Peter Stiff’s book “See You In November” details the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation’s plan to kill Cde Herbert Chitepo and how Alan Brice and his team of Hugh “Chuck” Hind and Ian Sutherland carried out the assassination. Brice was first recruited by the Rhodesians to execute raids in Zambia in 1973. He then hooked up with Hind and Sutherland. Their CIO contact was Jack Berry who was later to relay instructions to kill Cde Chitepo to further destabilise Zanu following an internal rebellion led by Thomas Nhari. Other accounts say Ken Flower – the head of the Rhodesian CIO – sponsored the Nhari rebellion. Below are excerpts from Stiff’s book as Brice relates the operation.

* * *

Herbert Chitepo was a radical and the first to advocate “Zanu politicising and mobilising the people before mounting attacks against the enemy”. This new policy, copying the operating methods of the Red Chinese, meant infiltrating Zanla political commissars into Rhodesia.

As chairman of Zanu’s Dare – the executive committee, and the man virtually controlling the guerilla war, he was probably the man best qualified for the title of Rhodesia’s Public Enemy Number 1.

“Where does he stay?” I asked. “We haven’t looked for him so far.”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. All we really know is that he works out of the Liberation Centre.”

Two days later we flew to Zambia.

For the next four weeks we kept a watch on the Liberation Centre.

Our efforts were to no avail, however, and after almost a month away from Rhodesia, we flew home and reported failure.

Jack was in an unusually serious mood. He made no attempt to blame us for our failure, but there was no doubt he was unhappy. He emphasised that it was of the utmost importance to Rhodesia that Chitepo be eliminated. It was the first time we had been given a specific job by CIO and he stressed that it was essential we should carry it out.

“It’s not as easy as that,” Chuck and I protested.

“I understand that,” said Jack. “I really do. My bosses think it is a simple task. They seem to believe that all you have to do is position yourself by the gate of the Liberation Centre and wait for him. I’ve explained, from what you’ve told me, how that’s impossible, but they still imagine it will be simple.

“The other problem which they appear to have overlooked”, he mused, “is the paramount importance of the enemy not being able to connect the killing to whites. It is vital they believe that blacks killed him. Otherwise, his death will have served no purpose.

“I have stressed this, but they insist that, if necessary, you must take more risks. They demand results and they don’t much care how you get them.”

Searching for Chitepo

Chuck and I returned to Zambia.

We slipped back into our old routine of keeping watch on the Liberation Centre. The first few days were marked by the same failures as before. We racked our brains for ways of locating him. This included the obvious method of checking the phone book.

We checked the bars and hotels, but Herbert Chitepo was not a boozer or, if he was, he did not frequent the Ridgeway or the Inter-Continental hotels, where we would otherwise have expected to find him.

Jack had at least provided details of his car. It was a blue VW Beetle, registration number EY 7077.

A week after our return, we were driving towards the Liberation Centre late one afternoon when I suddenly spotted the VW. I nudged Chuck and pointed.

We trailed the target for a short distance, but then turned off in case we alerted him.

We learned from careful observation that he was a creature of habit as far as his work was concerned.

He arrived at the Liberation Centre daily on the dot of 08:00 and left for home at precisely 16:30. He was invariably alone and we could almost set our watches by his routine.

He took different routes home each evening. It became apparent that he had received training in this technique, the objective being to avoid ambushes.

We did not know where he lived, but we knew the general direction of his home. By waiting at different points along the various routes open to him, we would pick up his trail and follow him for a short distance before hiving off.

We got closer to his house with every day that passed. There were, of course, some days which we missed him altogether.

Two weeks from the day we had first sighted him, we finally tracked him to his home.

The address was 150 Muramba Road, Chilenje South.

We knew where he lived, so for all intents and purposes he was as good as dead.

The ‘‘art of assassination’’

It took a few days, though, before we had selected a method to kill him. Chuck and I thoroughly explored the various alternatives open to us.

The art of assassination, like everything else, can be taught from a textbook – as is done in the SAS and other Special Forces units. There are even various set terms used for the exercise.

They are built around four words: positive, non-positive, direct and indirect.

The most certain way of killing someone is by a direct positive method. An example would be to walk up to a person, press a gun against his body and pull the trigger.

Direct non-positive is the next method most likely to be successful. This would include hiding on a roof with a rifle and shooting the target as he entered the house opposite.

Next comes indirect positive. This method is where the would-be killer waits until his victim is asleep in bed, he then climbs the garden wall and plants the bomb under his car.

The least certain method is the indirect non-positive method. That is when someone poisons the milk on the doorstep in the early morning.

We discussed various methods: like shooting him with the poisoned bolt of a crossbow; using poisoned air gun pellets; driving past his house and blasting him with AKs as he arrived home and so on.

We decided on the indirect positive method of planting an explosive device in Chitepo’s car. The simplest way and the one that carried the lowest risk to ourselves would have been to put a charge beneath his parked car while it was parked at the Inter-Continental or the Ridgeway hotel, but he never obliged us by stopping at either on his way home.

Attempting anything while his car was parked at the Liberation Centre during working hours was out of the question. The only remaining alternative was to rig a charge in his car at his house after he had gone to sleep for the night.

