:49
Speaker 1: Cubans for those atrocities. And they were also exaggerating the
38:54
Speaker 1: numbers of soldiers and even the timing, because the Cubans
38:59
Speaker 1: actually only came in after the CIA and US had
39:03
Speaker 1: got heavily involved. But yeah, the people of the region
39:08
Speaker 1: credit Cuba. I mean, Cuba is a very popular country. in, in,
39:14
Speaker 1: in the South African region. I mean, I, I've only
39:17
Speaker 1: traveled in Zambia, but when I was there, uh, actually
39:21
Speaker 1: they carry one of the newspapers carry, you know, Fidel
39:24
Speaker 1: Castro was still alive at that point. They carried his column.
39:29
Speaker 1: And there was very good feelings toward Cuba, including that
39:33
Speaker 1: it had defied, seen as a symbol, a small country
39:37
Speaker 1: that had defied colonialism and defied the United States, as
39:42
Speaker 1: well as its contribution to ending apartheid. I believe Mandela,
39:45
Speaker 1: one of the first places he went after became South
39:48
Speaker 1: African leader, I believe it was Cuba, to thank the
39:51
Speaker 1: Cuban people. And that history is obscured, certainly in the
39:55
Speaker 1: United States, where Cuba is constantly vilified. People do know Mandela.
40:01
Speaker 1: Kids would recognize Mandela's name today, but I think very
40:05
Speaker 1: few would know, and they're not being taught that in
40:08
Speaker 1: their high schools or their history textbooks, how Cuba contributed
40:14
Speaker 1: significantly to the end of apartheid and how Mandela went
40:17
Speaker 1: to Cuba right away. And yeah, it was kind of selfless.
40:21
Speaker 1: Cuba didn't really have any state or national interest in Angola.
40:27
Speaker 1: Some historians view that as one of the few pure
40:30
Speaker 1: humanitarian interventions, because Cuba was not there to grab Angola's oil.
40:37
Speaker 1: They were there mainly because of ideological affinity with the MPLA,
40:42
Speaker 1: but and support for the anti-apartheid cause. So that could
40:47
Speaker 1: be viewed as one of the few, because most nation
40:50
Speaker 1: states don't behave out of altruism, and there are few
40:54
Speaker 1: genuinely humanitarian interventions one could point to in recent world history,
40:59
Speaker 1: but that would be one.
41:02
Speaker 2: Listen to this.
41:03
Speaker 3: Why did Washington back apartheid so consistently? Follow the minerals.
41:09
Speaker 3: Uranium was the core strategic interest. South Africa's reserves became
41:12
Speaker 3: critically important after the Manhattan Project and the nuclear arms race.
41:16
Speaker 3: The US signed a military cooperation agreement with Pretoria, partly
41:21
Speaker 3: on that basis. When South Africa opened its first uranium
41:25
Speaker 3: extraction plant in October 1952, it did so with US
41:30
Speaker 3: and British cooperation. The apartheid state was, in blunt terms,
41:34
Speaker 3: a mineral extraction ally that the West couldn't afford to destabilize,
41:39
Speaker 3: regardless of what it was doing to its own people.
41:43
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. And in my survey, the Kennedy policy was
41:47
Speaker 1: very supportive of apartheid South Africa, largely for the reasons
41:53
Speaker 1: you're describing. And some believe Kennedy was somehow different– and
41:59
Speaker 1: consider him this great liberal figure. But actually, he continued
42:02
Speaker 1: that policy from Eisenhower. And it was similar to Congo.
42:07
Speaker 1: There was uranium deposits that were discovered in Congo, and
42:11
Speaker 1: that was one of the reasons for the keen U.S.
42:14
Speaker 1: interest and political interventions and manipulations in Congo, much like
42:20
Speaker 1: South Africa.
