Spycraft - Melton [178]
In reality, the United States had little interest in Bokassa or taking over the former French colony. Located between Chad and the Congo, the Central African Empire, later to be renamed the Central African Republic, was an uninviting piece of real estate, even for a developing country. Although containing some uranium deposits, the impoverished country consisted primarily of subsistence farmers, limited industry, and poor roads.2
Bokassa, although a particularly unpleasant head of state, was primarily a survivor. As a French Legionnaire, he had survived one of the bloodiest battles in Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu, earning himself France’s Croix de Guerre and membership in the Légion d’Honneur.3 Returning to Africa a war hero, Bokassa headed his young country’s armed forces before staging the military coup that landed him in the presidential palace in 1965.4 Once in power, he began bestowing on himself a series of increasingly grandiose titles, starting with President and Prime Minister, and then President for Life.5
Intent on holding control of the country, Bokassa showed little patience for dissidents, sometimes by throwing them to the crocodiles.6 In 1979, he would outrage the world by imprisoning and executing schoolchildren who dared to protest the new mandatory school uniforms. Designed and sold by Bokassa’s wife, the elaborate uniforms were both too hot for the region and priced far beyond the modest means of the average citizen.7
Now, in the summer of 1972, Bokassa turned his anger toward the United States.8 The documents in his hands outlined America’s intention to oust his government by force. The far-fetched proposition fell well within the worldview of an African despot whose own path to power included a violent overthrow of the government.
The U.S. Ambassador, in an effort to counter the false, but diplomatically troublesome accusation, turned to the CIA for assistance. Within TSD was a small team of forensic scientists who operated a Questioned Documents Laboratory (QDL). Primarily used to detect forgeries created by the KGB’s “active measures” element of the Soviet propaganda machine, the QDL also examined questionable foreign documents to support counterintelligence operations. Although QDL experts received little prominence in a division known primarily for its gadgets, disguises, and concealments, their expertise could be of value in this case.
TSD dispatched QDL examiner Dr. David Crown to Bangui, the Central African Empire’s capital city, in July 1972. The U.S. Ambassador knew the documents were bogus, but confided to Crown that he had been unable to persuade Bokassa. It would be up to the QDL examiner to convince the ego-driven and paranoid ruler that the documents were, in fact, forgeries.9
Pointing out the blatant inaccuracies would be a simple matter under more ordinary circumstances. Even to the untrained eye, the language and linguistic flaws in the documents were obvious. The letterhead was emblazoned in gaudy green and red, hardly an approved style of Washington’s sedate bureaucracy. The name of the supposed agency that generated the plot—“Communications in Superior Science Activities N.S.C. Fairbanks: The White House, The State Dept.; The Defense Dept., Washington 25, D.C.”—was a ridiculous jumble of terms and government entities and included an apparent reference to the CIA’s highway signs along the George Washington Parkway northwest of Washington, D.C. There, the fictional agency was headed by a “Richard Brelland” whose supposed title was “Chairman of the Board of Directors.” The presence of a two-digit postal zone, not used since 1961, and the fact that the writing on all the documents was from