Chief of Station, Congo

LIFE IN LEOPOLDVILLE continued to be chaotic throughout the month of August with the troops still not fully under control. Lumumba, who was preparing to invade Katanga to crush Tshombe’s rebellion, intensified his search for spies, saboteurs, and other enemies. His paranoia infected the troops who saw spies everywhere. They arrested United Nations personnel, Belgian businessmen, diplomats, and almost anyone who crossed their path, roughing up or seriously beating some of them. There were demonstrations in the streets led by pro- or anti-Lumumba union members, youth associations, tribal groups, and political parties. Meanwhile, Albert Kalonji, the Baluba leader in south Kasai, had followed Tshombe’s example and declared his region independent. Rich in diamonds, south Kasai’s secession further threatened the political and economic viability of the country.

Shortly after my return from Washington, I received several messages from Director Dulles advising us that policy-makers shared our view that we should try to remove Lumumba from power. In one of them, on August 26, he wrote:

In high quarters here it is the clear-cut conclusion that if Lumumba continues to hold high office, the inevitable result will at best be chaos and at worst pave the way to a Communist takeover of the Congo with disastrous consequences for the prestige of the UN and for the interests of the free world generally. Consequently, we concluded 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.

I was authorized to spend up to $100,000 on my own authority on any operation that appeared feasible if time did not permit me to refer it first to Headquarters for approval. That was a huge vote of confidence. To the best of my knowledge, no other station chief had ever been given such latitude. At that time, station chiefs were required to ask for authorization for any operational expenditure of more than fifty dollars. I never spent anything close to the $100,000 on an operation, but it was nice to have the authority to do so if the need arose.

If further evidence was required that Washington supported our own conclusion about replacing Lumumba, that was it. What I did not know was that our government was prepared to go much further in removing him than I had ever considered in my wildest dreams.

Under the Congo’s constitution, the president had the legal authority to dismiss the prime minister and replace him with another person. However, the replacement needed to obtain a vote of confidence from parliament in order to take over, and it was not clear if there was a candidate who could obtain sufficient support. Fortunately, a prime minister could be forced to resign if a vote of no-confidence was passed in only one of the two legislative houses. The senate was more conservative and appeared more hostile to Lumumba than the national assembly, so we focused our efforts on that body.

We were already monitoring parliament and encouraging and guiding the actions of various parliamentary opposition groups that we had penetrated. We were seeking political leaders who might marshal their supporters against Lumumba when a vote of confidence was called. We were also using Jacques to insert anti-Lumumba articles in the country’s leading newspaper.

Ambassador Timberlake met President Kasavubu during this period and suggested that Lumumba was a dangerous man and implied that he should not continue as prime minister. Kasavubu ignored the advice. Around this time one of our agents told us that a group of anti-Lumumba leaders had prepared a plan to assassinate him, but when they broached the matter to Kasavubu, he said he was reluctant to resort to violence.

Lumumba spent the first part of August attacking Hammarskjöld as relations between his government and the UN deteriorated. Guinea regularly supported Lumumba’s ranting, and the Soviet Union also issued an official statement backing Lumumba. The Soviets blamed Hammarskjöld for an airport incident in which eleven Canadian airmen, flying in support of the UN operation, were brutally beaten by Congolese troops. The Soviet Union noted that the use of technicians from a NATO country was setting a precedent that might be used to justify Soviet intervention in the Congo. The Soviet statement added that such actions could lead to the sending of volunteers from other African countries, and even from other continents, to help Lumumba’s government. The United States interpreted this as a Soviet ruse to intervene more actively in the Congo.

I learned of the airport incident in which the eleven Canadian airmen had been beaten almost to death at Ndjili airport only minutes after Jeff had left the office to accompany a reports officer, who had been on temporary duty with us, to catch her plane home. Afraid that the same result could await Jeff and the visiting reports officer, I dashed out of the embassy toward my car in the hope that I could head them off before they reached Ndjili. In my rush, I did not see Carlucci coming up the steps and I collided with him, almost throwing him off balance. I apologized and explained briefly where I was going. Frank followed me saying, “If it is as bad as that, I had better come with you.”

Despite our best efforts, we did not catch Jeff before he had reached Ndjili. When we reached the airport, it seemed empty. However, finding Jeff and the reports officer at the airport was easy; they were the only people in the rotunda. They told us that something must be wrong for there was no one at the SABENA desk. In fact, they had not seen any airline employees at all. After a few minutes, people started appearing out of back rooms where they had been hiding. The aggressive soldiers apparently had decided to find more fun elsewhere.

