Kagnew: The US Base Washington Never Mentioned at the UN

February 1975, the White House Situation Room. Ethiopia's military government wants American ammunition for its war in Eritrea, and Henry Kissinger tells the room: "The President asked me this morning what Eritrea is." By then the US Army had been in Asmara for 32 years. Kagnew Station, America's "chief listening post", sat on a hill above the city. This film follows it through the declassified records of the US government: the Joint Chiefs who wanted "a sort of military extra-territoriality" in 1948, the American delegates who never mentioned the base at the UN while Eritrea's future was decided, the 1953 agreement signed "in private", the NSA's secret dishes, the Senate investigators who found the pledges, and the weapons that paid the rent and were turned on Eritrea. Kissinger, 1973: "We used KAGNEW as an excuse." Every document in this film is linked below. Read them yourself. CHAPTERS 0:00 Kagnew Station, 1963 0:28 The question in the Situation Room 1:09 The radio on the hill 2:59 The offer 4:43 What the UN was told 7:38 The quote that isn't there 8:35 The deal 11:11 Little America 12:54 The dishes 14:21 Watching 15:31 November 1962 17:08 Eritreans knock 18:31 The rent 20:46 Bullets for empty rifles 24:11 The end of the base 26:20 The record KEY SOURCES FRUS 1945-1977, Office of the Historian: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments JCS and Marshall, 1948: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v03/d588 "Maintenance our facilities Asmara", Oct 1948: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v03/d600 "Military extra-territoriality", Nov 1948: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v03/d602 NSC 19/5, 1949: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1949v04/d325 UN Ad Hoc Political Committee, 1950: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4018914 "Best possible terms for ourselves", 1952: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p1/d184 Telegram 610, "in private", 1953: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p1/d200 Base agreement, UNTS vol. 191 No. 2577: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20191/v191.pdf CIA brief, 1960: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp63-00314r000200160030-2 NSA, STONEHOUSE: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB501/docs/EBB-30.pdf Telegrams 232 and 237, Nov 1962: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v21/d281 Komer to Kennedy, 1962: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v21/d283 Tedla Bairu and the ELF, 1967: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v24/d336 Rostow to Johnson, 1967: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v24/d327 US Senate subcommittee report, 1970: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CPRT-91SPRT53125 US Embassy telegrams, 1970: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp72-00337r000200020039-3 NSDM 231, 1973: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d93 "We used KAGNEW as an excuse", 1973: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d96 WSAG, 27 Feb 1975: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d137 Scowcroft to Kissinger, 27 Feb 1975: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d138 Kissinger and de Guiringaud, Dec 1976: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d169 Kagnew seized, Apr 1977: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v17p1/d15 Oral histories (ADST): https://adst.org/Readers/Eritrea.pdf Army Corps of Engineers history: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bricks,_sand,_and_marble-_U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_construction_in_the_Mediterranean_and_Middle_East,_1947-1991_-_USACE-p16021coll4-295.pdf Abiy Ahmed, Sept 2025: https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/46861/ Quote cards show the record's exact words. UN debate quotes are from UN summary records. Typeset pages are published transcripts of online-only FRUS volumes. Footage marked "comparison" is not Kagnew. CREDITS Footage (public domain): US Air Force, US Army Signal Corps, USIS/USIA, US Navy and Universal Newsreel films (National Archives); NASA films (archive.org). Photos: Kagnew veterans Daniel Minchen and Allen Smith; John Brantley (CC BY-SA 2.0); US State Department, US Army, Library of Congress, LBJ, Ford and Eisenhower libraries; 1970s EPLF photos via Wikimedia Commons. Map data: Natural Earth. Music: original score. Subscribe: youtube.com/@Qushet