Cold War Navy SEAL: My Story of Che Guevara, War in the Congo, and the Communist Threat in Africa

James M. Hawes · Mary Ann Koenig

Apr 2018 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

For the first time, a Navy SEAL tells the story of the US's clandestine operations in North Vietnam and the Congo during the Cold War.

Sometime in 1965, James Hawes landed in the Congo with cash stuffed in his socks, morphine in his bag, and a basic understanding of his mission: recruit a mercenary navy and suppress the Soviet- and Chinese-backed rebels engaged in guerilla movements against a pro-Western government. He knew the United States must preserve deniability, so he would be abandoned in any life-threatening situation; he did not know that Che Guevara attempting to export his revolution a few miles away.

Cold War Navy SEAL gives unprecedented insight into a clandestine chapter in US history through the experiences of Hawes, a distinguished Navy frogman and later a CIA contractor. His journey began as an officer in the newly-formed SEAL Team 2, which then led him to Vietnam in 1964 to train hit-and-run boat teams who ran clandestine raids into North Vietnam. Those raids directly instigated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The CIA tapped Hawes to deploy to the Congo, where he would be tasked with creating and leading a paramilitary navy on Lake Tanganyika to disrupt guerilla action in the country. According to the US government, he did not, and could not, exist; he was on his own, 1400 miles from his closest allies, with only periodic letters via air-drop as communication. Hawes recalls recruiting and managing some of the most dangerous mercenaries in Africa, battling rebels with a crew of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and learning what the rest of the intelligence world was dying to know: the location of Che Guevara.

In vivid detail that rivals any action movie, Hawes describes how he and his team discovered Guevara leading the communist rebels on the other side and eventually forced him from the country, accomplishing a seemingly impossible mission. Complete with never-before-seen photographs and interviews with fellow operatives in the Congo, Cold War Navy SEAL is an unblinking look at a portion of Cold War history never before told.

Ratings and reviews

This is a first hand account of a clandestine CIA operation carried out by a handful of Cubans commanded by a Navy Seal. They are disciplined and dedicated warriors despite whose side they fought on. Navy Seal James Hawes who commanded the unit in the Lake Tanganiyka succinctly tells the interesting story. In my view, it is a first rate book written on the conflict in Congo during the cold war.

About the author

Mary Ann Koenig is a writer and filmmaker with experience across a variety of media platforms. She's directed, written and produced the documentary, A Bond Unbroken The 'Why' of Minh, the story of Vietnam War-era Navy SEALs and a reunion with their combat interpreter 45 years later. She has written for the Los Angeles Times and KOST Radio in Los Angeles, and currently works as a journalist and correspondent for TCPalm Newsweekly (a regional USA Today publication) covering veterans stories, from Iwo Jima Marines and USS Intrepid sailors in the Pacific during WWII, to Iraq and Afghanistan ground troops. She has done numerous oral histories with veterans at the VA hospital in Bronx, New York, where she has served as a volunteer for over eight years, and has written for VAnguard Magazine, the VA's national publication.