by Wilbur Smith
Ethiopia had been a triumph for him. He had steered the first stage of the revolution through without any visible Russian presence in the country and, more importantly, with the expenditure of a paltry few million roubles.
Following immediately had been his clandestine but equally successful visit to Luanda in Angola where Ramsey had met the Red Admiral, Rosa Coutinho.
Coutinho was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party. He had been appointed governor-general of Angola by the left-wing military-forces committee which now governed Portugal. He had been charged with organizing the popular elections to select an African government to bring the former Portuguese colony of Angola to independence. However, during his meeting with Ramsey he had proven to be a political soulmate.
"We must ensure that under no circumstances popular elections take place," he had told Ramsey. 'If we allow that to happen, then Jonas Savimbi will be the first president of Angola, if only because his Ovimbundu tribe is the largest in the country." 'We cannot allow it," Ramsey agreed. He did not have to elaborate. Jonas Savimbi was the boldest and most successful of all the Angolan guerrilla leaders.'His UNITA army had fought the Portuguese with skill and dogged determination for a decade. He was intelligent, educated and strong-willed.
Although he had never declared his political allegiances, he was certainly not a Marxist, probably not even a socialist, and they could not take a chance on him coming to power.
"The only possible solution,' Ramsey went on, 'is for you to declare that, owing to the state of chaos in the country, it will be impractical to hold elections. You should then declare that the solution is to recognize the MPLA as the only party capable of assuming the reins of government, and to persuade Lisbon to transfer power to Agostinho Neto and the MPLA as soon as possible." Neto was the Soviet choice. He was devious, weak, cruel and malleable. He could be controlled, whereas Savimbi could not.
"I agree,' Coutinho nodded. 'But can I count on full support from Russia and Cuba?" 'If I am able to promise you that support, will you be prepared to hand over to us strategic military bases and airfields to allow us to rush in troops and military supplies?' Ramsey countered.
"You have my hand on it.' The Red Admiral stretched across his desk, and Ramsey took his hand with a soaring sense of triumph.
He was about to deliver two nations into Soviet sovereignty. Surely no single man had achieved more in Africa.
"I am flying directly from here to Havana,' he assured Coutinho. 'I anticipate that within a matter of days talks between Cuba and Moscow will be under way at the highest possible level. I will have your answer for you by the end of the month." Coutinho rose to his feet. 'You are an extraordinary man, Comrade Colonel-General. Seldom have I been privileged to work with one who sees so clearly to the very heart of a problem, and who is prepared to deliver the bold expert cut of a surgeon to excise it." Now Ramsey sat in the rear seat of the Chaika with President Fidel Castro beside him as they entered the citadel of Soviet socialism. The cavalcade led by the motorcycle escort moved swiftly up the broad cobbled avenue.
They passed the famous armoury, the great treasure-house of imperial Russia which still housed a stunning wealth of ambassadorial gifts and Tsarist regalia, from the crown of Ivan the Terrible to the jewel-encrusted court robes of Catherine the Great.
A queue of foreign tourists at the doors to the museum Pe watched them pass, their expressions lighting with curiosity as they recognized the great bearded figure of Castro in the second car.
Swiftly they moved on, passing on their left the square around which were clustered the cathedrals of the Archangel, of the Annunciation and of the Assumption. The immense spires and towers and golden domes burnt in the pale spring sunshine. The peach and cherry trees in the gardens were in full blossom. They swung into the square, passed the palace of the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet and drew up at the front entrance of the Council of Ministers building.
There was an honour guard paraded to welcome them and a dozen political and military dignitaries.
Deputy Minister Aleksei Yudenich stepped forward to embrace Castro and lead him into the Council of Ministers. In the Hall. of Mirrors, Castro began to speak from his seat at the head of the long table.
He spoke clearly, pausing at the end of each sentence to allow the Russian translator to catch up with him. Even Ramsey, as an old and intimate comrade-in-arms, was fascinated by his grasp of the African situation and his calculated assessment of the risks and options open to them. He had absorbed every word of Ramsey's briefing.
"The Western Europeans are divided and spineless. NATO depends militarily on America. They would never be able to muster any organized response to our determined entrance into the Angolan arena. We need not waste serious thought on them." 'What about America?' Yudenich asked soberly.
"America is still bleeding from the humiliation of Vietnam. Their Senate will never allow American troops to operate in Africa. The Americans have been whipped. They are still snivelling with their tails between their legs. The only threat they pose is that they might choose a surrogate army to fight for them." 'South Africa,' Yudenich forestalled him.
