Eric Cartman
JF-Expert Member
- May 21, 2009
- 11,960
- 11,222
The CIA, the Murder of Lumumba, and the Rise of Mobutu
It didn't take long for Congo's transition from Belgian colony to sovereign state to turn ugly. Both the Soviet Union and the United States were keeping a close eye on the mineral-rich country at the heart of Africa when, on June 30, 1960, it gained independence under a democratically elected government headed by Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. A charismatic nationalist, Lumumba led the only party in parliament with a nationwide, rather than ethnic or regional, base. Within days, however, Congo's troops mutinied against their all-white officer corps (a holdover from the colonial era) and started terrorizing the European population.
Belgium responded by sending forces to reoccupy the country and helping Congo's richest province, Katanga, secede. The United States, declining the appeals for help from the new Congolese government, instead threw its support behind a UN peacekeeping mission, which it hoped would obviate any Congolese requests for Soviet military assistance. But Lumumba quickly came into conflict with the UN for its failure to expel the Belgian troops and end Katanga's secession. After issuing a series of shifting ultimatums to the UN, he turned to Moscow for help, which responded by sending transport planes to fly Lumumba's troops into Katanga.
That's when the Eisenhower administration sent in the CIA. In the decades that followed, the dominant narrative in U.S. foreign policy circles portrayed the U.S. covert action in Congo as a surgical, low-cost success. Even the 1975 U.S. Senate investigation by the Church Committee, which was heavily critical of the CIA, concluded that of the five covert paramilitary campaigns it studied, the operation in Congo was the only one that "achieved its objectives." Those who hold this view credit the U.S. government with avoiding a direct military confrontation with the Soviet Union and China while foiling the communists' attempts to gain influence over a key African country. They acknowledge that the CIA contributed to the fall of Lumumba, who lost a power struggle with Joseph Mobutu, the pro-Western head of Congo's army, in September 1960. But they maintain that even though the CIA plotted to assassinate Lumumba -- once even trying to get a recruit to poison his toothpaste or food -- it never did so, and had no hand in his eventual murder, in January 1961. They also recognize the agency's contribution to the military defeat of Lumumba's followers. As for Mobutu, who would go on to become one of Africa's most enduring and venal leaders, proponents of the orthodox account argue that his faults became clear only later, many years after CIA involvement had run its course.Over the years, many scholars and journalists have challenged parts of this orthodoxy, and public perception has begun to catch up. But their case has been hampered by the shortage of official documentary evidence. Recently, however, new evidence has become available, and it paints a far darker picture than even the critics imagined. The key sources include files from the Church Committee, which have been slowly declassified over the last 20 years; a 2001 Belgian parliamentary investigation into Lumumba's murder; and a new volume, released last year, of Foreign Relations of the United States, the State Department series that presents a document-by-document record of U.S. decision-making. The new volume, on Congo, contains the most extensive set of CIA operational documents ever published.
We now know that even though the threat of communism in Congo was quite weak at the time of Congo's independence, the CIA engaged in pervasive political meddling and paramilitary action between 1960 and 1968 to ensure that the country retained a pro-Western government and to help its pathetic military on the battlefield. So extensive were these efforts that at the time, they ranked as the largest covert operation in the agency's history, costing an estimated $90–$150 million in current dollars, not counting the aircraft, weapons, and transportation and maintenance services provided by the Defense Department. The CIA had a hand in every one of Congo's major political turning points during the period and maintained a financial and political relationship with every head of its government. And contrary to the conclusion of the Church Committee, Lawrence Devlin, the CIA station chief in Congo for most of the period, had direct influence over the events that led to Lumumba's death.
Not only was U.S. involvement extensive; it was also malignant. The CIA's use of bribery and paramilitary force succeeded in keeping a narrow, politically weak clique in power for most of Congo's first decade of independence. And the very nature of the CIA's aid discouraged Congolese politicians from building genuine bases of support and adopting responsible policies. The agency's legacy of clients and techniques contributed to a long-running spiral of decline, which was characterized by corruption, political turmoil, and dependence on Western military intervention. So dysfunctional was the state that in 1997 it outright collapsed -- leaving behind instability that continues to this day.PLAYING POLITICSIn the beginning, U.S. covert action in Congo was exclusively political in nature. Washington worried that Lumumba was too erratic and too close to the Soviets and that if he stayed in power, Congo could fall into further chaos and turn communist.
Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, cabled the CIA station in Léopoldville, the capital, in August 1960: "We conclude that his removal must be an urgent and prime objective and that under existing conditions this should be a high priority of our covert action." So the CIA station, in tandem with Belgian intelligence officials, subsidized two opposition senators who attempted to organize a vote of no confidence against Lumumba's government. The plan was for Joseph Kasavubu, Congo's president and Lumumba's rival, to dissolve the government after the vote and nominate one of the senators as the new prime minister. The CIA also funded anti-Lumumba street demonstrations, labor movements, and propaganda.But Kasavubu, encouraged by the Belgians, jumped the gun and publicly fired Lumumba two days before the vote was to be held. Lumumba responded by refusing to withdraw and continuing to dominate parliament, which would have to approve a new government. Devlin quickly found a solution to the stalemate in Mobutu, the 29-year-old army chief of staff. In two meetings, Mobutu told Devlin that he was moving troops to the capital and pleaded for U.S. help in acting against Lumumba. Devlin agreed to finance his efforts, subsequently telling CIA debriefers that, as the new Foreign Relations of the United States volume puts it, "this was the beginning of the plan for Mobutu to take over the government." On September 14, Mobutu announced that he was suspending parliament and the constitution. He sacked Lumumba and kept on Kasavubu, but now Mobutu was the power behind the throne.
The CIA rushed to his side with more money, warnings about assassination plots, and recommendations for ministerial appointments. It counseled Mobutu to reject reconciliation with Lumumba and instead arrest him and his key associates, advice Mobutu readily accepted. Devlin became not just the paymaster but also an influential de facto member of the government he had helped install. His principal vehicle was the so-called Binza Group, a caucus of Mobutu's political allies that got its name from the Léopoldville suburb where most of them lived. It included Mobutu's security chief and his foreign and finance ministers. In the months after the coup, the group consulted Devlin on major political and military matters, especially those dealing with Lumumba, who was now under house arrest but protected by UN troops.The group almost always heeded Devlin's advice. In October, for example, Mobutu threatened to expand his power by firing President Kasavubu -- which would have deprived the government of its last shred of political legitimacy.
So Devlin persuaded him to accept a compromise instead, under which Mobutu would work with a council of associates -- all paid by the CIA -- that would choose cabinet ministers for Kasavubu and control parliament. Devlin also convinced the Binza Group to drop a risky plan to attack Lumumba's UN security detail and arrest Lumumba.On January 14, 1961, Devlin was informed by a government leader that Lumumba, who had escaped from UN protection and been captured by Mobutu's troops, was about to be transferred to the Belgian-backed secessionist province of South Kasai, whose leader had vowed to murder him. In his subsequent, January 17 cable reporting this critical contact to CIA headquarters, Devlin gave no indication that he had voiced any opposition to the plan. Given his intimate working relationship with Congo's rulers and his previous successful interventions with them concerning Lumumba, Devlin's permissive stance was undoubtedly a major factor in the government's decision to move Lumumba.But Devlin did more than give a green light to the transfer. He also deliberately kept Washington out of the loop -- an exception for a covert program that was being closely managed by the CIA, the State Department, and the National Security Council.
On the same day that he was informed of Lumumba's prospective transfer, Devlin learned that the State Department had denied his and CIA headquarters' urgent request for funds to pay off a key Congolese garrison on the verge of a mutiny that threatened to restore Lumumba to power. John F. Kennedy was to take office in six days, and the State Department considered the request "one of high policy" that should wait for the new administration to decide.Seeing his preferred method for preventing Lumumba's comeback blocked, Devlin may have viewed the impending transfer as a promising Plan B. But he also knew that if he told headquarters about the plan, it would consult the State Department, which, given its response to his last request, would almost certainly have considered the U.S. position on the transfer a matter for the incoming administration. All of that meant that if Washington had been fully informed about the plot, it might well have tried to put the brakes on it through Devlin, the Binza Group, and their Belgian advisers. Moreover, Devlin knew that the Kennedy transition team was reconsidering the Eisenhower administration's hard-line policy toward Lumumba.
