Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 | 
 enlarge | Author: Piero Gleijeses
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 29877
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0807854646
Dewey Decimal Number: 980
EAN: 9780807854648
ASIN: 0807854646
Publication Date: February 24, 2003
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Product Description
This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65--where 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with 1,000 mercenaries controlled by the CIA--and, finally, to the dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, which stopped the South African advance on Luanda and doomed Henry Kissinger's major covert operation there. Based on unprecedented archival research and firsthand interviews in virtually all of the countries involved--Gleijeses was even able to gain extensive access to closed Cuban archives--this comprehensive and balanced work sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations. It revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional U.S. beliefs about the influence of the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's actions in Africa, and provides, for the first time ever, a look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Interesting, biased, but worth looking at April 2, 2008
I didn't have the taste to finish this book, but I did read parts and I plan to keep it around as a nice reference. That is because while it is interesting and pretty well researched it is biased to the point of distortion. Facts become selective, motivations imagined, omissions crucial.
On the other hand, the pro-Cuba bias in this book, while often heard on the internet and among certain pseudo-intellectual circles, is rarely presented in such a readable scholarly fashion. Also, the rare access that the author had makes the book valuable for just that point.
In short, the book is very well made, but restrained by its status as a pro-Cuba polemic. Still even those without the pro-Cuba view (such as myself) can find it very interesting and useful, even if not worth reading end to end.
WRONG CONCLUSION! September 21, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In conflicting Mission, Gleijeses explain the real role of Cuba and the USA in the 1970s Angolan conflict.
The work is well researched, using rare documents obtained from both sides of the cruel Cold-Warriors embargo(wall)--imposed upon Cuba by Washington. Gleijeses research is as thorough as it is deep, thus he has produced an excellent book.
Notwithstanding, I wish to draw attention to one issue his conclusion, which I believe will continue to compromise, for sometime, otherwise sound research about cold war era conflicts such as this one.
Cold War propaganda and the false "Truths" that they have created can lead to wrong conclusions, even when unbiased facts are presented. Brilliant researchers such as Gleijeses are not immunized against this sickness.
In the work, he suggested that Angola had only marginal strategic significance to the US. He argues that intervention in Angola served only to protect the prestige and credibility of America's global foreign policy. Therefore, a small, but rational, purpose of the Angolan mission would be to demonstrate that Vietnam had not reduced America's resolve to protect its foreign interest everywhere--even in backward third world countries. Another small, but equally rational purpose of the mission, he thought, was Kissinger's fear that the Marxist-lite MPLA could subvert detente in Southern Africa.
In contrast, he concluded that the Cuban mission--less rational--was motivated by Castro's revolutionary zeal. So the author reasons, the Cubans felt that they needed to fulfill some kind of messianic mission in the Third World.
Another explanation offered by Gleijeses, for the Cubans decision to take on such a great risk (David vs. Goliath),was based upon their desire to strike back at the United States... Where it was less risky--In less significant Africa, and at the same time build Cuban solidarity abroad. Here David decides to only politically tickle Goliath's feet, not to inflict upon him a military, political and economic head-blow. Africa, accordingly was a good place for the expression of this strange Cuban enthusiasm
Gleijeses did not remind his readers that the Stalinist Soviet Union had long ago decided to build their brand of Socialism in one country only! No wonder Maoist China and Stalinist Russia could not see eye to eye!
In addition, Professor Gleijeses did not draw our attention to the fact that all the so called "Cold War" wars (military, economic and psychological), were carried out against former colonies of Europe--in Africa, Asia, Latin America and in parts of Europe itself. People in the former colonies had launched a more vigorous struggle for independence after their European masters ability to subjugate them was wrecked by the war with Germany.
The USA and the USSR, important beneficiaries of World War II, seeking to claim their spoils from that war, simply met resistance from antsy colonial peoples fighting, individually and in alliance, to claim their freedom. Angola and Cuba, and Cuba in Angola represented a part of that process and was just one outcome of people in society trying to claim their natural rights. I don't recall that the author mentioned that issue in his great book.
What was the "non-aligned movement" and the "Group of 77" about in global relations during that period? Economic unity and liberation from white supremacy, colonialism and imperialism.
In this context, it is not useful to imply or to suggest that Cuba's mission in Angola was less rational than that of the US or that it was based on a counterproductive desire for revenge. Hopefully, as we put more distance between the Cold War and ourselves, more research like Gleijeses' will be produced, but with less prejudiced conclusions drawn.
 An important contribution to Cold War History May 3, 2006
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
CONFLICTING MISSIONS is a brilliant, impressive, and important book. It not only teaches us about the dramatic differences between US and Cuban policies in Africa during the Cold War (until 1976), but it also stretches our minds to see the Cold War "from below." Virtually all Cold War history has been written from the US (or Western)perspective, based on US archives. Gleijeses is the only scholar to have gained access to the Cuban archives; the result is that CONFLICTING MISSIONS contains not only new information but also a new perspective. Gleijeses challenges the reader to reconsider established truths. In his narrative -- which is voluminously supported by research not only in Cuba but also in US, Belgian, West German, East German, and British archives, as well as almost 200 interviews -- Fidel Castro, not the Americans, is shown to be the leader pursuing an idealistic foreign policy.