Lumumba demanded that the United Nations turn over control of Ndjili airport to his troops, threatening to take it by force if necessary. The UN had been trying to maintain order there since the incident involving the Canadian aircrew. Ralph Bunche asked to meet Lumumba to discuss the matter but the latter refused to see him. Lumumba, who often changed his mind and his tactics, did not follow through on his threat and the airport remained in UN hands.

The prime minister turned his attentions to Kasai and Katanga. He requisitioned five Air Congo planes to airlift two hundred troops, along with their gear, to Luluabourg in the Kasai. The excuse for the operation was that the troops were being sent to try to restore peace between the Lulua and Baluba tribes who were engaged in a fierce tribal conflict. The actual reason for sending the troops was that Lumumba wanted to defeat Albert Kalonji, a former political ally turned bitter enemy. Lumumba also expected that, once his troops had been successful against Kalonji, they would go on to crush Tshombe and reunite Katanga with the rest of the country.

While these preparations were under way, the Soviet Union told Lumumba that it was sending the Congolese ten Ilyushin–14 planes with crews, technicians, and interpreters to Stanleyville, Lumumba’s political fief and later the center of the rebellion. The Soviets also advised the prime minister that they were shipping one hundred trucks for the army to the port of Matadi. Meanwhile, our embassy in Brussels reported another disturbing development: Albert de Coninck and Jean Terfve, two leaders of the Belgian Communist Party, planned to visit the Congo. The conclusion was clear. The Soviet Union intended to intervene directly in the Congo rather than channeling its assistance through the United Nations.

Other factors supported our analysis. Lumumba did not act like any other government leader with whom American officials were familiar. He came across as an unpredictable loose cannon, and his grasp on power was tenuous, made worse by the divided loyalties and indiscipline of the army. Some of his closest supporters, notably Anicet Kashamura, the fiery minister of information, and Pierre Mulele, the minister of education, acted and spoke like communists. In fact, the station had good reason to believe that Mulele was a KGB agent based on information received from our agent who worked as the minister’s adviser. He had been recommended to Mulele by a communist lawyer of his acquaintance who had suddenly given up his law practice to become a baker in Guinea. Further, there was the influential presence of the tantalizing Madame Blouin, Lumumba’s chief of protocol, and Serge Michel, the left-wing Frenchman who was his private secretary and confidant. In those days, when everything was measured in Cold War terms, we were convinced that we were observing the beginning of a major Soviet effort to gain control of a key country in central Africa for use as a springboard to control much of the continent.

With the full backing of Headquarters, the station began work on a plan to remove Lumumba from power. One of our early operations, organized by Jacques who provided minor financial support, was an anti-Lumumba demonstration when the latter spoke at a meeting of African foreign ministers held in Leopoldville on August 25. On his arrival, hostile demonstrators shouted “à bas Lumumba” (“down with Lumumba”), and when he began to speak to the delegates, the mob drowned him out shouting anti-Lumumba slogans. When a pro-Lumumba group turned up, the two groups threw stones at each other until the police arrived and broke it up by firing shots into the air. This undermined Lumumba’s image of a man loved by his people and in full control of the nation. He had counted on the conference to strengthen his position within the pan-African movement, but instead the delegates were caught up in the reality of the Congo situation.

In early September, Jacques reported that Kasavubu was considering dismissing Lumumba. We had any agent or cooperator who might see Kasavubu ready to urge him to dismiss Lumumba. Once we heard that Kasavubu might take this action, we drafted a “howto” paper for the president outlining, step-by-step, the actions he should take before dismissing Lumumba and what he should do in the aftermath. Jacques passed on our brief to Kasavubu via an intermediary and reported that the president had glanced at it but made no commitment to use it. Jacques, however, assured us that Kasavubu would soon act against Lumumba, but he could not say when.

Thus we were not surprised when we heard on the evening of September 5 that Kasavubu had gone to the radio station and announced that he was dismissing Lumumba for having “betrayed his trust” by depriving Congolese citizens of their fundamental liberties. Kasavubu also criticized Lumumba for having led the country into a civil war. He concluded his short speech by announcing that he was naming Joseph Ileo, the president of the senate, to form a new government. He instructed the army to lay down its arms and called on the United Nations to maintain peace and order.

Having concluded his announcement, Kasavubu returned to the presidential palace and went to bed. Our carefully prepared brief showed we had a great deal to learn about Congolese politics. It made sense to Americans, but we were not in America. Kasavubu, who knew his people far better than we did, had ignored much of our advice. He failed, however, to control the radio station, a key place in such a volatile situation and one we had emphasized in our paper. Also, Ileo, his prime minister-designate, was nowhere to be found.