So even as he communicated with headquarters about other matters, Devlin withheld information about the planned transfer for three days, until the move was already under way. In a last-minute switch, Lumumba was sent to Katanga, the other Belgian-supported secessionist province, whose powerful interior minister had repeatedly called for his scalp. By the time Devlin's January 17 cable arrived in Washington, Lumumba had been shot dead in Katanga.Rather than end the struggle for control of Congo, Lumumba's assassination only intensified it. In August 1961, the United States, under pressure from the UN and a pro-Lumumba state in eastern Congo, agreed that the Congolese parliament should reconvene to select a new national government. But the CIA used bribes to ensure that the new government was led by its ally Cyrille Adoula. While the resulting power-sharing deal did include some Lumumbists, as Lumumba's supporters were called, the most important positions went to members of the Binza Group (with Mobutu himself remaining head of the army).Once Adoula was in office, the CIA provided him with a public relations firm to help him bolster his image abroad and an adviser who wrote speeches for him. The CIA also bribed parliament, the Binza Group, a labor union, and an organization of tribal chiefs to back the new leader. Meanwhile, Devlin continued to behave like a member of the government. At the Binza Group's behest, he persuaded Adoula not to make concessions to his Lumumbist deputy prime minister. When Adoula decided to fire Mobutu, Devlin convinced him to drop the idea. Adoula even asked Devlin to canvas political leaders in order to gauge his own parliamentary support. In November 1961, after only a year and a half on the job, Devlin cabled CIA headquarters that the agency could "take major credit for the fall of the Lumumba [government], the success of the Mobutu coup and considerable credit for Adoula's nomination as premier."
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141523/stephen-r-weissman/what-really-happened-in-congo
(audio version also available)
It didn't take long for Congo's transition from Belgian colony to sovereign state to turn ugly. Both the Soviet Union and the United States were keeping a close eye on the mineral-rich country at the heart of Africa when, on June 30, 1960, it gained independence under a democratically elected government headed by Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. A charismatic nationalist, Lumumba led the only party in parliament with a nationwide, rather than ethnic or regional, base. Within days, however, Congo's troops mutinied against their all-white officer corps (a holdover from the colonial era) and started terrorizing the European population.
Belgium responded by sending forces to reoccupy the country and helping Congo's richest province, Katanga, secede. The United States, declining the appeals for help from the new Congolese government, instead threw its support behind a UN peacekeeping mission, which it hoped would obviate any Congolese requests for Soviet military assistance. But Lumumba quickly came into conflict with the UN for its failure to expel the Belgian troops and end Katanga's secession. After issuing a series of shifting ultimatums to the UN, he turned to Moscow for help, which responded by sending transport planes to fly Lumumba's troops into Katanga.
That's when the Eisenhower administration sent in the CIA. In the decades that followed, the dominant narrative in U.S. foreign policy circles portrayed the U.S. covert action in Congo as a surgical, low-cost success. Even the 1975 U.S. Senate investigation by the Church Committee, which was heavily critical of the CIA, concluded that of the five covert paramilitary campaigns it studied, the operation in Congo was the only one that "achieved its objectives." Those who hold this view credit the U.S. government with avoiding a direct military confrontation with the Soviet Union and China while foiling the communists' attempts to gain influence over a key African country. They acknowledge that the CIA contributed to the fall of Lumumba, who lost a power struggle with Joseph Mobutu, the pro-Western head of Congo's army, in September 1960. But they maintain that even though the CIA plotted to assassinate Lumumba -- once even trying to get a recruit to poison his toothpaste or food -- it never did so, and had no hand in his eventual murder, in January 1961. They also recognize the agency's contribution to the military defeat of Lumumba's followers. As for Mobutu, who would go on to become one of Africa's most enduring and venal leaders, proponents of the orthodox account argue that his faults became clear only later, many years after CIA involvement had run its course.Over the years, many scholars and journalists have challenged parts of this orthodoxy, and public perception has begun to catch up. But their case has been hampered by the shortage of official documentary evidence. Recently, however, new evidence has become available, and it paints a far darker picture than even the critics imagined. The key sources include files from the Church Committee, which have been slowly declassified over the last 20 years; a 2001 Belgian parliamentary investigation into Lumumba's murder; and a new volume, released last year, of Foreign Relations of the United States, the State Department series that presents a document-by-document record of U.S. decision-making. The new volume, on Congo, contains the most extensive set of CIA operational documents ever published.
