CHAPTER 5

COLD WAR ON THE CHEAP:
SOVIET AND CZECHOSLOVAK
INTELLIGENCE IN THE CONGO,
1960–3

Natalia Telepneva

In July 1960, the chairman of the Soviet Committee on State Security (KGB), Alexander Shelepin, hosted a high-level delegation from the Czechoslovak State Security (StB; Státní Bezpečnost) headed by the Czechoslovak minister of the interior, Rudolf Barák. A former head of the Soviet Youth Organization (Komsomol) and a protégé of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU), Nikita Khrushchev, Shelepin was a rising star in the Party. So was Barák, an ambitious and dynamic man who had a taste for foreign affairs and was rumoured to harbour ambitions to supersede Antonín Novotný as first secretary.¹

As minister of the interior, Barák presided over the StB's First (Intelligence) Directorate that, alongside its Soviet equivalent (the First Directorate of the KGB), was responsible for foreign intelligence.² Not much is known about Shelepin's personal relations with Barák, but we do know that the latter's term as minister of the interior ushered in a new era of cooperation between the KGB and the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior on a number of issues, including joint intelligence operations in the Third World. In fact, the July 1960 meeting was the first instance of the StB and the KGB coordinating joint intelligence operations across the world against the USA – the ‘main adversary’ in KGB parlance.³ The KGB and StB had developed close ties since the Soviet-sponsored takeover of the country by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) in 1948. However, the meeting of July 1960 was extraordinary because it ushered in a new era of cooperation between the StB and the KGB in the Third World. The timing was not coincidental, since 1960 witnessed the crisis in the Congo during which rival intelligence services – the Soviet KGB, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British MI6 – played a key role.

The crisis in the Congo was one of the most important moments in the history of postcolonial Africa. The Belgian Congo, with its colonial-era capital in Léopoldville, a country two-thirds the size of Western Europe and rich in mineral resources, was set on a path to independence in 1959. On 13 January of that year, after a series of violent protests in its main cities, Belgian King Baudouin announced his intention to ‘lead the people of Congo’ towards independence. The announcement led to a proliferation of political parties, many of which rooted in regional ethnic groups. Following the Roundtable Conference held in January and February 1960 in Brussels, the Belgian Government agreed to hold general elections and transfer political power to the Congolese. The two parties that did best in the elections were the Alliance of Bakongo (ABAKO; Alliance des Bakongo) and the Congolese National Movement (MNC; Mouvement National Congolais). Thus, on 30 June 1960, ABAKO's leader, Joseph Kasavubu, became the first president of the Congo, while MNC's Patrice Lumumba became its first prime minister.

Only five days later, a major crisis erupted in the country. On 5 July, Congolese soldiers mutinied over pay and the presence of Belgian officers in the army. The revolt was quickly followed by a workers' strike; general chaos ensured, including sporadic, yet widely reported, violence against white residents. On 11 July, Brussels decided to send in paratroopers, seemingly to restore law and order. The following day, the leader and strongman of Katanga, Moïse Tshombe, announced the secession of the resource-rich province. The Belgians stationed the bulk of their forces in Katanga, ostensibly to protect its citizens but in fact their aim was to safeguard Western companies and economic interests. Lumumba appealed to the United Nations to intervene and prevent the secession of Katanga, but frustration with Western inaction led him to turn to the Eastern bloc.

By August, Washington believed that Lumumba was dangerously close to the Soviets and planned for his removal. On 14 September, the army chief of staff, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, arrested Lumumba and eventually transported him to Katanga province, where he was brutally murdered on 17 January 1961. The struggle for the Congo was not yet over, however. A group of Lumumba's supporters, originally led by Antoine Gizenga, fled to the MNC's stronghold in Stanleyville in eastern Congo, from where Gizenga attempted to launch an armed offensive against the Léopoldville government. Having failed to achieve a military breakthrough, Gizenga half-heartedly agreed to a power-sharing arrangement negotiated at the Lovanium Conference in July 1961. The arrangement lasted only until the end of 1963, when various actors opposed to the central government launched an offensive in yet another round of the civil war, known as the ‘Simba Rebellion’, which would last until their final defeat in 1965.

While the role of Western intelligence in the Congo Crisis has been the subject of substantial public and historical interest, we know little about the roles of Soviet and Eastern European intelligence personnel. While early literature focused on the role of the West, the declassification of archival materials has begun to establish the Congo Crisis as a multi-dimensional, multi-actor story that had a profound effect on the Cold War.⁴ The story of Lumumba's murder still grips both historiographical and public debates.⁵ The recent publication of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) book series focused attention on the role of the US and the CIA in particular, showing that in the Congo, the CIA engaged in one of its largest covert actions, costing US$90–150 million at today's money, not counting the military assistance provided by the Department of Defense.⁶ Even so, we still know little about the role of Soviet and, especially, Czechoslovak intelligence in the Congo. Bar a general overview by the journalists Petr Zídek and Karl Sieber, as well as a few oral testimonies, the only account that deals with the Czechoslovak role is Philip Muehlenbeck's Czechoslovakia in Africa. Muehlenbeck argues that in the Congo, as elsewhere in Africa, Prague was not simply subservient to Moscow's will but instead tried to pursue its commercial, ideological and strategic interests in Africa in line with its own national objectives.⁷ Nonetheless, our understanding of the Soviet and Czechoslovak intelligence presence in the Congo remains patchy. Did US officials in the country really overestimate the extent of the communist threat, and what was the role of Czechoslovak intelligence in this story? This chapter aims to answer these questions.

