The author of the book from which the below excerpts are taken, Elaine Mokhtefi née Klein, is a US American of Jewish origin born in 1928 in New York. She became politically involved there in the late 1940s. In 1951, she moved to Paris, where she worked as a translator for various anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. It was in the French capital that she met Algerian independence activists and became involved with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), which was founded in November 1954 and started Algeria’s independence war. She participated in the 1958 All-African People’s Conference in Ghana (for which see also the entry on Frantz Fanon’s FLN speech). In 1960-1962, she worked in New York for the FLN. FLN representatives stationed in the United States sought to contact US politicians and officials, and in New York successfully lobbied at the United Nations headquarters during its war against France, as Matthew Connelly showed inA Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002). Moreover, already at this time the FLN was deeply involved with various other anticolonial liberation movements, as Mokhtefi’s fascinating book illustrates. When Algeria became independent, in 1962, she moved there. She worked in various official capacities, inter alia for the Algeria Press Service. And due to her New York experience and command of English, she often was asked to work with representatives of foreign independence movements, including the US Black Panther Party (BPP), whose presence in Algeria in 1969 and its effect on the BPP’s take on the Arab-Israeli conflict has been studied in Michael Fischbach’s Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (2018). Many such movements were assisted by the Algerian government, which saw itself as a player in multiple overlapping anticolonial and postcolonial frameworks, including African unity, Arab unity, Afro-Asianism, and Third Worldism, as Jeffrey Byrnes has shown in his Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order (2016). Mokhtefi was for political reasons forced to leave Algeria in 1974, accompanied by her Algerian husband, the former FLN member Mokhtar Mokhtefi. They settled in Paris, and in 1994 moved to New York.

Discussion with Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Defense Secretary and Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, about the 1990s and the new relationship that formed after the Cold War.

Analysis of the recent Chinese nuclear weapon test and it's strategic implications for China's diplomatic and military policies.

Report on a conversation with a spokesman for the Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies' permanent secretariat in Morocco, named Aquino de Braganca, who is a native of Goa, India, and a member of the Goan People's Party. The conversation covers two main issues: First, the current political situation in Angola, and second, the status of Goa's struggle to oppose Portugal and gain independence.

Description of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith's new announcement regarding the settling of Rhodesia's nine year old constitutional stalemate. Hostilities would cease and negotiations would be renewed, along with a release of all African political detainees.

Analysis of the military campaign waged in Southern Angola in 1987-88 as well as the lessons learned from this exchange. Document indicates that FAPLA failed to learn from its mistakes, while UNITA adapted much more effectively to the combat environment it faced in Angola. Although FAPLA managed to hold on to Cuito Cuanavale, its large losses led to a Cuban build-up in Southern Angola, which challenged the existing military balance in the region. This provided new impetus to peace negotiations and resulted in the December 1988 Accords among South Africa, Angola and Cuba.

CIA station chief in Luanda, Hultslander gives his perspective on the US involvement in Angola. In his interview he explains what the US knew about liberation movements prior to the outbreak of Civil War, his opinion on the CIA covert action program IAFEATURE, the Cuban presence in Angola and his assessment of the leading factions in Angola; MPLA, UNITA and FNLA.

Response to a request made by the South African Defense Forces Chief of Staff to supply UNITA/FNLA. The US believes that UNITA/FNLA are receiving sufficient support to meet their defensive needs.