The Limits of Covert Action in an Election Year: The CIA, Angola, and the 1976 US Presidential Election

Abstract

This article focuses upon the decision by President Ford in 1975 to begin a covert operation inside Angola so as to prevent a communist-backed government coming to power. By drawing on recently declassified documents from the United States, this article enhances our understanding of how domestic political factors had such a strong influence over the course of US foreign policy. As such, this article contributes to the wider literature on US foreign policy during the Cold War, which continues to debate how much credence should be placed upon the domestic variable in understanding US foreign policy. Moreover, this article focuses on how the failure of US covert action inside Angola contributed to US policymakers deciding to jettison their policy of superpower détente and return to a more confrontational and militaristic form of Cold War policy.