Covert action as practiced by the United States Central Intelligence Agency has been defined as clandestine activity designed to influence foreign governments, events, organizations or persons in support of U.S. foreign policy conducted in such a way that the involvement of the U.S. Government is not apparent.1 The CIA has pursued its most substantial African covert actions in Zaire (the former Belgian Congo) and Angola. As the paramilitary, political, and propaganda operation unfolded in Angola in 19751976, both U.S. policymakers and distressed African observers were struck by its connection to earlier American intervention in Zaire. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger suggested that Angolan independence was fraught with the same dangers for U.S. security as Zairian independence in 1960: We cannot ignore, for example, the substantial Soviet build-up of weapons in Angola, which has introduced great power rivalry into Africa for the first time in 15 years.2 Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs William Schaufele, Jr., discerned obvious parallels between Soviet efforts to move in on the Congo after independence in