Noah Colwin

is claiming that, oh, wow, well, we have – there's this –

you know so world soviet communism is on the march again uh a cia operation uh is revealed that we had been secretly arming these people and this is at the height of anti you know the post vietnam church committee uh scrutiny of the national security state and as a consequence um

The Angolan operation gets immediately hemmed in.

And as a result, that also means that, you know, because the U.S.

refuses to commit to fighting the, you know, to advancing further in South Africa's capacity at that moment.

the Cubans are able to be this very decisive force.

And it doesn't end at this emergency detachment, however, because the new Angolan nation is desperately poor.

They have no expertise.

The departing Portuguese colonists and settlers, they poured cement in elevators.

They threw away the keys to their cars.

The Angolan population was incredibly rural and

And there were very few people who were able to take up the means of governance.

And it was a detachment of Cuban technical and humanitarian advisors and doctors who were able to essentially help provide some kind of aid in a meaningful way in building this new nation immediately afterward.

All the while, a Cuban security attachment is committed there, again, at great expense and cost to Cuban society.

Essentially, until that point, it had been donated, although eventually they work out an arrangement to just meet cost with the Angolans.

They're not profiting from it.

They weren't mercenaries.

And it begins this almost 15-year or about 15-year process.

A mission that is at once military and humanitarian to support an embattled Angolan government, which is subsequently, you know, opposed by both South African military forces as well as secret U.S.

secretly funded and armed U.S.