“Fundamental to Jacksonville University’s mission is support for an environment where divergent ideas, theories, and philosophies can be openly exchanged and critically evaluated. Consistent with these principles and the concept of Academic Freedom, this course may involve the discussion of ideas that you find uncomfortable, disagreeable, or even offensive. These ideas are intended to be presented in an objective manner, they are not intended to persuade and are not an endorsement of what you should personally believe.”
This brief guide is intended as an introductory resource. The questions posed are not central to the debates in this course, but rather serve as basic points of departure. I seek to present the material with objectivity, while acknowledging that the approach is not, and cannot be, neutral. Prof. Jorge Majfud.
The Congo Crisis (1960–65)
Lumumba, Belgium, CIA, UN, Mobutu—Cold War intervention mod
Table of Contents
Questions
- How did Belgium maintain economic control over the Congo after granting it political independence in 1960?
- Was Patrice Lumumba viewed as a communist threat because of his ideology?
- Why did Belgium, the United States, and the CIA oppose Lumumba?
- Why did foreign powers consider Lumumba’s vision of economic sovereignty a threat to their interests?
- Why did Lumumba turn to the Soviets at the last minute?
- To what extent was Lumumba’s assassination the result of Cold War politics, economic interests, or both?
- Was the Congo Crisis primarily caused by internal political instability or by foreign intervention?
- How does the Congo Crisis illustrate the broader patterns of neocolonialism, and how are these patterns connected to resource exploitation today?
Table of Contents
Audiovisuals
The (New) Congo Crisis
The Keys to an Empty House
The Belgian Congo was never a country. It was a private company; a mine with a flag. For more than half a century, the colonial administration did not build a society; it built a hole, an enormous hole from which copper, cobalt, diamonds, uranium, gold and rubber were pulled out and shipped north. Everything else, the roads, the railways, the missions, the hospitals, existed to serve or consolate that hole. In the southern province of Katanga, a single company, the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, ruled over the treasure with the serenity of a monarch who never needs to be crowned. Empires have always understood that it is cheaper to own the ground than the people standing on it.
In June 1960, Belgium handed the Congo the keys to its own house. It was a generous gesture, as long as no one asked who still owned the furniture, the land, the mines and the bank. It did not give the Congo its independence; it calculated it. After the Léopoldville riots of 1959, with neighboring colonies already on their way out and the world no longer applauding Fascism and empires, Brussels understood it had neither the soldiers nor the will to fight a colonialist war like France’s in Algeria. So it chose a quicker solution: independence in a few months, for a country where colonial rule had made sure almost no Congolese had been trained to govern, command or administer. The bet was simple. The Congolese would get the flag, and Belgium would keep the keys.
Belgian companies kept the industries. Europeans kept almost every senior post in the administration and the army. The colonial system had made sure, with remarkable foresight, that very few Congolese had been allowed to study beyond primary school; on the day of independence, the country had only a handful of university graduates. A few days later, the Belgian commander of the army wrote on a blackboard for his Congolese soldiers: Before independence equals after independence. It was the most honest sentence of the whole ceremony. The new nation received an anthem and a flag. The accounts did not change hands.
At the independence ceremony, King Baudouin praised the civilizing genius of his great-granduncle Leopold II, the same benefactor under whose rule millions of Congolese had been worked, mutilated or starved to death in the rubber trade. Then Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister elected by his own people, stood up and committed the gravest sin a colonized man can commit: he remembered. He spoke of the humiliations, the beatings, the forced labor. The diplomats were scandalized. Not by the history, but by the bad manners of mentioning it.
Lumumba’s real crime, however, was not his memory but his imagination. He imagined that the wealth beneath Congolese soil might one day feed Congolese children. In Brussels, this was called ingratitude. In Washington, it was called communism. For the mining companies, it had a simpler name: a loss of profits.
Two weeks later, Katanga declared its independence from the newly independent country. By pure coincidence, Katanga held the copper, cobalt and uranium that Western industry needed, and Union Minière happened to support the secession. Belgian officers and mercenaries offered their services. When the West refused Lumumba’s requests for help, he turned to the Soviets, and the diagnosis was immediate. A nationalist who looks east is no longer a nationalist; he is a threat to free markets. African sovereignty, it turned out, was a lovely principle, valid only as long as it did not interfere with Western dividends or Cold War maps. Different, the apartheid regime of South Africa was protected and considered an ally of the «Free World».
Thus was born an alliance as old as colonialism itself: the former master, the new empire, and the ambitious locals willing to do the work. The CIA sent a chemist with poison meant for Lumumba’s toothpaste. In the end, it was not needed. As usual, local hands were found. Lumumba was deposed, arrested, beaten in front of cameras, and flown to Katanga in January 1961. There, before a firing squad and in the presence of Belgian officers, he was executed. Later, a Belgian police officer cut up his body and dissolved it in acid, so that not even a grave would remain to remind the Congolese of what had been promised to them. He kept a tooth as a souvenir. Civilization has always had a weakness for relics.