42:20
Speaker 3: I can't remember now who said it, but I think
42:24
Speaker 3: it was a former Israeli minister intelligence officer, or even
42:29
Speaker 3: a former Israeli prime minister, I cannot remember, but he
42:33
Speaker 3: openly said that Israel created the South Africa's military. So
42:41
Speaker 3: Israel was supplying arms to the apartheid government, then on
42:46
Speaker 3: the outside saying that it wasn't in favor of apartheid.
42:49
Speaker 3: But I mean, listen to this. 22 September 1979, a
42:54
Speaker 3: US Vela satellite detected the classic double flash of an
43:00
Speaker 3: atmospheric nuclear detonation near the Prince Edward Islands in the
43:03
Speaker 3: southern Indian Ocean. The leading theory was a joint South
43:07
Speaker 3: Africa-Israel nuclear test. The Carter White House convened a panel
43:12
Speaker 3: that quietly concluded the evidence was consistent with a nuclear explosion.
43:17
Speaker 3: Then a second panel was assembled that contradicted those findings,
43:21
Speaker 3: which critics labeled a whitewash. South Africa supplied Israel with
43:25
Speaker 3: natural uranium rods from 1972 to 1975. The CIA believed
43:30
Speaker 3: Israel was a nuclear proliferation risk, specifically via sales to
43:35
Speaker 3: apartheid South Africa, so the whole episode has never been
43:38
Speaker 3: officially confirmed by either country.
43:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not an expert on that, but there is
43:45
Speaker 1: a book that I think documents the close Israeli relation
43:51
Speaker 1: with apartheid South Africa and also the nuclear program, how
43:56
Speaker 1: Israel nuclear program drew off material in Africa. Now, one
44:00
Speaker 1: thing I have studied is there's an Operation KK Mountain
44:04
Speaker 1: that the CIA set up in which they used Israel
44:10
Speaker 1: basically as a proxy for and liaison with a lot
44:16
Speaker 1: of the more unsavory governments in Africa that the U.S.
44:20
Speaker 1: wanted to prop up to secure an economic foothold there,
44:24
Speaker 1: but they didn't want to advertise this to their public
44:28
Speaker 1: or give too much of their own foreign aid because
44:30
Speaker 1: it would invite some scrutiny, like Congo. So Israel was
44:34
Speaker 1: very involved in training Joseph Mbutu. Through this Operation KK Mountain,
44:39
Speaker 1: I think it was financed by the United States, largely.
44:43
Speaker 1: Israeli trainers went to Congo, and they even trained Mobutu,
44:48
Speaker 1: and Mobutu himself received training in jumping out of airplanes,
44:53
Speaker 1: like paratrooper skills. And he started as an army officer,
44:58
Speaker 1: so this may have been before he consolidated his power
45:02
Speaker 1: over the entire country. He was trained by the Israelis
45:06
Speaker 1: in paratrooper skills, and they provided a lot of his
45:09
Speaker 1: personal security And then they went into many other countries,
45:12
Speaker 1: like Cameroon. This came out recently. I did an article.
45:16
Speaker 1: Cameroon has the world's oldest dictator. This guy, Paul Bia,
45:20
Speaker 1: is like 95 years old. He won an election a
45:24
Speaker 1: year or two ago. And that's when I did an article.
45:27
Speaker 1: And he's, I think, completely senile. He spends six months
45:31
Speaker 1: of the year living in this lavish hotel. in Switzerland.