Czechoslovakia had a long-standing presence in the Congo. One of the Czechoslovak diplomats stationed in Léopoldville before independence, Josef Virius, had relationships with Congolese nationalist politicians. He shared information with his Czechoslovak superiors, who then, most likely, informed their Soviet counterparts. In 1960, the KGB and StB launched their first joint operation to monitor events in the Congo, but it was cut short by Lumumba's arrest. When Antoine Gizenga moved to Stanleyville, Czechoslovak intelligence advocated increased support for his military offensive, but the Soviet leadership soon realized the limits of its involvement in a faraway conflict. Based on largely overlooked records of the StB, this chapter reveals that even after Gizenga's government agreed, at Lovanium, to a compromise solution to the standoff with Léopoldville, Czechoslovak intelligence entertained ambitious plans for operations in the Congo. While this optimism subsided a few months later, Czechoslovak intelligence still pushed for its station in Léopoldville to gather information, recruit informants and agents of influence, and undertake so-called ‘active operations’ to discredit Western powers in the Congo right up until the expulsion of Soviet embassy staff from the country in November 1963, and even afterwards. As a reflection of policy, an examination of Soviet and Czechoslovak intelligence in the Congo helps to clarify foreign-policy objectives hidden from view, as well as the substantial role played by Czechoslovakia, Moscow's so-called ‘junior partner’. Lacking in essential knowledge, resources and alliances in the region, and unwilling to face a major showdown with the US, Soviet and Czechoslovak spies in the Congo played key roles as policy intermediaries – a ‘cheap’ weapon in the Cold War in Africa.

The KGB–StB Mission in Léopoldville, 1960

Czechoslovakia's visibility in Africa was linked to changes in the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. The CC CPSU first secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, turned to the Third World in the mid-1950s, as a wave of decolonization swept through the formerly colonized territories in Africa and Asia. Khrushchev was hopeful that the Third World could offer a new frontier for the peaceful spread of socialism. During his momentous tour of Asia in 1955, he famously challenged the West to ‘compete without war’, as he believed that the newly independent nations could see the benefits of Soviet-style modernization.⁸ Keen to portray the Soviet Union as champion of the anti-imperialist struggle, Khrushchev became increasingly willing to respond to demands for assistance, including arms. A major exporter of small arms, Czechoslovakia was set to benefit economically as well as politically from the new openness to the Third World. When, in September 1955, news emerged that Czechoslovakia had made a deal with the president of the United Arab Republic (UAR), Gamal Abdel Nasser, to supply US$250 million-worth of modern Soviet weaponry, Prague emerged as a key ally of the Soviet Union in Africa.⁹

Czechoslovakia had long-standing connections with the Congo. Its consulate in Léopoldville functioned from 1929 until 1939 and then reopened in 1948. In the early 1950s, the consulate was affected by communication difficulties and personal feuds, with two members of its staff arrested – one of whom was shot – and a third refusing to return to Prague.¹⁰ Only in 1955 did the Czechoslovaks manage to obtain a permanent presence in the Congo with the dispatch of Consul Josef Virius, most likely an StB officer with the code name DIPLOMAT.¹¹ In charge of selling Czechoslovak Škoda cars in Léopoldville, Virius established connections with a number of Congolese politicians, one of whom was Pierre Mulele, one of the founders of the left-leaning African Solidarity Party (PSA: Parti Solidaire Africain). The PSA's co-founder, Cléophas Kamitatu, stated that Virius organized ideological classes in Léopoldville, with Mulele as one of the attendees. Mulele and Virius were friends, and in 1959 the consul persuaded Kamitatu to buy a Škoda – ‘the cheapest on the market’ – for the PSA.¹² According to Virius himself, his best contact was with Antoine Gizenga.¹³

The story of initial Soviet contacts with Patrice Lumumba is well known. Lumumba had been trying to establish contact with the Soviets since 1959, when he approached the Soviet Embassy in Guinea. However Moscow was initially sceptical as they believed his party, the MNC, was ‘more moderate’ than ABAKO.¹⁴ Yet it is also possible that there was some exchange between Czechoslovak and Soviet officials about the situation in the Congo, and that Virius's good relations with Gizenga had something to do with the latter's invitation to Moscow in January 1960, just as the Roundtable Conference was in session. In conversations with the Soviet Solidarity Committee, Gizenga tried to secure support for ABAKO and the PSA and their plan for the Congo as a federation of six independent states, criticizing Lumumba and alleging that he had connections with the Belgian administration. He also asked for a meeting with Nikita Khrushchev for financial assistance and for weapons to launch a liberation struggle if the Belgians refused to grant independence. However, Gizenga did not make much of an impression on his hosts, who believed that he was opportunistic, and recommended that the CPSU should refrain from considering his requests but should learn more about Congolese politicians.¹⁵

Soviet opinions of Lumumba started to change in early 1960, partly under the influence of the Belgian Communist Party (BCP). The BCP leader, Albert de Coninck, believed that the Congo presented the best conditions for the expansion of Marxism because of a relatively high level of urbanization and who argued that Lumumba was a ‘progressive’ politician under the influence of Guinean President Sékou Touré.¹⁶ With the BCP acting as intermediary, on 19 February, the first secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Brussels, Boris Savinov, met Lumumba, who expressed his willingness to form a union with a number of small Congolese parties. One of them was the African Regroupment Party (CEREA; Centre de Regroupment Africain), an organization whose leader, Anicet Kashamura, wanted to establish a communist party in the Congo and maintain close links with the BCP. On the basis of the conversation, Savinov reported to Moscow that Lumumba, who enjoyed ‘enormous popularity’, deserved serious attention from Moscow.¹⁷

The Belgian intervention on 11 July 1960 thrust the Congo into the Cold War. Lumumba interpreted the intervention as a neocolonial coup rather than a rescue mission, and requested military assistance from UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. However, frustrated by Western inaction, Lumumba appealed to Nikita Khrushchev to closely watch developments in the country. Sensing an opportunity to curry favour with newly independent African leaders, Khrushchev responded with a strong statement in support of Lumumba. On 16 July, the Soviet Union pledged 2.5 million roubles of economic aid, agreed to send 10,000 tonnes of food to the Congo and provided 26 aeroplanes and six helicopters to support the UN mission. In comparison, the USA provided 100 planes for the UN effort.¹⁸ The Soviet Union also pushed for the support of Lumumba's position at the United Nations; however, Lumumba's overtures to Moscow made him dangerous in the eyes of the US administration. The CIA chief of station in the Congo, Larry Devlin, writes that in July and August 1960, ‘several hundred Soviet personnel’ entered the Congo, and the CIA assumed that most if not all of these men were Soviet intelligence officers.¹⁹ By September, Washington was convinced that Lumumba was in the pay of the Soviets and that he had to be replaced by a more moderate, pro-Western government, by force if necessary.²⁰