Lumumba leapt into action and the first place he went was to the radio station. In fact, he was there on three separate occasions that night. Each time he appeared to be angrier than the last. He denied that Kasavubu had the constitutional authority to dismiss him, he accused the president of acting on behalf of the “Belgian and French imperialists,” he denounced Kasavubu as a traitor, and he ended by announcing that he was dismissing Kasavubu from the presidency for betraying the nation.

The embassy and the station were humming with activity. We cabled Washington about Lumumba’s dismissal and reported the prime minister’s response, as well as the fact that Ileo had not surfaced. Fortunately, we had a good idea where he was. After a quick French lesson, we sent Dad to the home of Cyrille Adoula, a labor leader and senator opposed to Lumumba. Dad drove out to Adoula’s modest house in the suburbs and knocked loudly on the door. Adoula finally opened it, rolling his eyes as he was wont to do when excited. Ileo stood defensively beside him.

By this point, we were prepared to go to almost any length to get Lumumba off the air. We knew his power as a rabble-rouser, and we were afraid that his strident speeches would soon have his supporters thronging in the streets. We considered cutting off power to the radio station but neither Jeff nor I knew how. Finally, Lumumba himself made our rather wild plans redundant when he decided he had done enough for one night.

The next morning we learned that Soviet and Eastern European journalists were in the radio station filing their stories while American and other Western journalists had been excluded. We decided to have Jacques rectify that situation by organizing an anti-Lumumba demonstration using his contacts with youth and labor leaders. It was to target the radio station and expel any white journalists found there. Jacques, who had excellent contacts with the leadership of the ABAKO youth group, ardent supporters of Kasavubu, was to lead the demonstration. When everything was ready, Jacques called us and Jeff gave him the green light to go ahead.

We were congratulating ourselves that the station would soon be open to the Western press and that the demonstration would provide them with a story of how the youth of Leopoldville supported the president. At that moment an embassy officer, who naturally was not aware of our plans, stuck his head round our office door: “Have you guys heard? The Soviets have finally left the radio station,” he said.

Jeff and I grabbed our car keys and rushed out the door to stop the demonstration, or at least redirect it. We agreed that we would try to intercept the demonstrators and tell Jacques to divert them to another target such as the prime minister’s office.

Jeff reached them first. I pulled up my car and jumped behind a house on the line of march. The demonstrators were pouring down the street, shouting and waving their placards: “A bas Lumumba! Liberté! Liberté!” (“Down with Lumumba! Freedom! Freedom!”)

I could see Jacques at their head, a blurred figure in a white shirt, gesticulating and shouting. Jeff ran out in front of the demonstrators, frantically trying to get Jacques’s attention. Just as he reached Jacques, a unit of Guinean police, who were officially part of the UN forces but often acted on their own, pulled up in a flat-bed truck and opened fire on the demonstrators.

Bullets were pinging and singing all over the place. One demonstrator fell, wounded. Jeff was caught in the line of fire between the police and the demonstrators. He took off like a flash and jumped into a drainage ditch parallel with the street and started crawling in my direction as rapidly as I have ever seen a man crawl on his elbows and knees. Every so often, his rear end would appear and the Guineans would open fire on him. It was like the pop-up rabbits in a shooting gallery. When he was opposite me, he braced himself and hurled himself out of the ditch as the police again opened fire. He hit the ground and rolled behind the house where I was standing, stopping against my legs. He looked up, surprised to see me there, and said, “Jesus, you have an active station!” That’s my guy, I said to myself.

Our next operation was less hair-raising and in more the classic mold. Eager to organize a vote of no-confidence in Lumumba in the senate, we focused on Ileo and Adoula, both of whom were senators and had long distrusted and opposed the prime minister. The operation to influence the vote of the Congolese Senate lasted several weeks. Frank Carlucci, who covered parliament for the embassy, gave us his advice about how a senate vote might turn out. The night before the no-confidence debate we huddled at the embassy in an optimistic mood. But Lumumba surprised us. He spoke to the senators for two hours and the censure motion was defeated by forty-seven votes to two, with seven senators abstaining, including Ileo and Adoula.

We had underestimated the potential for intimidation. Lumumba surrounded the parliament building with troops, and I heard stories of armed soldiers in the senate visitors’ gallery. Also some senators believed that he and some of his close associates were prepared to resort to assassination, beatings, or other physical abuse to achieve their objectives.

Our failure on the senate no-confidence vote convinced us that we had to find a better solution. It was around this time that one of our agents reported that Lumumba was planning to assassinate the foreign minister, Justin Bomboko. Bomboko, along with Albert Delvaux, the minister and ambassador-designate to Belgium who had rescued me from the firing squad, had countersigned Kasavubu’s order dismissing the prime minister. Lumumba was, apparently, about to take his revenge.

