"One of Our Greatest Coups": The CIA & the Capture of Nelson Mandela

www.democracynow.org - As South Africa prepares to hold a state funeral for Nelson Mandela, we look at how the CIA helped the South African track down and capture Nelson Mandela in 1962. In 1990, the Cox News Service quoted a former U.S. official saying that within hours after Mandela's arrest a senior CIA operative named Paul Eckel admitted the agency's involvement. Eckel was reported as having told the official, "We have turned Mandela over to the South African security branch. We gave them every detail, what he would be wearing, the time of day, just where he would be. They have picked him up. It is one of our greatest coups." Several news outlets have reported the actual source of the tip that led to the arrest of Mandela was a CIA official named Donald Rickard. On Thursday, Democracy Now! attempted to reach Rickard at his home in Colorado. On two occasions, a man who picked up the phone hung up when we asked to speak with Donald Rickard. The activist group RootsAction has launched a campaign to urge the CIA to open its files on Mandela and South Africa and the media watchdog group Fairness in Accuracy in Reporting has questioned why corporate media outlets have largely ignored the story. We speak to journalist Andrew Cockburn who first reported on the CIA link to Mandela's arrest in 1986 in the New York Times.
Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit: owl.li/ruJ5Q
Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,200+ TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Check out our vast news archive and stream live 8-9am ET at www.democracynow.org.
FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE:
Facebook: / democracynow
Twitter: @democracynow
Subscribe on KZbin: / democracynow
Listen on SoundCloud: / democracynow
Daily Email News Digest: www.democracynow.org/subscribe
Google+: plus.google.com/+DemocracyNow
Instagram: / democracynow
Tumblr: / democracynow

[@riotfiftyk5508]

The land of the "FREE" and the BRAVE? NONE SENSE.

[@yourcamden]

I was told by some African friends that the reason why South Africa gave up the nuclear bomb was because the US demanded it, because they did not want any African to be in control of nuclear weapons. Mandela agreed to this, a very worthy change, which I hope other countries would follow this example, however, countries who do that tend to get invaded. I suspect the real reason for the US was fundamentally racist.

[@yadollahrezaei9852]

Thanks

[@ianmcdonald8648]

Jesuits are all over American Government and other countries too. They do the will of Rome.

[@isrbillmeyer]

That is correct. The USA KNEW that the ANC was and always be a TERRORIST organisation. IT would be like giving Nukes to Iran or Hamas. Same mindset. Look at the past 30 years of ANC rule. Now imagine these people armed with nukes.

[@punishedgloyperstormtroope8098]

Who cares

[@harehare]

In the cold war the US didn´t lose any opportunity to finance dictatorships all over the world.

[@davidhutchinson6377]

Nothing has changed.

[@Maynard-il1yj]

All roads lead to Rome

[@theprofessorfate6184]

Love it. Makes all the US presidents that attended his funeral look like absolute morons

[@steven.events]

None of them would've been part of the administration or, in particular, the military industrial complex in 1962.

[@fukofffukoff8944]

Its all a movie to them in power they are so afraid of Africans that they want to destroy them but why what do they know?

[@isrbillmeyer]

Wrong. At the heart of it is Globalisation, Liberal World Order. Creating conflict, and then implementing Modernism. The CIA plays BOTH side. If you think the CIA was friends of the white South Africans ever you have to check again. The danger of the Afrikaners was that they would not be part of a Globalist order. The ANC and other "Liberation" Movements right from the start was Marxist, Globalists.

[@buckberthod5007]

That they're infested by Satan and need to be out wiped.

[@micahkiara2143]

if you’re here from professor pearson’s class: what’s uppppp

[@DENAY1968]

CIA and FBI needs spread the the wind in a million pieces and all of those out there like them.

[@mariagaganta4925]

Fidel Castro 😎 And Nelson Mandela 😎 Breath Taking ❤️WOW🌎 Fidel Castro 😎❤️💯🌟

[@pamparker4047]

NOT SURPRISED AT ALL

[@TlouSebotja]

He was a Sellout!!