Dar es Salaam, and then they’d have to relay it to Luluabourg.”
[ SEVEN ]
Kamina Air Base
Katanga Province, The Congo
1100 23 May 1965
Father Lunsford found Jack Portet, who was wearing a flight suit, eating breakfast—ham and eggs, a croissant, orange juice and coffee—in the officers’ mess.
“Is that breakfast or lunch?” Lunsford asked, slipping into a chair beside him and reaching for the coffeepot.
“I was up most of the night in a B-26,” Jack said. “And, apparently aware that I was getting some well-deserved rest, the maintenance officer ordered T-18 engine run-ups outside my window, starting at nine. I finally gave up trying to get some sleep. What are you doing here?”
Lunsford did not respond to the question; instead, he asked lightly:
“And did you do something useful, while you were up most of the night?”
“Are you going to send an after-action report?” Jack asked seriously.
“No. The B-26s are an Agency operation. And since we don’t fly their airplanes—we don’t fly their airplanes, do we, Jack?”
Portet met his eyes and snorted.
“No, sir, I don’t think you could find anyone who would say that I was flying the B-26 last night, when it blew a launch into many small pieces.”
“And since we don’t fly their airplanes,” Lunsford went on, “there’s really no reason for us to send an after-action report, is there?”
“I guess not,” Jack said.
“But, hypothetically speaking, if an after-action report was being sent, what do you think it would say?”
Jack thought about that a moment, then replied:
“Acting on information everyone on the B-26 really hopes was reliable, a forty-odd-foot launch was detected in the Congolese waters of Lake Tanganyika—maybe a mile over the border. Said vessel was on a course for Kalamba. Said vessel did not display running lights. Persons aboard said vessel, on seeing a B-26 aircraft coming at them with gear and flaps down at about two hundred feet, fired upon said B-26 with what appeared to be small-caliber automatic weapons, whereupon said B-26 blew said launch into small pieces with a ten-second burst of .50-caliber machine-gun fire from the six Brownings in the nose of said B-26.”
“Hypothetically speaking, what would you say the chances were the boat was able to report their predicament before it went down?”
“Zero,” Jack said.
“Chances of survivors?”
“Zero.”
“Not even hanging on to pieces of the boat?”
“From the fireball, I’d say it was carrying a couple hundred gallons of gasoline as cargo. Plus some high explosives. Nobody swam away from that one.”
“Now that they know how to do it, can the Cubans do this on their own from here on in?”
Portet thought that over before replying.
“You have two problems with our Cubans,” he began. “The first is that they’ll happily blow any boat out of the water that they even suspect has their communist countrymen aboard, and, two, they are wondering, aloud, why they can’t just blow Guevara and everybody else on the Luluabourg plateau away.”
“I’ll have Cecilia speak to them,” Lunsford said.
“What makes you think they’ll listen?”
“Because she’ll make it clear that anybody who disobeys orders will get shipped back to the States,” Lunsford said. “They wouldn’t like that. Here at least they can do something against Guevara.”
[ EIGHT ]
TOP SECRET
HELP0039 2115 ZULU 23 MAY 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
SITUATION REPORT #43
1. FOLLOWING, IN WHICH MATA HARI CONCURS, SHOULD BE FURNISHED TO CIA.
2. AT 0915 ZULU 23 MAY 1965 ASA SOURCES INTERCEPTED A RADIO MESSAGE TRANSMITTED FROM KIGOMA, TANGANYIKA AND SIGNED BY COLONEL LAURENT MITOUDIDI, AS CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STAFF MILITARY COUNCIL, ADDRESSED TO “TATU” (GUEVARA) IN LULUPLAT. IT USED A CODE NORMALLY USED ONLY BY CUBAN EMBASSY IN DAR ES SALAAM, AND IS THEREFORE CONSIDERED LEGITIMATE. IT ORDERED GUEVARA TO “PREPARE TO ATTACK AND LIBERATE ALBERTVILLE AND HOLD IT AGAINST ALL MERCENARY AND REACTIONARY FORCES.” NO SPECIFICS WERE GIVEN.
3. WE HAVE DRAWN THE FOLLOWING CONCLUSIONS:
a. GUEVARA HAS, PROBABLY BECAUSE HE HAS NO OTHER CHOICE, PLACED HIMSELF AND CUBANS UNDER ORDERS OF MITOUDIDI. MITOUDIDI IS HAVING HEARTS AND MINDS PROBLEMS WITH CIVILIAN POPULATION IN ORIENTAL, KATANGA, AND KASAI PROVINCES BECAUSE OF BOTH HIS INABILITY TO OUST HOARE’S MERCENARIES AND/OR SUPO’S FORCES FROM ALBERTVILLE, STANLEYVILLE, OR ANYWHERE ELSE, AND BECAUSE OF THE UNDISCIPLINED BEHAVIOR OF HIS TROOPS. THERE HAVE BEEN MANY CONFIRMED REPORTS OF ATROCITIES AGAINST CONGOLESE CIVILIANS IN THE AREAS INFESTED BY SIMBAS, RANGING FROM THEFT OF FOOD AND LIVESTOCK, FORCIBLE RECRUITMENT OF MEN INTO SIMBAS, TO RAPE AND MURDER.
b. MITOUDIDI IS SPENDING MORE AND MORE TIME IN KIGOMA AND LESS TIME ANYWHERE IN THE CONGO. THERE IS REASON