The author of the book from which the below excerpts are taken, Elaine Mokhtefi née Klein, is a US American of Jewish origin born in 1928 in New York. She became politically involved there in the late 1940s. In 1951, she moved to Paris, where she worked as a translator for various anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. It was in the French capital that she met Algerian independence activists and became involved with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), which was founded in November 1954 and started Algeria’s independence war. She participated in the 1958 All-African People’s Conference in Ghana (for which see also the entry on Frantz Fanon’s FLN speech). In 1960-1962, she worked in New York for the FLN. FLN representatives stationed in the United States sought to contact US politicians and officials, and in New York successfully lobbied at the United Nations headquarters during its war against France, as Matthew Connelly showed inA Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002). Moreover, already at this time the FLN was deeply involved with various other anticolonial liberation movements, as Mokhtefi’s fascinating book illustrates. When Algeria became independent, in 1962, she moved there. She worked in various official capacities, inter alia for the Algeria Press Service. And due to her New York experience and command of English, she often was asked to work with representatives of foreign independence movements, including the US Black Panther Party (BPP), whose presence in Algeria in 1969 and its effect on the BPP’s take on the Arab-Israeli conflict has been studied in Michael Fischbach’s Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (2018). Many such movements were assisted by the Algerian government, which saw itself as a player in multiple overlapping anticolonial and postcolonial frameworks, including African unity, Arab unity, Afro-Asianism, and Third Worldism, as Jeffrey Byrnes has shown in his Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order (2016). Mokhtefi was for political reasons forced to leave Algeria in 1974, accompanied by her Algerian husband, the former FLN member Mokhtar Mokhtefi. They settled in Paris, and in 1994 moved to New York.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 12 August 1989 describes the latest developments in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Somalia, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Ecuador, Namibia, and Cuba.

Chester Crocker writes to R. F. "Pik" Botha about the importance of not responding to the recent Cuban/Angolan communique. Crocker warns against giving the Cubans an excuse to keep their troops stationed in Namibia, and points out that it is likely a distraction for concessions the Cubans and Angolans are about to make to South Africa and the United States.

Letter from R. F. "Pik" Botha to Alexander Haig, noting that the United States and South Africa have parallel goals in Namibia: the establishment of an independent state without a Marxist-socialist government. Lays out a list of qualities that the South African government wants to see in the new Namibian state.

Leaked memorandum of conversation between "Pik" Botha and Chester Crocker. Botha questions how much South Africa can trust the United States to support the former in Namibia negotiations. He also raises concerns about the effects that a SWAPO victory in Namibia could have. Crocker reassures him on both subjects, based on the strength and resistance to pressure of the Reagan administration.

Meeting between delegations of Angola, Cuba, South Africa and the United States about the future of Angola and Namibia.

Dr. Kissinger expresses his proposal for a conference on Namibia to be attended by SWAPO (South West Africa People's Organization), Turnhalle members, and South Africa. The Conference concerned the ongoing struggle for independence by Namibian guerrillas from South African rule. Kissinger pledged US support to SWAPO as the leading force in Namibia, but Namibian delegates responded that they would not attend the conference unless South Africa met all preconditions including the withdrawal of troops from Namibian territory.