"Yes, South Africa has the most dangerous army in Africa. Kissinger may recruit them and send them across the Angolan border." 'Can we afford to fight the South Africans? Their lines of supply are shorter than ours by ten thousand miles, and their troops are reputed to be the finest bush fighters in Africa. If they are equipped and supplied by America..." 'We won't have to fight them,' Castro promised. 'As they cross the border, America and South Africa will be immediately defeated, not by Soviet or Cuban might, but by the practice of white minority government and the policy of apartheid." 'Explain this to us, Mr. President,' Yudenich invited.
"In the West there is such a desire by American liberals and the European anti-apartheid movement to destroy the white rdgime in South Africa that they will make any sacrifice to that end. They will sacrifice Angola rather than let South Africans defend it. The moment the first South African crosses the border, our war will be won. There will be such an outcry from the American Democratic Party, and from the champions of so-called democracy in Europe, that the South Africans will never get to do any fighting. In the face of hysterical worldwide condemnation they will be forced to retire. Their attempted intervention will settle the matter firmly in our favour. Once the South Africans have tarnished the shield, no Western politician will dare to take it up again. Angola will be ours." They were all nodding agreement. All the generals and ministers. Castro had amazed Ramsey once again with his powers of rhetoric and persuasion. It was the main reason that Ramsey had prevailed upon him to come to Moscow in person. None of Castro's generals or ministers would have been able to swing the issue as he had just done. His shrewd and devious view would appeal irresistibly to the Russian mind.
"He calls me the Golden Fox,' Ramsey smiled to himself. 'But he is the king of all the foxes." However, Castro was not yet finished. His timing was consummate. He smiled genially down the long table, stroking the curling bush of his beard. 'Angola will be ours, but that will be only a beginning.
After Angola the ultimate prize is South Africa itself." They all leant forward eagerly, their eyes shining like a pack of wolves scenting blood.
"Once we have Angola, we will have South Africa surrounded, with bases on her very borders from which our black freedom fighters can strike with impunity. South Africa is the treasury and economic power-house of the whole of Africa. Once we have it, the rest of the continent will fall into our laps." He placed his huge hands palm-down on the table-top and leant forward over them.
"I pledge you all the fighting men we need to do the job, a hundred thousand if necessary. If you provide the weapons and equipment and transport, there is a ripe fruit for the plucking. Shall we do it, comrades? Shall we make the bold and courageous stroke together?"
Only a month later a group of Portuguese military officers, loyal to the Red Admiral Coutinho, handed over the strategic military airbas
e at Saurimo to Colonel Angel Botello, who was chief of logistics in the Cuban air force.
Saurimo was five hundred miles inland from the capital of Luanda, and therefore comparatively secure from surveillance by the CIA and other Western agencies.
The first Ilyushin Candid transport landed at Saurimo, twenty-four hours later. On board were a full cargo of military equipment and fifty Cuban'advisers'. The Russian military observer on the same aircraft was Colonel-General Ramsey Machado.
It was an exhausting but exciting period for Ramsey. His reputation and. his nickname were swiftly spreading the length and breadth of the continent.
The Cuban contingent brought the name with them from Havana.
"El Zorro,' they whispered it abroad, 'El Zorro has arrived. Now things will begin to happen." Like the fox, his namesake, he was constantly on the move. He seldom slept two consecutive nights in the same bed. Often there was no bed at all but the mud floor of a grass hut, the cramped seat of a light aircraft or the dirty wooden deck of a small launch threading its way through the swamps and sand-bars of a remote African river.
El Jefe had been right as usual. There was no concerted Western response to the Cuban build-up. Admiral Coutinho was able to head off the few timid enquiries, while Western journalists were successfully prevented from collecting hard evidence in the field. The arms and troops were flown in to Saurimo, or shipped to Brazzaville in the Congo and distributed from there by light aircraft and river-launch to the MPLA cadres in their camps deep in the bush.
Angola was only one of many operations that Ramsey was running simultaneously. There were Ethiopia and Mozambique to deal with, as well as his network of agents, and the co-ordination of the activities of the South African freedom fighters. Angola was a marvelous new springboard for the liberation movements. Ramsey set up training camps for both SWAPO, the South-West African People's Organization, and the ANC, the African National Congress.
The headquarters of the two organizations were sited in separate areas of the country. SWAPO were in the south where they were able to cross the border into South-West African Namibia readily and to operate amongst their own tribes, the Ovahimbo and Ovambo.
However, Ramsey maintained a particular interest in the ANC. He never lost sight for a moment of the fact that South Africa was the gateway to the entire continent and the ANC were the freedom fighters of South Africa.
Raleigh Tabaka, his old comrade from London, was promoted to ANC chief of logistics in Angola. Between them they chose the site for the main ANC base in northern Angola.
They flew hundreds of hours together in an Antonov military biplane. They scoured the northern seaside province of Kungo before they found a site suitable for their base.
