ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 investigates the aftermath of the Tunney Amendment in January 1976 and how Kissinger struggled to accept defeat and was taken aback at the shift in the European positions on recognizing the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) as the government of the newly established People’s Republic of Angola (PRA) in March 1976. Ultimately Kissinger accepted that to outmanoeuvre Congress he had to agree to some public reversal of policy. On his first trip to Africa in April 1976, he endorsed black majority rule and returned to Washington, DC with his critics now applauding his efforts. However, in private, Kissinger still heavily resented their influence in policy and continued to berate them in meetings with African leaders. This publication concludes that it was somewhat ironic that the flawed decision-making pursued by the Ford administration in Angola resulted in a shift in US–African policy.