We now know that even though the threat of communism in Congo was quite weak at the time of Congo's independence, the CIA engaged in pervasive political meddling and paramilitary action between 1960 and 1968 to ensure that the country retained a pro-Western government and to help its pathetic military on the battlefield. So extensive were these efforts that at the time, they ranked as the largest covert operation in the agency's history, costing an estimated $90–$150 million in current dollars, not counting the aircraft, weapons, and transportation and maintenance services provided by the Defense Department. The CIA had a hand in every one of Congo's major political turning points during the period and maintained a financial and political relationship with every head of its government. And contrary to the conclusion of the Church Committee, Lawrence Devlin, the CIA station chief in Congo for most of the period, had direct influence over the events that led to Lumumba's death.
Not only was U.S. involvement extensive; it was also malignant. The CIA's use of bribery and paramilitary force succeeded in keeping a narrow, politically weak clique in power for most of Congo's first decade of independence. And the very nature of the CIA's aid discouraged Congolese politicians from building genuine bases of support and adopting responsible policies. The agency's legacy of clients and techniques contributed to a long-running spiral of decline, which was characterized by corruption, political turmoil, and dependence on Western military intervention. So dysfunctional was the state that in 1997 it outright collapsed -- leaving behind instability that continues to this day.PLAYING POLITICSIn the beginning, U.S. covert action in Congo was exclusively political in nature. Washington worried that Lumumba was too erratic and too close to the Soviets and that if he stayed in power, Congo could fall into further chaos and turn communist.
Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, cabled the CIA station in Léopoldville, the capital, in August 1960: "We conclude that his removal must be an urgent and prime objective and that under existing conditions this should be a high priority of our covert action." So the CIA station, in tandem with Belgian intelligence officials, subsidized two opposition senators who attempted to organize a vote of no confidence against Lumumba's government. The plan was for Joseph Kasavubu, Congo's president and Lumumba's rival, to dissolve the government after the vote and nominate one of the senators as the new prime minister. The CIA also funded anti-Lumumba street demonstrations, labor movements, and propaganda.But Kasavubu, encouraged by the Belgians, jumped the gun and publicly fired Lumumba two days before the vote was to be held. Lumumba responded by refusing to withdraw and continuing to dominate parliament, which would have to approve a new government. Devlin quickly found a solution to the stalemate in Mobutu, the 29-year-old army chief of staff. In two meetings, Mobutu told Devlin that he was moving troops to the capital and pleaded for U.S. help in acting against Lumumba. Devlin agreed to finance his efforts, subsequently telling CIA debriefers that, as the new Foreign Relations of the United States volume puts it, "this was the beginning of the plan for Mobutu to take over the government." On September 14, Mobutu announced that he was suspending parliament and the constitution. He sacked Lumumba and kept on Kasavubu, but now Mobutu was the power behind the throne.
The CIA rushed to his side with more money, warnings about assassination plots, and recommendations for ministerial appointments. It counseled Mobutu to reject reconciliation with Lumumba and instead arrest him and his key associates, advice Mobutu readily accepted. Devlin became not just the paymaster but also an influential de facto member of the government he had helped install. His principal vehicle was the so-called Binza Group, a caucus of Mobutu's political allies that got its name from the Léopoldville suburb where most of them lived. It included Mobutu's security chief and his foreign and finance ministers. In the months after the coup, the group consulted Devlin on major political and military matters, especially those dealing with Lumumba, who was now under house arrest but protected by UN troops.The group almost always heeded Devlin's advice. In October, for example, Mobutu threatened to expand his power by firing President Kasavubu -- which would have deprived the government of its last shred of political legitimacy.
