“While Obama referenced the Kennedy administration in his memorial, he made no mention of the multiple reports that the CIA, under Kennedy, tipped off the apartheid South African regime in 1962 about Mandela’s whereabouts. 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, quote, “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.””
-Juan Gonzalez