The CIA exaggerated the size of the Soviet intelligence presence in the Congo. The KGB operation there started fairly late, in August 1960, and was limited in its size and scope. On 6 August, Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Yakovlev and a small group of KGB officers led by chief of the KGB station, Leonid Podgornov, arrived in Léopoldville. Their mission, according to Oleg Nazhestkin, who was part of the team, was fairly limited; they were to collect information about Congolese politicians and find out about ‘Western plans’ for the country.²¹ The reasons for the missions lay in Khrushchev's growing frustration over Western inaction in the Congo. In particular, he believed that UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld had colluded with the US administration, turning a blind eye to Katanga's secession.²² When Lumumba's trip to the USA in July 1960 brought no results, Khrushchev was particularly annoyed and authorized a plan for an intelligence mission in the Congo.²³ The KGB had a very limited intelligence presence in sub-Saharan Africa before 1960, and only in August did the KGB's First Directorate establish their first eight-man desk to specialize in intelligence operations in Africa.²⁴ The KGB mission in August was therefore in many ways the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa.

Prague was also interested in providing support for the new government. In fact, Czechoslovakia was the first to establish full diplomatic relations with the newly independent Congo. Since the late 1950s, Prague had maintained an official presence in Léopoldville, with the consul, Josef Virius, acting as an intermediary, receiving requests from local politicians and passing them onto Prague. On 18 August, a Czechoslovak delegation arrived carrying the second tranche of assistance in the form of food and medicine worth Kčs2 million (Czechoslovak crowns).²⁵ In Léopoldville, the delegation met with Virius, who explained to them that his best contact, Gizenga, had passed a request for Prague to dispatch security instructors and one military attaché, who would clandestinely provide counsel to the government. When the Czechoslovak officials spoke to Lumumba, they also discovered that the prime minister required, above all, weapons and means of transportation to defeat Tshombe's forces in Katanga.²⁶

Henceforth, Prague moved quickly to provide military assistance. It dispatched two intelligence officers and started a process of negotiation to supply weapons to Lumumba's government, culminating in another delegation arriving in Léopoldville on 5 September, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Karel Klima.²⁷ Prior to the trip, Czechoslovak officials held consultations over support for the Congo in Moscow. The Soviets had encouraged their colleagues to undertake ‘maximum initiative’ in responding to Congolese requests, but Moscow had agreed to take upon itself the task of supplying weapons and equipment for the Congolese Army. Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia was to specialize in providing security assistance for the new government. In fact, Klima's delegation included a special security advisor who was to provide ‘on-site’ assistance to the government. It is most likely that a high-ranking officer such as security advisor and head of the Afro-Asian Department, Josef Janouš, was to propose some organizational changes to the Congolese.²⁸

However, any advice came too late, as the political crisis in the Congo reached its crescendo. On the same day that the Czechoslovak delegation landed in Léopoldville, President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba and replaced him with Joseph Ileo. Lumumba refused to accept the decision and a constitutional crisis ensued before, eventually, on 14 September, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu apprehended Lumumba and placed him under house arrest. At the same time, he ordered Soviet and Czechoslovak embassy staff to leave the country within 24 hours. When Khrushchev learned about events in Léopoldville while on a boat to New York, where he was to give a speech at the UN, he was distraught.²⁹ Speaking at the UN's General Assembly, he lashed out at the West and at UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld personally for conspiring to overthrow Lumumba. He also proposed an overhaul of the UN's governing body.³⁰ Meanwhile, Antoine Gizenga fled Léopoldville to a stronghold in Stanleyville, from where he appealed, in the name of Lumumba's government, for support from the Eastern bloc.

Arms for Gizenga, 1961

News of Lumumba's arrest and Gizenga's appeal for assistance led to a new bout of Soviet–Czechoslovak dialogue on the Congo in early 1961.On 9 January that year, a Czechoslovak delegation arrived in Moscow for a two-day consultation with their Soviet counterparts. The Soviet deputy foreign minister, Yakov Malik, informed them that Khrushchev had promised all necessary assistance to Gizenga as soon as possible, and that it was merely a matter of execution. This time, the Soviets were ready to offer infantry equipment for 5,000 men, 20 trucks, ten planes, cars, food, medication, a radio transmitter and US$500,000 with weapons to be delivered via the UAR with Sudan's approval. Both sides also decided to send a special mission to Stanleyville, consisting of advisors on defence, security, technical administration and economic matters, with Prague taking upon itself the role of organizing the security component.

The issue of arms was also on the agenda. The Soviet side suggested that their Czechoslovak counterparts should deliver weapons to Stanleyville using all routes (through the UAR or alternatives) as soon as possible. The Soviets also recommended that the Czechoslovaks establish an airline, with pilots and technical crew from the UAR or with Czechoslovak pilots, to deliver supplies to Stanleyville.³¹ On 24 January, the Central Committee of the CPC approved a donation of small arms for 2,500 men, four aeroplanes, 60 tonnes of food and pharmaceuticals and £25,000 in cash to the Stanleyville government. The Czechoslovaks also pledged to send their diplomats to Stanleyville and establish an airline that would deliver supplies to Gizenga's capital.³²

The Soviets soon discovered that the delivery of matériel posed a serious problem. The key obstacle lay in the unwillingness of the Sudanese Government to allow any transportation of assistance to Gizenga's forces in Stanleyville. Other leaders sympathetic to Lumumba's plight, such as the president of the UAR, Gamal Abdel Nasser, were also cautious about becoming entangled in the conflict. On 31 January 1961, the Soviet deputy prime minister, Vladimir Semenov, held a long conversation with Nasser on his way to Sudan. Nasser conveyed a sense that the Gizenga government was critically short on supplies and promised that the UAR contingent in the Congo would leave behind half of its weapons for the regime. He admitted that neither the UAR nor Ghana had succeeded in convincing the Sudanese Government to allow the passage of supplies through its territory. When Semenov explained that the Soviet Government had decided to send a group of experienced diplomats, including from the military, to help Gizenga, Nasser dismissed the suggestion with a joke, saying that the only way would be by parachuting the group into Stanleyville.³³