45:35
Speaker 1: Even one of his own daughters said, don't vote for
45:39
Speaker 1: this guy. He's a monster. He's been in power since
45:43
Speaker 1: the early 80s. Who's been training his security force and
45:48
Speaker 1: who provides the security and training a lot of his
45:51
Speaker 1: elite paramilitary forces? The Israelis. It started, at least, through
45:59
Speaker 1: the Operation KK Mountain back in the 60s. There was
46:02
Speaker 1: a predecessor, Because when they expelled the French, they crushed
46:06
Speaker 1: this leftist movement led by a guy, Ruben Umniyobe. And
46:11
Speaker 1: there was some other leftist movement that got crushed. And
46:14
Speaker 1: the U.S. supported these right-wing and savory dictators. There was
46:18
Speaker 1: a guy before Bia. And so even from that point,
46:21
Speaker 1: they used the Israelis. And there's some other countries as well,
46:27
Speaker 1: I think like Central Africa Republic and some other ones
46:30
Speaker 1: where there's some really unsavory leaders. So they got the
46:34
Speaker 1: Israelis in there. Initially, that was funded by the United States. So, yeah, Israel,
46:41
Speaker 1: I mean, Israel had a strained relationship with Africa. I mean, initially,
46:45
Speaker 1: I think some African governments had kind of warm attitude
46:50
Speaker 1: toward the Israelis. And the Israelis did provide, besides some
46:55
Speaker 1: military and paramilitary aid, they also provided a lot of
46:59
Speaker 1: economic development there. And they were forging some good relations
47:03
Speaker 1: with various governments, including the Zambian government. But over time,
47:07
Speaker 1: a lot of the Pan-Africanists and leftists, and initially Israel
47:11
Speaker 1: was viewed more favorably in the world community in the
47:16
Speaker 1: early years, you know, as a country, that it was
47:20
Speaker 1: a developing world country. I mean, it was achieving certain
47:24
Speaker 1: economic success that made it admired. And actually, it was
47:31
Speaker 1: a socialist country. When Israel started, it had a strong
47:34
Speaker 1: left-wing sensibility. And the kibbutz model is rooted in socialist ideals.
47:41
Speaker 1: And there was a strong socialist movement in the country.
47:45
Speaker 1: So there was some affiliation there. with socialist governments in Africa,
47:51
Speaker 1: including the Zambian government. But then over time, a lot
47:55
Speaker 1: of the more progressive African governments started to look negatively
47:59
Speaker 1: toward Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians and relation became frayed.
48:05
Speaker 1: But the exception, of course, is apartheid South Africa. And maybe, unfortunately,
48:11
Speaker 1: there is some ideological affinity there on top of just
48:16
Speaker 1: the strategic benefits that each country could accrue. But I
48:21
Speaker 1: think that's also a case where the United States saw
48:23
Speaker 1: they could distance themselves a bit, since it was bad
48:26
Speaker 1: for public relations to associate too closely with the apartheid government.
48:31
Speaker 1: But if they use Israel as an intermediary and ferret
48:34
Speaker 1: a lot of the aid through Israel, they take more
48:37
Speaker 1: of a distance, but they're still helping them. And then
48:40
Speaker 1: Israel's getting the development of its nuclear program, which the U.S. wanted.
48:45
Speaker 1: Since the U.S. uses Israel as its proxy in the
48:47
Speaker 1: Middle East.
48:49
Speaker 3: But there's always that dichotomy between what is being said
48:54
Speaker 3: and what is being done. It's never the same when
48:57
Speaker 3: you're talking at sort of governmental level.
49:01
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, they say one thing, they condemn apartheid
49:05
Speaker 1: South Africa and covertly they're supporting it. I mean, even
49:08
Speaker 1: Ian Smith's government, that received full-fledged condemnation. And I mean,
49:13
Speaker 1: officially they're cutting off diplomatic relations and they are imposing sanctions,
49:19
Speaker 1: but they're allowing... the sanctions to be evaded and ensuring
49:23
Speaker 1: that those sanctions are kind of toothless. And so that
49:26
Speaker 1: helps sustain that regime for many years. So, yeah, if
49:32
Speaker 1: you study the world of international relations is one of
49:36
Speaker 1: complete deception and And there's a book, I remember it
49:40
Speaker 1: was written in the World War I era. And I
49:43
Speaker 1: quoted another, I did a review of Michael McFaul, who's
49:47
Speaker 1: this Russophobic, he was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, and
49:51
Speaker 1: he published these memoirs. And I titled it after this book,
49:55
Speaker 1: Now I forget the title, but it was in the
49:57
Speaker 1: World War I era. And it was just like basically
50:01
Speaker 1: saying the whole profession, you know, the people who succeed
50:05
Speaker 1: in that profession are the best liars and charlatans. It's
50:11
Speaker 1: one profession where you're lying all the time. And only
50:15
Speaker 1: good liars can do well, you know, working in the
50:18
Speaker 1: diplomatic field because everything is doublespeak. And they always make
50:23
Speaker 1: like it's this nice... humanitarian initiative. But really, international relations
50:29
Speaker 1: is kind of a Hobbesian struggle for control over mineral wealth.