You gotta read this book: May 9, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
From page 271,
"U.S. intelligence reports shed some light on the issue. In January 1976 Kissinger told Congress that "In August [1975], intelligence reports indicated the presence of Soviet and Cuban military adviser, trainers and troops, including the first Cuban combat troops." He was rewriting history: in the summer of 1975 U.S. intelligence told a different story. (d) An August 20 CIA report concluded, "What seems ....likely is that the Soviets have asked Cuba to help out with advisers and technicians....[sanitized] Officials of the Ministry of Information, which is controlled by the MPLA, have tried to pass them off as tourist." On September 22, an INR report claimed that "the Soviet and other allied countries, notably Cuba, have provided technicians and advisor to assist in military planning and logistics. While most are based in the Congo, there is increasing evidence that some foreign advisers are present with MPLA units inside Angola." On October 11 the CIA National Intelligence Daily specified that "a few Cuban technical advisers have been operating with Popular Movement [MPLA] inside Angola for time." There was no mention Cuban troops, or even of large numbers of instructors, until early October, when a significant number of Cuban advisers did indeed arrive."
(d) Kissinger, Jan. 29, 1976, U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Ralations, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Angola, p. 10. In his memoirs, Kissinger cites one of my articles to support his claim that the Cuban intervention "began in May, accelerated in July, and turned massive in September and October," which is precisely the opposite of what my article said. (Kissinger, Renewal, p.820)
As to the likelihood that Cubans were following Soviet orders, we hear on page 307 from "Arkady Shevchenko, who was an adviser of Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko in 1970-73 and then undersecretary-general of the United Nations until 1978, when he defected to the United States, [and who] writes that in 1976 Vasily Kznetsov, acting foreign minister, asked him to join a group reviewing Soviet policy in Africa.. Shevchenko asked Kuznetsov, ""How did we persuade the Cubans to provide their contingent?'...Kuznetsov laughed ...and told me that the idea for large-scale military operation had originated in Havana, not Moscow.""
Evidently, the Cubans were acting in Africa at great cost to themselves at least in part from a humanitarian concern for the dignity of Angolans. The historical record shows no such concern on the part of the United States of America.
well-documented, well-reasoned, and suspenseful. Great scholarship.
 Half truths and denial of a failed Cuban dream April 4, 2005
6 out of 26 found this review helpful
Towards the middle of 1988, Castro, who had taken personal control of the war, wanted to withdraw from Angola and discussions began on how this could be accomplished without losing face. One of Castro's top generals in Angola had already tried to defect and Moscow was pressing Castro to reach a settlement. The Cuban leader adopted an aggressive stance and threw more Cuban troops into the front line in order to lend weight to his negotiating position in the peace talks. General Del Pino, who also defected to the West, pointed out that it was pure bluff on Castro's part and that he feared defeat was imminent.
Cuban forces, integrated with SWAPO units, nevertheless pressed on to within 12 kilometres of the Namibian border. Facing 11,000 Cubans and perhaps 2,000 SWAPO was a force of 500 battle-hardened men from 32 "Buffalo" Battalion, the only available troops at the border until reinforcements could arrive. They held the line until tanks and artillery could be moved up. Cuban MiG-23s joined the fray and one was shot down. As the South African forces prepared to move North to engage the Cubans in what promised to be a Cuban nemesis, the Cubans signed the New York peace accords and avoided disaster.
The Cubans immediately claimed victory, which Bridgland points out was 'nonsense', but that:
the Cuban story was taken at face value by Castro's sympathisers in the Western press and repeated so many times that it became received truth. The Cubans were helped by the South Africans' own clumsy efforts at propaganda, which amounted to saying as little as possible about the full-scale war they fought in Angola.
The SADF at no stage had wanted an all-out war that would take them to Luanda as conquerors. Their objectives had been to fight a limited war in support of UNITA and prevent the Cubans from capturing UNITA's strongholds. The SADF had succeeded in this and was content to let the Cubans take the limelight. As Bridgland points out in his final summary of the war:
The War for Africa and the New York accords provided Cuba with pretexts for slipping out of a commitment that had become too hot and too expensive to handle. In 1975, when the Cuban adventure in Angola began, the 'scientific socialist' and 'internationalist' tide running from Moscow looked unstoppable. By 1988 it was a faded dream. Despite 13 years of Cuban support, the Angolan economy was ruined. The Marxist MPLA was in utter disarray and was trying desperately to shed its 'scientific-socialist' past... Castro's dreams of a Marxist revolution spreading from Angola to encompass the whole of Southern Africa had become a poor music hall joke... "The War for Africa" by Fred Bridgland....the most accurate account of Cuba's involvement in the Angolan conflict.
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