The Safari Club was created in 1976 after US Congress limited CIA powers following Watergate, Church Committee revelations, and the War Powers Resolution/Clark Amendment. Five nations formed a secret pact to conduct anti-communist operations without Congressional oversight: France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and pre-revolutionary Iran.

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) served as the Safari Club's financial arm. CIA Director George H.W. Bush worked with Saudi intelligence chief Kamal Adham to transform BCCI from a small Pakistani merchant bank into "the biggest clandestine money network in history." Bush maintained a personal BCCI account.

Count Alexandre de Marenches, director of France's SDECE (external intelligence), initiated the Safari Club. He personally contacted intelligence chiefs from five other nations (Algeria declined). France provided high-end technology and communications equipment while Saudi Arabia funded operations.

The Safari Club charter was signed September 1, 1976. The group took its name from Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi's exclusive Mount Kenya Safari Club resort where they first met. The charter stated: "Recent events in Angola and other parts of Africa have demonstrated the continent's role as a theater for revolutionary wars prompted and conducted by the Soviet Union."

By authorization of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the Safari Club established its headquarters in Cairo with a secretariat, planning wing, and operations wing. The group made large purchases of real estate and secure communications equipment.

Even as CIA Director Stansfield Turner tried to limit covert operations under Carter, former CIA agents Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines, and Edwin P. Wilson secretly maintained connections with the Safari Club and BCCI. Peter Dale Scott classified this as the "second CIA" - an autonomous network operating outside official channels.

The Safari Club's first action was defending Zaire's Mobutu regime against FNLC invasion in Shaba province (March-April 1977). France airlifted Moroccan and Egyptian troops. The operation protected French and Belgian mining interests (copper, cobalt, uranium) and supported anti-communist Mobutu.

During the Ogaden War, the Safari Club armed Somalia against Soviet-backed Ethiopia, even as President Carter officially declined to support Somalia. Saudi Arabia paid Egypt $75 million for Soviet weapons; Iran supplied M-48 tanks. This created direct conflict between official US policy and Safari Club operations.

Safari Club members, BCCI, and the US cooperated in arming and funding Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union (Operation Cyclone). The core was a US-Saudi agreement to match funding. This policy began in 1980 and continued through the Reagan administration.

Several Safari Club actors were later connected to Iran-Contra affair. CIA Director William Casey (Reagan's campaign manager, succeeded Turner) maintained monthly meetings with Kamal Adham and Prince Turki Al-Faisal. Saudi Arabia funded the attempted assassination of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1985 Beirut car bombing).

BCCI collapsed in 1991, exposing its role as financial vehicle for intelligence operations, drug trafficking, arms dealing, and money laundering. Clients included Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, and various terrorist organizations. The bank had served as an intelligence-gathering mechanism by soliciting business from underground organizations worldwide.

Henry Kissinger is credited with the American strategy of supporting the Safari Club implicitly - allowing it to fulfill American objectives by proxy without direct responsibility. This created a model for bypassing democratic oversight that influenced future covert operations.