50:36
Speaker 1: And all kinds of skullduggery and violence will be used
50:42
Speaker 1: to try and gain an edge in the great game,
50:46
Speaker 1: so to speak. And very little is about humanitarianism. That's
50:50
Speaker 1: why the Cuban intervention in South Africa is unique. because
50:54
Speaker 1: it's really one of the few pure humanitarian interventions.
51:01
Speaker 2: Pull this up while you were talking. Listen to this.
51:03
Speaker 3: While the CIA handled the covert side, U.S. corporations provided
51:08
Speaker 3: the economic oxygen. Ford, GM, and Chrysler together had $ 270
51:13
Speaker 3: million invested in South Africa by the late apartheid era.
51:18
Speaker 3: It's roughly 20% of all U.S. corporate investment in South Africa.
51:23
Speaker 3: IBM provided the computing infrastructure that helped the apartheid state
51:27
Speaker 3: manage its population control systems.
51:29
Speaker 2: U.S.
51:29
Speaker 3: Bank loans to South Africa exceeded $ 3 billion. Ford, Daimler Chrysler,
51:34
Speaker 3: and GM were later sued for providing vehicles to the
51:37
Speaker 3: South African armed forces. IBM and Fujitsu for providing technology
51:43
Speaker 3: to the apartheid government.
51:44
Speaker 2: U.S. courts ultimately dismissed most of the cases. How's that?
51:50
Speaker 2: For saying one thing and doing another.
51:54
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. That sums it up pretty well, yeah. And
51:58
Speaker 1: often it boils down to that, corporate interests and corporate investment.
52:04
Speaker 1: And that has dictated, as far as U.S. foreign policy,
52:09
Speaker 1: these corporate interests have long dictated U.S. government policy going
52:17
Speaker 1: well back into the 19th century. And really, the American government,
52:23
Speaker 1: one of its main purposes really is to advance business interests,
52:29
Speaker 1: and there's not much morality in the equation. They're trying
52:32
Speaker 1: to make as much money as possible, and they're doing
52:35
Speaker 1: very well in South Africa at that time, so why
52:39
Speaker 1: would they want any change? Especially, the ANC is pushing...
52:45
Speaker 1: the kind of policies advocated for by leftists across the
52:49
Speaker 1: African continent to nationalize the resources and take control of
52:53
Speaker 1: the industry, major industry, for Africans. So that will undercut
53:00
Speaker 1: their investment opportunities. Or even basic things like raising wages
53:05
Speaker 1: for the workers become the threat to their bottom line,
53:10
Speaker 1: or taxation, higher taxation. So, and we see that today,
53:16
Speaker 1: you know, they'll strike against any government that tries to
53:20
Speaker 1: raise taxes, that tries to, you know, foreign companies, that
53:25
Speaker 1: tries to raise the wage of workers, that supports, you know,
53:29
Speaker 1: labor unions and other nationalistic policies. So, it's really a
53:35
Speaker 1: very consistent foreign policy strategy. And, you know, IBM, there's also,
53:40
Speaker 1: there's a book, IBM and the Holocaust.
53:42
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at- I've got that book.
53:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very good book. It's well-documented. The other
53:50
Speaker 1: immorality of these Fortune 500 companies, they don't care the
53:56
Speaker 1: human consequences.