So Devlin persuaded him to accept a compromise instead, under which Mobutu would work with a council of associates -- all paid by the CIA -- that would choose cabinet ministers for Kasavubu and control parliament. Devlin also convinced the Binza Group to drop a risky plan to attack Lumumba's UN security detail and arrest Lumumba.On January 14, 1961, Devlin was informed by a government leader that Lumumba, who had escaped from UN protection and been captured by Mobutu's troops, was about to be transferred to the Belgian-backed secessionist province of South Kasai, whose leader had vowed to murder him. In his subsequent, January 17 cable reporting this critical contact to CIA headquarters, Devlin gave no indication that he had voiced any opposition to the plan. Given his intimate working relationship with Congo's rulers and his previous successful interventions with them concerning Lumumba, Devlin's permissive stance was undoubtedly a major factor in the government's decision to move Lumumba.But Devlin did more than give a green light to the transfer. He also deliberately kept Washington out of the loop -- an exception for a covert program that was being closely managed by the CIA, the State Department, and the National Security Council.
On the same day that he was informed of Lumumba's prospective transfer, Devlin learned that the State Department had denied his and CIA headquarters' urgent request for funds to pay off a key Congolese garrison on the verge of a mutiny that threatened to restore Lumumba to power. John F. Kennedy was to take office in six days, and the State Department considered the request "one of high policy" that should wait for the new administration to decide.Seeing his preferred method for preventing Lumumba's comeback blocked, Devlin may have viewed the impending transfer as a promising Plan B. But he also knew that if he told headquarters about the plan, it would consult the State Department, which, given its response to his last request, would almost certainly have considered the U.S. position on the transfer a matter for the incoming administration. All of that meant that if Washington had been fully informed about the plot, it might well have tried to put the brakes on it through Devlin, the Binza Group, and their Belgian advisers. Moreover, Devlin knew that the Kennedy transition team was reconsidering the Eisenhower administration's hard-line policy toward Lumumba.
So even as he communicated with headquarters about other matters, Devlin withheld information about the planned transfer for three days, until the move was already under way. In a last-minute switch, Lumumba was sent to Katanga, the other Belgian-supported secessionist province, whose powerful interior minister had repeatedly called for his scalp. By the time Devlin's January 17 cable arrived in Washington, Lumumba had been shot dead in Katanga.Rather than end the struggle for control of Congo, Lumumba's assassination only intensified it. In August 1961, the United States, under pressure from the UN and a pro-Lumumba state in eastern Congo, agreed that the Congolese parliament should reconvene to select a new national government. But the CIA used bribes to ensure that the new government was led by its ally Cyrille Adoula. While the resulting power-sharing deal did include some Lumumbists, as Lumumba's supporters were called, the most important positions went to members of the Binza Group (with Mobutu himself remaining head of the army).Once Adoula was in office, the CIA provided him with a public relations firm to help him bolster his image abroad and an adviser who wrote speeches for him. The CIA also bribed parliament, the Binza Group, a labor union, and an organization of tribal chiefs to back the new leader. Meanwhile, Devlin continued to behave like a member of the government. At the Binza Group's behest, he persuaded Adoula not to make concessions to his Lumumbist deputy prime minister. When Adoula decided to fire Mobutu, Devlin convinced him to drop the idea. Adoula even asked Devlin to canvas political leaders in order to gauge his own parliamentary support. In November 1961, after only a year and a half on the job, Devlin cabled CIA headquarters that the agency could "take major credit for the fall of the Lumumba [government], the success of the Mobutu coup and considerable credit for Adoula's nomination as premier."
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141523/stephen-r-weissman/what-really-happened-in-congo
(audio version also available)
