ABSTRACT
In early 1976, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and President Leonid Brezhnev were expounding, at long distance, the global implications of the Angolan war in superpower terms. Potentially Angola has always been deemed to be a land rich in scarce mineral resources and agriculturally fertile. Self-evidently, a left-leaning Angola could exercise a progressive influence on the affairs of southern and central Africa. The political merry-go-round became dizzier when foreign governments and entrepreneurs focused on Angola's extensive, yet underdeveloped, natural resources. The analysis that outlines a chronology of the main events in Angola as Kissinger related them to the Senate Sub-committee on Africa. 'Intelligence reports' in August indicated 'the presence of the first Cuban combat troops'. And 'if statements by Cuban leaders are to be believed a large Cuban military training programme began in Angola in June and Cuban advisers probably were there before then'.