News of Lumumba's death, announced on Katangese radio on 13 February, sent shockwaves around the world and strengthened support for Gizenga, who now proclaimed himself the successor of the slain prime minister. One of the African leaders deeply affected by the murder was Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Only one day after the announcement, Nkrumah invited Leonid Brezhnev, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, who was on a state visit to Guinea at that time, to Ghana for talks. The Congo was the main point of conversation when Brezhnev arrived in Accra. Nkrumah argued that the only solution to the Congo Crisis would be the replacement of the UN contingent with an African command consisting of troops from the Casablanca Group of African states. Nkrumah also discussed various ways to deliver arms to Stanleyville. One possible route lay via the Central African Republic. Moreover, argued Nkrumah, Lumumba's murder might have changed the stance of the Sudanese Government on the transportation of supplies through their territory. Brezhnev also discussed the Congo with King Hassan II of Morocco, who proposed to transfer weapons via that country's UN contingent. Nkrumah posited a similar scheme for the Ghanaian contingent. In a letter sent to Moscow during his trip, Brezhnev urged the Soviet Central Committee to consider the delivery of light weapons and ammunition to Gizenga's government via Ghana and Morocco.³⁴ Moscow and Prague continued their support for Gizenga, but did not want the crisis to escalate into a major international incident.

The Soviet view can be detected in the discussions held between Pierre Mulele, now a representative for Gizenga's government, and a group of high-level Soviet officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister Vasiliy Kuznetsov and Minister of Defence Rodion Malinovskiy, in Moscow in March 1961. Describing a difficult financial situation, and especially their inability to pay soldiers, Mulele stressed the importance of delivering supplies and asked for assistance in establishing a Congolese commercial airline, arguing that the UN would not object. To that, Malinovsky stated that not only would the UN object to the passage of planes, but would actually shoot them down.³⁵

Czechoslovakia was likewise concerned about the safety of its aircraft, and was unwilling to provide assistance without prior authorization from the UN and Sudan. When a representative from Gizenga's government, Antoine Mandungu, spoke to the Czechoslovak officials again in June 1961 about the delivery of arms, the deputy foreign minister, Ján Bušniak, stressed that Czechoslovakia had only recently brought planes for long-haul flights to Accra and did not have any trained pilots. But, more importantly, they would not risk flying planes without permission because they would have to fly over West Germany, where there was risk of such a plane being shot down by ‘American military forces’, citing a recent incident in which a Czechoslovak plane was shot down over Nuremberg, allegedly by the Americans, who suspected that it was carrying weapons to Africa.³⁶ With neither Sudan nor the UAR giving permission for Czechoslovak planes to fly over their territory, plans to establish an air route to Stanleyville failed.³⁷ The CIA also provided a continuous obstacle. When a CIA contact working with Pierre Mulele found out that the Soviets had handed US$500,000 to the Congolese to be transferred via Sudan to Stanleyville, the agency hatched a plan to steal the suitcase full of cash at Khartoum Airport.³⁸

Meanwhile, Soviet–US relations deteriorated to the point of a major crisis over the status of West Berlin in the summer of 1961. The long-term causes of this crisis dated back to the division of Germany and Berlin into zones of occupation after World War II. In his first series of meetings with the newly elected president, John F. Kennedy, in Vienna on 3 and 4 June 1961, tensions flared up again as Nikita Khrushchev declared the Soviet Union would sign a separate peace treaty with the German Democratic Republic, terminating Western access rights to West Berlin.³⁹ Khrushchev's provocation stimulated an outflow of East Germans to the West, eventually leading to the construction of the Berlin Wall in August. This was the context in which the KGB and the StB met for their second four-day meeting in Prague on 26 June 1961.The result of the consultations was a lengthy document that yet again outlined spheres of cooperation in the Third World.⁴⁰ KGB Chairman Alexander Shelepin pitched a version of the plan to Khrushchev as a series of measures to distract the attention of the USA and its allies during the settlement of the Berlin Crisis, and on 1 August the CC CPSU signed its approval.⁴¹

The June 1961 KGB–StB agreement on the Congo shows that the Soviets did not give up on finding a way to transfer arms to Gizenga's government in Stanleyville. The agreement consisted of four parts. First, both sides pledged to establish possible ways to deliver arms, ammunition and food supplies, accepting the use of illegal methods and private trading companies from capitalist and neutral countries. Second, the KGB and Czechoslovak intelligence decided to establish joint channels for sourcing reliable information about the situation in the Congo. The third part of the plan included the publication of articles to help undermine US and Belgian efforts to destroy Gizenga's government. Finally, both sides agreed to undercut the ‘protégés of the colonisers’ – Kasavubu, Mobutu, Ileo and Bomboko.⁴² While we do not know how certain parts of the plan were executed, at least one goal was to re-establish a Soviet intelligence presence in the Congo. In July 1961, Podgornov's team reached Stanleyville after a long and torturous journey.⁴³

The main mission of the KGB team in Stanleyville was to facilitate a consensus between the authorities in Léopoldville and Lumumba's supporters in Stanleyville. The framework was a meeting of various political parties on 22–23 July at the University of Lovanium, about 20 km from Léopoldville, convened under UN pressure to select a new government. One of Podgornov's team, Oleg Nazhestkin, writes that their mission did ‘a lot of work’ to encourage compromise between the rival groups in the Congo.⁴⁴ The CIA's chief of station in the Congo, Larry Devlin, also writes that Podgornov and his men tried to convince Gizenga to come to Lovanium, as they believed he would be elected the new prime minister.⁴⁵ While Gizenga did not attend, the Lovanium Conference elected him deputy prime minister in absentia. Meanwhile, Devlin used bribes to ensure that Cyrille Adoula – his ally, known as a moderate – was elected the new prime minister. While other Lumumba supporters, such as Christophe Gbenye, also entered the government, key posts remained occupied by members of the so-called ‘Binza Group’ (a group of Mobutu's allies named after the prosperous suburb where its members lived), which included Foreign Minister Justin-Marie Bomboko, Head of the Security Services Victor Nendaka and Central Bank Director Albert Ndele. Yet, the Soviet Union recognized Adoula's new government and re-established diplomatic relations with Léopoldville. Doing so allowed Podgornov's group to return to the Congolese capital in September 1961.

