The Lumumba Plot

May 1, 2023

In 1960, just days after Congo was given its independence by Belgium, the Congo army mutinied, Belgian forces reentered the picture, and prime minister Patrice Lumumba turned to the UN for help. Disappointed by its response, he then turned to the Soviet Union, prompting the CIA to plot Lumumba's assassination. Eventually, he was deposed in a CIA-backed coup and killed by Congolese assassins, launching brutal times in Congo and nurturing the CIA's tendency toward violent intervention. The executive editor of Foreign Affairs reports. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from August 7, 2023
Political opportunism, geopolitics, and hubris converge in this intricate and colorful debut from Foreign Affairs editor Reid. In a sweeping and detailed new investigation, Reid recounts Patrice Lumumba’s rise as an independence leader in the Belgian Congo and his tumultuous two-month tenure in 1960 as the Republic of Congo’s first prime minister. The brief period was beset by an army mutiny, interventions by Belgian and United Nations troops, rebellion in the secessionist province of Katanga, and the coup by Army Chief of Staff Joseph Mobutu that overthrew Lumumba. Mobutu later had him arrested and delivered to the Katangese, who executed him in 1961 (with Belgian officers present). Lumumba has since been cast as a martyr to U.S. imperialist machinations, and fairly so according to Reid: Washington hysterically mistook him for a communist, and although the CIA’s assassination plot never came off, CIA station chief Larry Devlin pressed Mobutu to depose and then arrest Lumumba and did nothing to forestall the murder. But Reid also ascribes Lumumba’s downfall to his mercurial character: he was a brilliant, idealistic politician, but also an erratic statesman who needlessly antagonized powerful people and curtailed civil liberties. Reid’s elegant prose features sharply etched sketches of historical figures, especially of the dynamic, irrepressible Lumumba. This riveting study makes of Lumumba a Shakespearean figure undone by tragic flaws. Photos.

August 15, 2023
A powerful account of "extensive U.S. meddling" in a foreign government, "a habit it perfected in the Congo." The plot hatched by the CIA under the Eisenhower administration to rid the newly independent Congo of its elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was considered a "model" intervention at the time. As Reid, an executive editor at Foreign Affairs, shows, the Congo proved to be the first "theater" in which the U.S. and the Soviet Union transformed the Cold War "into a truly global struggle." In this carefully nuanced study, the author underscores how ill-advised American officials were at the time about Lumumba and his supposed communist intentions. Fears of a communist takeover were perpetuated by the CIA's station chief in the Congo at the time, Larry Devlin, and others who failed to fully grasp the significance of many African nations' long struggles to decolonize. On June 30, 1960, the Congo tentatively declared itself free from Belgian rule, and UN peacekeeping forces were stationed there to aid the transition. However, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskj�ld, wary of the newly elected Lumumba, who he thought "was being used by leftist Africans and the Soviet Union," refused his plea for more aid to help quell a military mutiny and secessionist worries. When Lumumba turned to the Soviets for help (Nikita Khrushchev was largely noncommittal), the Americans sprang into action. Reid grippingly narrates the horrific tale of Lumumba's imprisonment, torture, and execution by the henchmen of then-army chief Joseph Mobutu, a former Lumumba prot�g� and eager recipient of American cash. Sifting through significant new documentation, the author casts tremendous clarity on this important period and how essentially the world looked away. "The rest of the world seemed to decide [that] in the Congo, occasional barbarity was the price of stability." An evenhanded work of deep scholarship that clearly elucidates a largely hidden piece of U.S. foreign policy.

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September 8, 2023
For seventy-five years, the African nation of Congo was a colony of Belgium, who proved to be cruel, repressive, and exploitative overseers. When Congo gained its independence from Belgium in 1960, its first prime minister was Patrice Lumumba. However, chaos soon engulfed Congo, and Lumumba was ousted by a military coup after only two and a half months in office. Four months later, he was assassinated. The identities of the assassins has remained a mystery in the decades since. Writer and editor Reid has reopened the long-dormant case in an attempt to find some answers. Historically, suspicion has fallen on the Belgians, the CIA, and a host of other international players eager to get their hands on Congo's formidable natural resources. In minute detail, Reid follows the labyrinthine shenanigans surrounding this country as he seeks some sort of historical truth. Reid's attention to detail makes for a sometimes difficult and occasionally confusing reading. While not recommended for casual readers, serious students of modern history may find The Lumumba Plot rewarding.

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