A previously unpublished interview with Nelson Mandela has reinforced the theory that the CIA tipped off the racist South African government to arrest him.
Mandela claimed he was told that someone from the American consul in South Africa could have informed the apartheid-era regime of his whereabouts in 1962.
Declassified CIA documents also revealed that the agency called Mandela a “probable communist” and tracked him when he traveled outside of South Africa.
The details show that the idea that the CIA was behind the arrest is “both plausible and probable,” said Richard Stengel, a contributor to Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.
Mandela was arrested in August 1962, just returning from a two-month tour of Africa, traveling from Johannesburg to Durban.
Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie walk hand in hand after his release from Victor Prison in Cape Town in 1990 after 27 years in prison.
Writer Richard Stengel (R) with Nelson Mandela (L). Stengel interviewed Mandela in 1993
What Mandela said about the CIA giving up on him
Stengel: Well, Madiba, how, who, how did they know where you are, the police in Howick?
MANDELA: No, I personally don’t think there was anything. I don’t believe. They said it was an American consul or something.
STEGEL: Yes. With some CIA connections.
MANDELA: Yes, absolutely. That’s what they said. But I don’t think so, unless there was someone with CIA connections [INTERRUPTION] and no, I don’t know, I can’t vouch for that, I have no evidence.
However, I know that I’ve met too many people underground for one man… So I don’t think it’s entirely true that it was the American Consul with CIA connections.
But I can’t say that wasn’t the case.
Mandela raised money for the military campaign of the African National Congress (ANC), the political organization he headed, in its fight against the South African government.
At the time, it was the height of tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, and the Kennedy administration believed Mandela and the ANC were secret Soviet allies.
I think it’s not entirely true that it was the American consul with CIA connections. But I can’t say that wasn’t the case.
After 27 years in prison, Mandela was released in 1990 when apartheid collapsed and was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994.
Mr. Stengel interviewed Mandela in 1993 but has only now released the audio in a new podcast series, Mandela: The Lost Tapes.
In one episode, Mr Stengel asked how the police knew his whereabouts: the arresting officer knew who Mandela was, despite being in disguise and using a false name.
He said: “I personally don’t think there was anything. I don’t believe. They said it was an American consul or something.
Mr. Stengel said: “Yes. With some CIA connections’.
Mandela said: “Yes, quite … I cannot vouch for that, I have no evidence. I think it’s not entirely true that it was the American consul with CIA connections. But I can’t say that wasn’t the case.
Mandela said he later “didn’t even bother asking” to support the theory Mr. Stengel attributes to his mindset of working with his enemies even when he disagrees with them.
Documents the CIA issued to Mr. Stengel in 2017 – which he is making public for the first time – showed that it labeled Mandela a “probable communist” in May 1961.
A document marked SECRET called him a “proficient organizer who is reportedly well-funded.”
In a lengthy CIA operative in February 1962, also marked SECRET, the agency said that Mandela was the head of the ANC’s guerrilla movement.
The memo says Mandela, who died in 2013 at the age of 95, is no longer in South Africa, which Mr Stengel says is the first evidence the CIA is pursuing him.
At the time, it was the height of tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, and the Kennedy administration believed Mandela and the ANC were secret Soviet allies.
When Mr. Stengel filed further requests from the CIA for information on whether it had given the South African police a tip, the agency replied that it could “neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of any records”.
The material adds to a growing body of evidence of CIA involvement in Mandela’s arrest.
In 1986, the Johannesburg Star carried an article in which a “senior retired police officer” said that the South African police had been alerted to Mandela’s whereabouts by a “CIA agent” for the region.
The agent allegedly boasted about it while drunk at a party thrown by “Mad” Mike Hoare, a notorious Anglo-Irish mercenary.
The picture shows Nelson Mandela’s prison cell on Robben Island, Cape Town in South Africa
Nelson Mandela (C) holds hands with his wife after being released from prison in 1990
American diplomat Donald C. Rickard, a former CIA officer, who confessed to telling South African police where Mandela was
Four years later, around the time Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and about to visit the US, the Atlanta Journal Constitution released another bombshell.
According to a retired American intelligence official, within hours of Mandela’s arrest, a senior CIA agent named Paul Eckel came to his Washington office to brief him.
Mr Eckel is reported to have said: “We handed Mandela over to the South African Security Department. We gave them every detail of what he would be wearing, the time of day, just where he would be. You picked him up. It’s one of our biggest coups.
In 2016, Donald Rickard, a former CIA officer, told British film director John Irvin that he was the one who told South African police of Mandela’s whereabouts.
Mr Rickard was 88 at the time and died two weeks after his confession, which was featured in a documentary about Mandela.
A 2018 biography of Mr Hoare states that Mr Rickard thought Mandela was under the control of the Soviet Union and needed to be “stopped”.