Czechoslovak Plans for the Congo, 1962–4

Conditions for the Soviet and Czechoslovak embassies and their staff upon their return to Léopoldville proved difficult. Oleg Nazhestkin recalls that their team encountered stiff opposition from the Congolese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which refused to recognize the status of their diplomatic mission. From Moscow, the situation looked so hopeless that at one point the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a telegram questioning whether it would be more reasonable to shut the mission. Their team persevered, writes Nazhestkin, and, with support of the minister of the interior, Christopher Gbenye, ‘a friend’, the Adoula government officially approved the restoration of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Belgium.⁴⁶ While Adoula initially required Podgornov to return to the USSR to relaunch diplomatic relations ‘according with procedure’, he never required this of the Czechoslovak chargé d'affaires, an attitude that Prague wished to use as a precedent to ease Soviet re-entry to Léopoldville.⁴⁷

With the KGB and StB back in Léopoldville, Prague drew up extensive plans for intelligence work in the Congo. On 19 December 1961, the StB compiled a 19-point plan for their intelligence station in Léopoldville that was to be staffed by four intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover. The four men were to gather information on all Congolese politicians, members of the UN apparatus, the political composition of parliament and the ‘strength of the progressive forces’. On the operational side, they were to develop channels of communication with Gizenga in case he remained in a powerful position at Stanleyville, establish safe houses and develop pre-existing intelligence contacts. Prague also instructed the intelligence team to provide assistance for Léopoldville-based organizations fighting for the independence of Angola, Portugal's largest colony in Africa and Congo's southern neighbour.⁴⁸ Despite these myriad tasks, Prague knew the StB station would operate in a hostile environment and thus warned that the team should not give the ‘reactionary forces’ any excuse to expel the diplomatic mission from the Congo.⁴⁹

One of the key goals of Soviet and Czechoslovak intelligence in Léopoldville was to develop a network of confidential informers. According to an StB report of 25 January 1962, the Czechoslovak network allegedly contained 50 people. The majority were members of the ‘Lumumbist parties’, such as the MNC, PSA and CEREA. Besides this, Czechoslovak intelligence also allegedly had two contacts in the central government, two amongst the UN personnel and one in a foreign embassy. The key aim of developing the network was to obtain information about the activities of Western powers in the Congo and about internal developments. This information could also be used for ‘active measures’ to strengthen the positions of the socialist countries in the Congo and Africa in general. While members of the ‘progressive parties’ were to be used to engage in joint actions on ideological or financial bases, Prague instructed its agents in Léopoldville to recruit contacts amongst the UN apparatus, and for the Czechoslovaks living in the Congo to infiltrate their ‘most qualified’ personnel into Western-dominated institutions in the government administration and the military. The intelligence team was also to follow the activities of Western intelligence services and developments in Angola, but also in Rwanda and Burundi. For that reason, the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior proposed to establish a strong Czechoslovak intelligence station in Léopoldville and to gradually strengthen it by increasing the number of intelligence officers in Katanga, Kasai and the Orientale province.⁵⁰ The sheer volume of tasks shows that the Ministry of the Interior was still very ambitious about its capacity for action in the Congo and beyond.

However, the implementation of these ambitious plans proved very difficult. In early 1962, Antoine Gizenga was arrested because he would not return to Léopoldville from Stanleyville. While many of the former supporters of Patrice Lumumba retained their government posts, the activities of the socialist countries and of groups associated with them, such as the Angolan MPLA (the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), were closely monitored, with the Czechoslovak and Soviet embassies being attacked in the press and under constant threat of expulsion. The Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior thus instructed the intelligence team in Léopoldville to focus operational attention on officials in Adoula's government, situational analysis and providing support for Angolan nationalists resident in the Congolese capital.⁵¹ Moreover, difficult working conditions meant that the whole Czechoslovak station in Léopoldville comprised only one man – StB agent Zdeněk černý.

Nonetheless, Prague still demanded of Černý that he should develop extensive contacts both within the government and also amongst the leaders of opposition parties, and chastized him for failing to deliver on these aims. On 3 September 1962, Černý's senior officer in Prague, Stanislav Turnovsky, gave an overwhelmingly negative evaluation of the former's work. He argued that Černý did little to develop contacts with the Congolese, acted with little initiative or concrete plans and did not provide adequate analysis about the situation in the country. While Prague asked Černý to limit contact with Lumumbists, Turnovsky also argued that Černý had made an error when he had abandoned communication with them, leaving Prague without adequate knowledge of politics, plans or prospects of the ‘friendly camp’.⁵² It is most likely that Turnovsky's reference to the ‘friendly camp’ signifies those men and women who had been linked to Patrice Lumumba and the MNC and who either remained in parliament following the consensus reached at the Lovanium Conference or who left the Congo for neighbouring countries, especially Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo.