It was a small fishing village situated on a lagoon and estuary of the Chicamba river. The mouth of the lagoon was open to the Atlantic, and at high tide vessels of two hundred or so tons burden could cross the bar and enter the river. In addition there were extensive fields of peasant cultivation a few miles upstream. Although these had been neglected during the savage decade of civil war, it would require very little effort to open a landing-strip over the level deforested fields. The fishing village had likewise been abandoned during the war and there was no local population which otherwise would have had to be evacuated or eliminated.
However, the main recommendation for the site was its distance from any South African border or base. The South Africans were formidable opponents.
Like the Israelis, they would not hesitate to violate any international border in hot pursuit of a guerrilla unit. Chicamba was out of range of the South African Alouette helicopters, and thousands of kilometres; of mountain had jungle isolating it from any overland hostile expedition by the Boers. They named the base Tercio.
Raleigh Tabaka took the first cadre of five hundred ANC recruits up to Tercio base in a fishing trawler requisitioned by Admiral Coutinho from the Portuguese canning factory in Luanda.
They began construction work on the airstrip and training camp immediately.
When Ramsey flew in ten days later the airstrip had been cleared and levelled and was in the process of being surfaced in red clay and gravel that would set like concrete and ensure a good all-weather runway.
On his second inspection, Ramsey was so impressed by the remoteness and security of the area that he decided to set up a separate compound near the mouth of the river, overlooking the beach.
He planned this as his own private headquarters. He always needed a secure base for communications where sensitive KGB training and planning could be undertaken, and where intense interrogation and elimination of captives could be undertaken without risk of discovery or interference.
He ordered Raleigh Tabaka's men to give construction of his own beach compound the utmost priority. On his next visit he found that the fencing and defences had already been laid out and that work on the interrogation block and the officers' quarters was far advanced.
On his return to Havana, he requisitioned the necessary radio and electronic equipment and had it flown out to Tercio base on the next available transport.
On his frequent visits to Havana and Moscow, Ramsey kept well abreast of all the dozens of projects he had in progress down the length of the African continent, in particular his own personal case, the operation and control of Red Rose.
Looking back down the years to her recruitment in London and Spain he realized that he had underestimated just how valuable Red Rose would one day become.
Since she had entered the South African Senate she had served on five house bodies. From all of these she had delivered extraordinary intelligence in the form of reports and recommendations on all the various subjects covered by those committees.
Then in February she was made a member of the Senate Advisory Board on African Affairs. Through her Ramsey received the information, only hours old, that President Ford and Henry Kissinger through the CIA had signalled Pretoria that they would not oppose a military adventure by the South African army into southern Angola. He learnt from Red Rose that the CIA had promised South Africa diplomatic support and military equipment to support their thrust towards Luanda.
After alerting his superiors in the Lubyanka, Ramsey flew to Havana to consult Castro.
"You were right all the way, El Jefe,' he told him admiringly. 'The Yankees are sending in the Boers to do their dirty work for them." 'We must let them stick their head into the trap,' Castro smiled. 'I want you to return to Angola immediately. Take my personal orders. Pull back our forces and hold them on a defensive line on the rivers south of the capital. Let them come in before we tweak Uncle Sam's beard and kick the Boers in the cojones." In October the South African cavalry crossed the Cunene river and made a spectacular dash northwards in their fast Panhard armoured cars. In a matter of days they had swept to within a hundred and fifty miles of the capital. They were superbly trained and well-led young fighting men, and their morale was high, but they lacked bridging equipment to cross the rivers and artillery to engage heavy armour.
When they reached the river, Ramsey sent a signal to Havana.
"Now,' said Castro grimly, 'we pull out the rug. Let the armour loose." The South Africans were held on the rivers by the Russian T-54 tanks and assault-helicopters. Ramsey released the news of the South African presence to the Western media and the diplomatic storm broke just as Castro had predicted.
Nigeria, after South Africa the most powerful nation in Africa, switched its support within days of the South African presence being disclosed to the world by Russian and Cuban intelligence. It abandoned Savimbi and his UNITA movement and formally recognized the Sovietsupported MPLA government.
To emphasize its position, Nigeria sent thirty million dollars in aid to Agostinho Neto in Luanda.
In the United States Senate, Dick Clark, the Democratic representative from Iowa, began the process of making certain that the South African expeditionary force in Angola was isolated and deprived of support. He accused the CIA of co-ope
rating illegally with South Africa, and Kissinger and the CIA took evasive action. Members of the joint chiefs threatened to resign unless American support was withdrawn immediately. In December the Clark amendment was rushed through the Senate and all American military aid to Angola was cut off. It had all worked exactly as Castro had planned it.