I had met Bomboko at Ndjili airport in mid-July, but I did not know him well enough to tell him that his prime minister wanted him killed. While the ambassador knew Bomboko, it was a delicate matter that, if badly handled, could result in Timberlake and some or all of his officers being declared persona non grata for interfering in the Congo’s internal affairs. Such a matter could conceivably go further and trigger a break in diplomatic relations.

Eventually, Jeff and I came up with a solution. Dad, like Bomboko, resided in the Regina Hotel and had met him in the hotel bar on several occasions. The Regina was one of the oldest and most rundown hotels in town with little to recommend it, but at least it had a bar, live music, and dancing.

Although his French was limited, to say the least, we felt Dad was our best bet because he was in no way publicly connected with the embassy. I met Dad at a bar across town from his hotel and spent a couple of hours coaching him to say in French that he had something of the greatest importance and urgency to tell the minister.

Late the next night Dad called to say that Bomboko was in his room and ready to listen. Within a few minutes, I was at the Regina. Bomboko was a short, chunky man with a handsome, jolly face and alert, intelligent eyes. In later years his dark hair developed a thick silver streak that enhanced the general elegance of his appearance.

“Dad (I used his name) and a friend who refused to report the matter overheard two men discussing plans to assassinate you,” I said in French. “One of the men said that the whole thing was too dangerous. The other one assured him that there was no danger because the prime minister had ordered it.”

The following morning as I was walking past the Regina I saw soldiers in the lobby of the hotel and others moving from room to room. I realized that they must be looking for Bomboko. I hurried back to the embassy where, to my surprise, I found him sitting in my office chatting genially with Jeff. Grinning, he explained that he had followed my advice and had not slept in his room the previous night.

“This morning I got back to the hotel very early,” he said, “and I ran into Colonel Mobutu, the chief of staff of the army, who was watching as his troops went through the hotel. He told me to get out of there. The soldiers had orders to kill me, he said.”

I was surprised that he thought of me. I had met Mobutu only twice before, once in Brussels when Ambassador Burden gave a reception for the Congolese who had attended the Round Table Constitutional Conference in early 1960, and once on the street in Leopoldville when he was trying to sort out an incident with the soldiers.

“I had Mobutu pegged for a moderate, a really competent guy,” said Tim. “But he could be going along with Lumumba for his own reasons.” Tim got up and started pacing. “After all, he was Lumumba’s private secretary during the Round Table Conference. They’re buddies and Lumumba appointed him secretary of state in the prime minister’s office and then named him chief of staff of the army after the mutiny. I’m going to call the UN and ask them to take Bomboko off our hands.”

The response was not helpful. The UN said it would provide protection only for the president and prime minister. They suggested we take Bomboko to the prime minister’s residence or the presidential palace. Lumumba’s residence, we knew, was not an option. We would be sending Bomboko to his death.

Before deciding what to do next, I went out and drove around town to check on the situation. There were many more roadblocks than usual, even in the cité, as the native quarter was called. It seemed clear that the army was still looking for Bomboko.

He looked at me, obviously ill at ease. “Larry, I hate to have to ask you to do this, but I don’t see any other way. We need to get Bomboko out of here because if we don’t our staff could be in great danger. So, I want you to take him over to the president’s palace as soon as you can.”

Unfortunately, that was out of the question. It would take too long to contact anyone and, besides, I did not want to expose my undercover people to the Congolese. Luckily, Jeff was still using his tourist passport since he had not had the time to obtain a diplomatic document. I did not like the idea of asking him—or anyone else for that matter—to do the job. There were army roadblocks all over the city. If caught, the driver would almost certainly be killed along with the foreign minister. On the other hand, I could understand Tim’s concern about his staff and the diplomatic dilemma Bomboko’s unexpected presence posed for all of us.

If there had ever been a question about Jeff’s qualifications for the Leopoldville job, it vanished with that response. He had come under fire in a fetid ditch only a few days before; yet he was prepared to accept this dangerous assignment without a murmur. Many officers would have asked why I was not prepared to do it myself. Jeff, who had not been in the Congo long enough to know the city well, only had one question. “Tell me how to get to the palace.”

“I’ll lead the way in my car,” I said, drawing him a map. “If we run into a roadblock, I will crash my car into any Congolese army jeep or truck that gives chase. But in that case, afterwards you’ll be on your own.” “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

As we went down the back stairs, the acting assistant air attaché appeared and asked what we were doing. I told him, while Bomboko, as cool as a cucumber, and Jeff climbed into the van I had borrowed. Just as I was driving out into the street, the attaché and his sergeant came running up armed with pistols and a rifle.