Prague continued to blame Černý for his failure to deliver on its ambitious plans over the course of the following year. On 17 June 1963, the StB determined that Černý had failed to fulfil his tasks as he had not provided adequate information about the USA, Adoula's government or the UN in the Congo. Prague also criticized Černý for failing to develop confidential contacts with persons of interest and failing to undertake a single ‘active operation’ to discredit the USA and its allies in the Congo. While Prague acknowledged that Černý worked under very difficult conditions, he was still responsible for failing to develop a single trusted contact who could provide accurate information on Adoula's government. The only positive aspect was his work with the Angolan nationalist movement and the provision of information about the aims of opposition parties.⁵³

The Soviet KGB station in Léopoldville followed a similar strategy on instructions from Moscow. One of the KGB team, Oleg Nazhestkin, recalls that in late 1962 the CC CPSU International Department instructed the newly appointed head of the KGB in the Congo, Boris Voronin, to maintain contacts with members of the pro-Lumumbist opposition, many of whom had relocated to neighbouring Brazzaville, located only a ferry ride away across the Congo River. According to Nazhestkin, Voronin believed that this policy pursued by the International Department would not end well and would distract attention from the main tasks of recruiting agents amongst the representatives of Western countries and obtaining information about their activities in the Congo.⁵⁴ The CIA noticed. Larry Devlin recalled that Soviet Ambassador Sergei Nemchina had had a difficult task in providing assistance to Prime Minister Adoula in order to undermine the Congo's dependence on the UN and the Western powers while, at the same time, wooing Adoula's leftist opposition with money and advice. Devlin boasts that his response to the Soviet ‘wooing’ strategy was to install listening equipment at the Soviet Embassy and recruit a feticheur (a medicine man) to put a curse on anybody who entered the property.⁵⁵

Boris Voronin had genuine reasons to doubt the practicability of the Soviet strategy that potentially endangered the Soviet presence in the Congo. While the Lovanium consensus lasted as long as the Adoula–Kasavubu government was fighting against Katanga's secession, the agreement unravelled after the authorities finally managed to end, with UN support, Moïse Tshombe's bid for independence by the end of 1963. In September, the Adoula–Kasavubu government dismissed parliament on the pretext that it was no longer effective, causing opposition leaders, such as Christopher Gbenye and Bocheley Davidson, to move to Brazzaville, where they established the National Liberation Council (NLC), which was one of the groups behind an uprising that would be known as the ‘Simba Rebellion’. The KGB's contacts with opposition leaders thus became increasingly dangerous.

In November 1963, the Soviet presence in the Congo came to its dramatic conclusion. One the evening of 19 November, Boris Voronin and Soviet attaché Yuriy Myakotnykh were on their way back to Léopoldville from a routine trip to neighbouring Brazzaville. The two cities were linked by a ferry across the Congo River, and on that day, their Fiat car, with its diplomats' number plates, carried household staff as well as documents that testified to Voronin's contacts with members of the NLC residing in Brazzaville. When their ferry docked at Léopoldville, Voronin and Myakotnykh were suddenly surrounded by government officials and gendarmes, who dragged them out of the vehicle, beat them up and threw them into the back of a jeep. The two men were driven first to the headquarters of the Congolese security services for questioning and then to the Ndolo prison where they were subjected to a staged mock execution orchestrated by the powerful chief of the army, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.⁵⁶ While both were released the following day, the Congolese authorities claimed that they had found evidence of the Soviets plotting against their government. The embassy staff, for the second time in three years, were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours. With the Soviets expelled, the Czechoslovak officer, Zdeněk Černý, stayed behind, and thus became a valuable source of intelligence in the country. In the first half of 1964, Černý dispatched for Prague 45 notes and one document including analysis about the reasons for the expulsion of the Soviet embassy, which was passed on to the ‘comrades’.⁵⁷

The struggle for the Congo was not over, however. Faced with a rapidly deteriorating military situation, in July, President Kasavubu appointed Moïse Tshombe, the former leader of the Katanga secessionists responsible for Lumumba's murder, as the new prime minister. Tshombe's appointment increased support for the anti-government rebellion amongst those African leaders who had previously supported Lumumba. In October, Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella asked for Czechoslovak assistance in the provision of planes to transport 40 tonnes of military matériel to Christopher Gbenye in Stanleyville, one of the leaders of the ‘Simba Rebellion’.⁵⁸ Černý believed that Prague should satisfy Ben Bella's request, and so did the head of intelligence, Josef Houska. The Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry, however, seems to have been against the initiative.⁵⁹ A Czechoslovak official of the Ministry of Foreign Trade had a number of low-level discussions in Moscow about Ben Bella's request, and he was apparently told that his colleagues would not be able to refuse such a request if asked. Upon his return and following further discussions, the Central Committee came to a compromise decision: Czechoslovakia would not fly the planes, but would provide the necessary armaments directly to Ben Bella, who would then transport them to Stanleyville.⁶⁰ On 30 October 1964, the Central Committee of the CCP approved the provision of arms worth Kčs 1.5 million, yet we do not know if these ever reached the Congo.⁶¹ Nonetheless, Prague remained the main source of information for events in the Congo, with the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs relying on its colleagues, since diplomatic relations were not formally re-established until 1968.⁶²

Conclusion

Czechoslovakia and its StB emerged as the key Eastern bloc actor in the Congo Crisis of 1960–3. The Czechoslovak presence predated that of the Soviets in the Congo, with Josef Virius acting as the only official representative of the Eastern bloc before independence. He played an important role as a point of contact between Czechoslovak officials and the Congolese, with the possibility that early Soviet views of Patrice Lumumba were at least partly shaped by information coming from Virius, who had been in close contact with Antoine Gizenga. We also know that there was extensive Soviet–Czechoslovak cooperation in the Congo from the beginning on an official and, most likely, operational level. While we still do not know all the details surrounding this, it would be fair to say that the unsuccessful attempt to provide support for Lumumba and his followers was the first major Soviet–Czechoslovak operation in sub-Saharan Africa. While cooperation did exist, there is no particular evidence that Czechoslovakia followed Moscow's diktat. In fact, using its connection to Virius, Prague was in many ways equally, if not more, enthusiastic in pursuing assistance first to Lumumba and then to Gizenga, with Prague providing specific advice in the security area. The grandiosity of Czechoslovak plans for their intelligence operations in 1961 shows that Prague envisioned this role as that of a substantial actor in Africa and a key Soviet partner. Ben Bella's request for the provision of Czechoslovak planes shows that by the early 1960s, Prague had become a prominent player in Africa in its own right. In fact, Zdeněk Černý remained the only source of information on the Congo after the Soviet embassy was expelled in 1963 as far as we know. Prague continued to be involved in the Congo after these events, but its appetite for action subsided in the following years.

