Sunday 13 May 2012

Pretoria 8th November 1975

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'This isn't going to work.'


'The army is convinced they can be in Luanda by the 11th...'


'No...the Task Force commander is convinced they can be in Luanda by the 11th...the air force are telling us that they can't maintain operations at this level of intensity, the army command are telling us the supply situation will go critical in the next 48 hours, the British and the CIA have reliable intelligence of the extent of Cuban build up...'


'But those boys are good, they can get there!'


'And then what? Let's for a few minutes imagine that they actually make it, that they don't run out of gasoline, that the ammunition lasts, that the Cubans don't fight...then what? The FNLA cadre have been massacred in Luanda, Roberto blew it by making Shannon attack before he was ready...Shannon is dead and the FNLA in the north are in pieces. There is nobody in Luanda to run the place apart form the MPLA. The Portuguese are leaving anyway, they've left already...it's over...we'd have a few hundred white men in a black city without a prayer..'


'So what do we do?'


'We stop...resupply and retreat. We're unbeaten...the black man didn't beat the white man - we just listened to the international community and it was a political decision. And we'll be back, this thing isn't over'


'Tell that to the boys on the road...'

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