53:59
Speaker 3: What did the CIA know about Project Coast?
54:06
Speaker 1: What is Project Coast?
54:08
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, maybe you don't know about it. So.
54:11
Speaker 3: Project Coast was a COVID operation under the apartheid government.
54:19
Speaker 3: Kind of like a chemical bio-warfare project in which they
54:25
Speaker 3: wanted to find a way... I kid you not, you
54:29
Speaker 3: can look it up. They wanted to sterilize the black
54:31
Speaker 3: population to reduce childbirth.
54:36
Speaker 2: And.
54:37
Speaker 3: As far as I can tell, the head of Project Coast,
54:40
Speaker 3: his name was Dr. Wouter Besson, there was a tip-off,
54:47
Speaker 3: and the CIA were involved in his arrest, which is
54:50
Speaker 3: a very interesting turn of events. But I thought you
54:52
Speaker 3: might have known something about that, so I won't labor
54:55
Speaker 3: the point.
54:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting.
54:58
Speaker 2: I don't know.
54:59
Speaker 1: I mean, the CIA was involved in population control and
55:04
Speaker 1: social engineering projects, a lot of that. Was that the
55:07
Speaker 1: initiative of the Rockefeller family in philanthropy had an interest
55:12
Speaker 1: in reducing populations? But I don't know about that. Okay.
55:19
Speaker 3: It's just interesting that they knew about this project but
55:23
Speaker 3: then were supposedly involved in his arrest. I mean, how
55:27
Speaker 3: would they have known?
55:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't put anything
55:33
Speaker 1: past them. And more comes out, you find they're involved
55:38
Speaker 1: in some of this nefarious stuff. I mean, they were
55:40
Speaker 1: doing that in the United States. There's evidence that they
55:43
Speaker 1: were trying to sterilize black women in the United States.
55:48
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't be surprised to learn if they encouraged
55:53
Speaker 1: that in some way or there were some CIA subsidiary financing,
55:58
Speaker 1: but I don't know for sure about that.
56:00
Speaker 2: Okay, well, we'll leave that for now. All right. Okay, Jeremy,
56:05
Speaker 2: I'm just looking at the time.
56:07
Speaker 3: So the summary here is that the CIA had close
56:12
Speaker 3: links to the apartheid government, both for and against, depending
56:17
Speaker 3: on how they could have benefited ultimately. And as you said,
56:20
Speaker 3: the CIA was essentially part of the US government. So
56:22
Speaker 3: it was all really about benefiting the US, not really
56:25
Speaker 3: South Africa.
56:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. It's about benefiting U.S. corporations like the one
56:30
Speaker 1: you described who are doing very well and expanding control,
56:35
Speaker 1: using South Africa as a kind of lever to control
56:38
Speaker 1: Africa and expand U.S. influence and investment across the continent
56:44
Speaker 1: and to support more right-wing movements that will give favors
56:48
Speaker 1: to U.S. businesses. And South Africa did a favor through
56:53
Speaker 1: its intervention in Angola and Mozambique. throughout the region that
56:59
Speaker 1: the U.S. government was trying to control. All right.
57:05
Speaker 2: How can I follow your work, Jeremy?
57:08
Speaker 1: You can follow my work at Covert Action Magazine, where
57:12
Speaker 1: I'm the managing editor, or JeremyKuzmarov.com, or on my sub-stack,
57:18
Speaker 1: Too Hot for the Mainstream. All right.
57:22
Speaker 2: Well, on that note.
57:24
Speaker 3: Yet again, this must be like the hundredth time you
57:28
Speaker 3: and I have spoken. But I look forward to the
57:31
Speaker 3: next conversation. For now, Jeremy Kuzmrov, thank you for joining
57:35
Speaker 3: me in the trenches.
57:37
Speaker 1: My pleasure. Great conversation as usual.