Secret intelligence played a key role in the Congo due to Soviet weakness in sub-Saharan Africa. The KGB had no presence in the region before 1960, and very little knowledge about local politics and actors. The hurried dispatch of the team in August 1960 was a response to Soviet inability to influence the situation via diplomatic means. While the Soviets were keen to support first Lumumba's and then Gizenga's government with arms and money, they were not prepared to risk a showdown with the West. Newly available documents prove once again that the absence of long-range aircraft and trained crews, as well as real fears of planes being shot down, provided a major obstacle for weapons to Stanleyville. Nonetheless, the Soviets believed that forces opposed to the authorities in Léopoldville still had a chance. Given logistical problems and power realities on the ground, it was down to secret intelligence to fulfil tasks such as the delivery of weapons to Stanleyville in a clandestine way. It remains unclear to what extent the Soviet and Czechoslovak intelligence were successful in this endeavour. The KGB and StB relied on intelligence agents on the ground not only to obtain information about ongoing events but also to develop confidential contacts in a country in the midst of civil war. Lacking effective ways to support their allies in the Congo, Moscow and Prague relied overwhelmingly on their few intelligence officers to bolster first Antoine Gizenga and then other members of the opposition deemed ‘progressive’. Even after Lumumba's murder, Moscow and Prague still harboured very ambitious plans for the Congo, whereby spies were to gather information, maintain contacts with members of the opposition and, crucially, recruit agents and confidential contacts within the government. That was a daunting and dangerous task in the Congo, and the story of Voronin and Myakotnykh's arrest in 1963 clearly revealed the risks. Soviet and Czechoslovak spies thus played a crucial role as ‘mediators’ in the Congo. While the Soviets would build up their naval and aerial technology to project power over long distances, human intelligence still remained one of their key weapons in Cold War Africa. While many KGB documents are still unavailable, a re-examination of Soviet and Czechoslovak intelligence in the Congo shows that the CIA definitely overhyped the Soviet threat. In the Congo and elsewhere, where Western influence was historically much stronger or confrontation too dangerous, the Soviets and their allies used secret intelligence to wage the ‘Cold War on the cheap’.

Notes

 1.František August and David Rees, Red Star Over Prague (London, 1984).

 2.The StB's First Directorate is mostly referred to as ‘Czechoslovak intelligence’ in this chapter.

 3.For details, see: Pavel Žázek, ‘Czechoslovak and Soviet State Security Against the West Before 1968’, paper presented to the conference The Contours of Legitimacy in Central Europe: New Approaches in Graduate Studies, European Studies Centre, St Antony's College Oxford, 24–26 May 2002, p. 2.

 4.Madeleine G. Kalb, The Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa – from Eisenhower to Kennedy (New York, 1982); Sergey Mazov, Kholodnaya Voyna v ‘Serdze Afriki’. SSSR i Kongolezskiy Krizis, 1960–1964 [Cold War in the ‘Heart of Africa’. USSR and the Congo Crisis, 1960–1964] (Moscow, 2015); Lise Namikas, Battleground Africa: Cold War in the Congo, 1960–1965 (Stanford, 2013); and Alessandro Iandolo, ‘The Rise and Fall of the “Soviet Model of Development” in West Africa, 1957–64,’ Cold War History, 12 (4) (November 2012), pp. 683–704.

 5.Ludo de Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba (London, 2002); Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick, Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba (Cambridge, MA, 2015).

 6.Stephen Weissman, ‘What Really Happened in Congo: The CIA, the Murder of Lumumba, and the Rise of Mobutu’, Foreign Affairs (July/August 2014), pp. 14–24.

 7.Petr Zídek and Karl Sieber, Československo a Subsaharska’ Afrika v Letech 1948–1989 [Czechoslovakia in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1948–1989] (Prague, 2007); Philip E. Muehlenbeck, Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945–1968 (New York, 2015).

 8.Alexander Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York, 2006), p. 57.

 9.For a full story of the Egyptian–Czech arms deal, see: Muehlenbeck, Czechoslovakia in Africa, pp. 91–5.

 10.Zídek and Sieber, Československo, pp. 127–8.

 11.This comes from the database of the StB agents located on the website of the StB archive, Archiv Bezpečnostních Složek [hereafter, ABS] at http://www.abscr.cz/en/searching-in-the-archival-finding-aids (accessed September 2017).

 12.See comments of Cléophas Kamitatu in The Congo Crisis, 1960–1961: A Critical Oral History Conference [transcript of conference], Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 23–24 September 2004, p. 34.

 13.Report of a Conversation with the Prime Minister of the Congo, Lumumba, about the Situation in the Congo, National Archives of the Czech Republic, Records of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia [hereafter, NA-UV KSC], Inv. 566, Ka. 230.

 14.Mazov, Kholodnaya Voyna, p. 23. The Guinean Ambassador in the Soviet Union also apparently expressed support for Gizenga. See: A. Safronov, ‘Otchet o Prebyvanii v SSSR Predsedatelya parti Afrikanskoi solidarnosti Kongo A. Gizenga’, Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [hereafter, GARF], Fond (F.) 9540, Opis (Op). 2, Delo (D.) 29, p. 8.

 15.Ibid., pp. 3–11.

 16.Notes of conversation with the secretary of the CC Communist Party of Belgium [Albert] de Coninck regarding the Congo, 9 May 1959, in A Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) Document Reader compiled for the international conference ‘The Congo Crisis, 1960–1961’, Washington, DC, 23–24 September 2004, Document 2.

 17.Memo of conversations with the leader of the National Congolese Movement (MNC), Patrice Lumumba, on 19 February 1960 and 26 February 1960, in ibid., Document 9.

 18.Muehlenbeck, Czechoslovakia in Africa, p. 66.