Luckily, Ian had an old VW Beetle similar to Chitepo’s, on which we could practise.

If mud is encrusted underneath, for instance, magnets will not hold. Zambian cars are invariably muddy because most minor roads are unsurfaced dirt. Besides, we did not have a limpet mine.

We set about making one.

We utilised heavy magnets used for closing gates that we discovered in a hardware shop, but no matter how much we tried, our device kept dropping off.

We checked amongst the miscellany of stores that had been canoed to us by the SAS or had come in false compartments on the long distance transport lorries. We found a brass box about 23cm long, 12cm wide and 6cm deep. It was filled with Pentolite – a high explosive that someone had moulded into it. We checked on Ian’s Volksie and discovered a suitable place immediately behind the right front wheel where we could put it. We shaped a suitable wedge to retain it in position.

The next point to consider was the method of detonation.

Pentolite, although brittle, is perfectly stable until detonated. I scooped out a hole in the centre and packed it with plastic explosive. I would insert my usual twin detonators in due course.

I decided to initiate the device by placing a matchbox device behind the car’s front wheel. It would be crushed the moment the target began to reverse from his yard. An electrical contact, powered by torch cells, would be achieved by the crushing together of crossed nails fastened to positive and negative leads.

This would initiate the detonators and the charge would explode.

Chitepo’s last moments

We soon established Chitepo’s routine after he arrived home. He would enter the house and turn the lights on.

Most of his evenings were spent sitting at a table writing. Between 20:30 and 21:00 he retired to bed and the lights would go off for the night. He was an early riser.

After performing his ablutions he would potter around the house for a while before going to his car and driving to work at the Liberation Centre. Having established his routine, we went to his house just after midnight one night to complete the job.

Ian was driving the car.

To our astonishment, Chitepo was still awake. He was writing at his table and did not go to bed until the early hours. This changed behavioural pattern continued for some nights and we despaired that he would ever return to his old routine.

Chuck and I talked it over and decided to go ahead with the operation, even if it meant waiting until 04:00 to plant the bomb when all was quiet.

Sensibly, we changed our minds again. We decided to bide time until he inevitably reverted to his old ways. It would have been foolhardy to do otherwise.

The next evening the lights were switched off promptly at 20:30.

We drove into town and dined at the Inter-Continental Hotel. This was to establish a reason for our being in town in case we were stopped later by the police.

We returned to 150 Muramba Road in the early hours of 18 March 1975. Ian parked about 200 metres from the target’s house. Both Chuck and I were armed with AKs. We were not playing games.

If the police stopped us while we had explosives in the car, we would have no option or compunction about shooting our way out of the situation.

We stayed waiting in the car for about 40 minutes to ensure everything was in order.

Everything remained quiet and peaceful, however, so we became confident that all respectable people living in the area were asleep in their beds.

We never blackened our faces. Most of our operations took place in urban areas. Blackening up would have put us in greater danger at roadblocks than if we had remained white while on a job.

However, to break our Caucasian shapes, we normally wore big fancy Afro wigs. At first glance they gave the impression of us being Coloureds.

Chuck and I got out of the car once we were satisfied that everything was quiet.

I carried the explosive device. Chuck was armed with an AK to back me up. I had borrowed Ian’s wire cutters to snip through the security fence. They were not just common or garden cutters, but the most efficient pair I have ever used.

We crouched low inside the security fence while I snipped a hole in it. I crawled through, followed by Chuck. Chuck adopted a defensive position in the shrubbery.

I leopard-crawled to the front of the parked Volksie and lay on my side. I had practised what must be done many times before at Ian’s farm.

I slotted the brass box with its explosive charge into its predetermined position behind the front wheel, inserted the wedge and jammed the device into place.

I placed the matchbox initiator behind the front wheel and concealed it with loose sand scraped up from the drive.

I juggled the wires connected to the detonators until they were out of sight and snug against the inside wheel.

I double-checked to be certain that everything was okay. When I was satisfied, I used a pencil to make a hole in the centre of the plastic explosive and inserted the detonators. The bomb was ready.

Now it was up to Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo.

The next morning he would go out to his car, start the engine and engage the gears. Moments later, when the wheels moved even fractionally, he would die.

The setting up of the charge had taken between three and five minutes. It had gone as smoothly as if it had been a practice run at Ian’s farm.

Assassin’s brief in Zambia

1. Our prime aim was to collect intelligence on the whereabouts and activities of Rhodesian dissident elements in Zambia.

2. The second objective was to look at ways and means by which publicity could be achieved about the activities of Rhodesian dissidents in Zambia, to put them under the spotlight and draw public attention to their presence.

3. The third objective was to drive a wedge between President Kenneth Kaunda and the Rhodesian dissidents and get him to turn against them. Better still, motivate him to drive them from his country.

4. The fourth objective was to drive a wedge between the two dissident factions, Zapu and Zanu, and stop them from uniting.

5. The fifth objective was to inflict casualties on Rhodesian dissidents when suitable occasions arose, subject to all such exercises first being cleared with Salisbury.

 

Taken from Peter Stiff’s book, “See You in November”