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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Johns was a key player in securing continued United States support for the UNITA rebels of [[Jonas Savimbi]]. On at least one occasion, Johns visited a UNITA training camp in the Angolan bush. The visit was revealed in an article by Johns about Angola, that was quoted by [[Dan Burton]] (R Indiana) in the House of Representatives in 1989. In it Johns says, "Savimbi told conservative leader [[Howard Phillips]] and me last March during a visit to Savimbi's headquarters in the Angolan bush, 'there are a lot of loopholes in [the Angola/Namibia agreement]. The agreement is not good at all.'" [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r101:E26OC9-320:]
In July October 1990, Representative [[Don Ritter]] (D-Pennsylvania) used an analysis by Michael Johns to support his opposition to HR 5422. This resolution sought to cut aid to UNITA. In his analysis, Johns wrote "In Angola, where a civil war has raged for 15 years between the country's Soviet-backed Marxist regime and an American-supported resistance movement, peace and freedom are now within sight." He concluded: "American assistance to UNITA continues to be the only hope for peace and freedom in Angola." [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r101:14:./temp/~r101emd8uh::] In the event, following its electoral failure in 1992, UNITA resumed its armed insurgency, which was only brought to an end by the death of Savimbi in an ambush in February 2002 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNITA].
==Career==