 19.Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo: A Memoir of 1960–67 (New York, 2007), p. 23

 20.‘Memorandum of Discussion at the 456th Meeting of the National Security Council’, in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1958–1960, Africa, Volume XIV (Washington, DC, 1992), pp. 422–4. Larry Devlin writes that he received direct instructions for Lumumba's physical assassination, and that President Eisenhower personally authorized it. See: Devlin, Chief of Station, p. 95.

 21.The CIA and the MI6 posts are generally called ‘stations’, while those of the KGB are referred to as ‘residentura’. The head of the ‘residentura’ is referred to as ‘resident’. The term KGB ‘station’ is used here for simplicity.

 22.Sergey Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev: Creation of a Superpower (University Park, PA, 2003), p. 405.

 23.Namikas, Battleground Africa, pp. 85–6.

 24.Vadim Kirpichenko, Razvedka: Litsa i Lichnosti [Intelligence: People and Personalities] (Moscow, 1998), p. 89.

 25.Zídek and Sieber, Československo, p. 130.

 26.Report of a Conversation with the Prime Minister of the Congo, Lumumba, about the Situation in the Congo, NA-UV KSC, Inv. 566, Ka. 230.

 27.Zídek and Sieber, Československo, p. 130.

 28.Note [Attachment III], NA-UV KSC, Inv. 566, Ka. 230.

 29.Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War, pp. 315–17.

 30.On Khrushchev's campaign at the UN, see Alessandro Iandolo, ‘Imbalance of Power: The Soviet Union and the Congo Crisis, 1960–61’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 16 (2) (June 2014).

 31.Report about Consultation of Assistance to the Congo in the USSR, 12 January 1961, NA-UV KSC, Inv. 566, Ka. 2.

 32.Muehlenbeck, Czechoslovakia in Africa, p. 81.

 33.Transcript of the talk between deputy foreign minister of the USSR, V. S. Semenov, and president of the United Arab Republic, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 31 January 1961, in CWIHP Document Reader, pp. 9–12.

 34.Mazov, Kholodnaya Voyna, pp. 134–5.

 35.Transcript of the talk between deputy foreign minister of the USSR, V. V. Kuznetzov, and minister of education and arts in the Gizenga government, Pierre Mulele, 8 March 1961, in CWIHP Document Reader, p. 6.

 36.Minutes of negotiation with the representative of the government of the Republic of the Congo, Mr Antoine Niatti Mandungu, at the ministry of foreign affairs, on 15 June 1961, NA-UV KSC, Inv. 566, Ka. 230.

 37.Transcript of the talk between the deputy foreign minister of the USSR, A. A. Slobber, and the ambassador of Czechoslovakia in Moscow, G. R. Dvorzhak, February 6, 1961, in CWIHP Document Reader, pp. 13–14; Transcript of the talk between the deputy foreign minister of the USSR, N. P. Firkin, and the ambassador of Czechoslovakia in Moscow, G. R. Dvorzhak, March 9, 1961, in CWIHP Document Reader.

 38.Devlin, Chief of Station, pp. 141–2.

 39.On the deterioration of Soviet-US relations in early 1960, see: Jeffrey Sachs, To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace (New York, 2013).

 40.Record of proceedings between the Soviet KGB and the Interior Ministry of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic on the expansion of intelligence cooperation, June, 1961, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, ABS. Available at http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113217 (accessed September 2017).

 41.For a detailed discussion of Shelepin's plan, see: Vladislav Zubok, ‘Spy vs. Spy: The KGB vs. the CIA, 1960–1962’, CWIHP Bulletin, 4 (1994), pp. 28–9.The author was unable to obtain a copy of the plan that Shelepin presented to Khrushchev, but there are multiple similarities that lead to the conclusion that it was based on the StB–KGB consultation of June 1961.

 42.Ibid.

 43.Nazhestkin, ‘Gody’, pp. 158–9.

 44.Ibid., p. 159.

 45.On the Lovanium Conference and the CIA's role, see: Devlin, Chief of Station, pp. 156–9.

 46.Nazhestkin, ‘Gody’, p. 159.

 47.Prague, 25 September 1961, NA-UV KSC, Inv. 566, Ka 230.

 48.Oleg Nazhestkin, ‘Superderzhavy i Sobytiya v Angole’ [Superpowers and Events in Angola], Novaya i Noveyshaya Istoriya 4 (2005), pp. 30–50. On the connection between the Congo and the Angolan liberation movement, see: Natalia Telepneva, ‘Our Sacred Duty: The Soviet Union, the Liberation Movements in the Portuguese Colonies, and the Cold War, 1961–1975’, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics, 2015.

 49.Long-Term Developments in the Congo, 17 November 1961, ABS, 80717/000, pp. 52–9.

 50.Work of the 9th Department, 25 January 1962 ABS, 80717/000.

 51.Evaluation of the StB station in Léopoldville, Prague, 3 September 1962, ABS, 80717/00.

 52.Ibid.

 53.First Directorate, 8th department, Prague, 17 June 1973, ABS, 80717/000.

 54.Nazhestkin, ‘Gody’, p. 160.

 55.Devlin, Chief of Station, p. 195.

 56.The eyewitness account of these events is taken from: Nazhestkin, ‘Gody’, pp. 160–1.

 57.Evaluation of the Implementation of Plans for the KGB station in Léopoldville, 1.1-30.6.1964, 14 July 1964, ABS, 80717/000, pp. 116–17.

 58.On Ben Bella's Request for Assistance in the Congo, 4 November 1964, ABS, 80717/000, pp. 147–51.

 59.Ibid.

 60.Report on the Request of the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, Ben Bella, about the Provision of the Special Material for the Government of the People's Republic of the Congo in Stanleyville [Attachment III], NA-UV KSC, Inv. 566, Ka. 230, pp. 1–5.

 61.CC CCP Resolution: Assistance to the Congolese People's Republic in Stanleyville [Attachment I], 30 November 1964, NA, Inv. 566, Ka. 230. Also see: Zi’dek and Sieber, Československo, p. 137.

 62.Information on consultations with MID officials on issues related to Congo-Kinshasa and other African countries in Prague during 19–23 August this year, 28 August 1966, ABS, 11566/000, pp. 47–53.