Then came Mobutu, who ruled for more than three decades, accumulated a fortune worthy of a European monarch, and was received in Western capitals as a reliable friend of freedom. The mines kept working. The minerals kept flowing north. Order, as they say, was restored.
On the French Riviera, history has a sense of humor. King Leopold II, who never set foot in the Congo, enjoyed its rubber and ivory from the Villa Les Cèdres on Cap Ferrat and from the land where the Villa La Léopolda would later rise. Decades later, a few miles east, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Mobutu Sese Seko bought the pink-and-white Villa del Mare. The colonizer and the dictator, the European king and the African marshal, never met, but they chose the same view of the same sea. The Congo changed masters. The wealth never changed its address.
In 2002, Belgium admitted a «moral responsibility.» In 2022, it returned the tooth. Sixty years to return a tooth. The copper, the cobalt and the uranium were never part of the negotiation.
The Dawn of Freedom, the Fear of Empire
In 1960, as the Congo celebrated its brand-new freedom, Patrice Lumumba took the stage as the country’s first prime minister —and immediately became the defiant voice of a new Africa. Lumumba didn’t just want a new flag and a national anthem; he wanted real, uncompromised sovereignty. He demanded that the Congolese people control their own mind-boggling natural wealth, called for a united Africa, and made it clear that Belgian meddling was over.
His defining moment came on June 30, 1960, during his independence day speech. Right in front of the Belgian King Baudouin —who had just patronizingly praised Belgium’s «civilizing mission»— Lumumba tore up the polite, pre-approved script. Instead, he laid bare the brutal reality of Belgian rule: the forced labor, the systemic racism, the raw exploitation, and the casual violence.
This speech sent immediate shockwaves through Brussels and Washington. Western leaders didn’t see an inspiring freedom fighter; they saw a massive threat to their strategic interests. The stakes were incredibly high: the Congo was home to the Shinkolobwe Mine, the source of the high-grade uranium the United States had used to build the atomic bombs for the Manhattan Project. The West was terrified of losing its grip on these resources.
The backlash was swift. Within days of independence, the Congo’s most mineral-rich province, Katanga, declared it was breaking away. Led by Moïse Tshombe —who was heavily backed by Belgian mining corporations— the secession threw the young nation into instant chaos.
Belgium immediately sent troops back in, claiming it was just «protecting its citizens,» though their real priority was securing their lucrative corporate assets. To Lumumba, the mask was entirely off. He saw this intervention for exactly what it was: proof that the old empire had no intention of letting go, choosing instead to rule through chaos and corporate proxies.
Lumumba: The Betrayal of the West
Patrice Lumumba, the firebrand leader of the Congolese National Movement (MNC), cemented his place as a giant of anti-colonial history by demanding something radical: real, uncompromised independence for the Congo. He wanted the Congolese people, not foreign companies, to control the country’s massive wealth of uranium, copper, cobalt, and diamonds.
On June 30, 1960, he became the nation’s first democratically elected prime minister. In a legendary independence day speech, right in front of the Belgian king, Lumumba fiercely called out the brutalities of colonial rule and made it clear that a new flag meant nothing without economic freedom. Almost immediately, the country imploded. The army mutinied, Belgium sent its military back in, and the ultra-wealthy mining province of Katanga broke away, bankrolled entirely by Belgian corporate interests.
Lumumba didn’t start out looking to Moscow for help. In fact, his first stop was Washington. He genuinely believed the United States would stand up for a young, struggling democracy and help kick out the Belgians. But through the paranoid lens of the Cold War, the U.S. panicked. They saw his fierce nationalism and his «by any means necessary» attitude toward sovereignty as signs that he was a secret communist. Washington was also terrified of losing access to Congolese uranium—the very material used to build the first American atomic bombs. Meanwhile, Belgium was doing everything it could to protect corporate monopolies like Union Minière du Haut-Katanga.
Left with zero options after the West turned its back, a desperate Lumumba finally asked the Soviet Union for military hardware and planes in July 1960 to help crush the Katangan rebellion and save his government. The Kremlin sent a handful of trucks, planes, and advisers. For the CIA, this was the smoking gun they needed. It didn’t matter that Lumumba was just trying to save his country; he was now officially labeled a communist threat.
The machinery of the Cold War moved quickly to eliminate him. By September, a young Congolese officer named Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seized power in a Western-backed coup. Lumumba was hunted down, captured in December, and flown straight into the hands of his bitterest enemies in the breakaway Katanga region. On January 17, 1961, he was executed by a Belgian-led firing squad. Decades later, official inquiries proved what everyone already knew: Belgian officers pulled the strings, and the CIA was actively involved in planning his downfall. His murder became the ultimate symbol of the Cold War in Africa, proving that for a newly independent nation, true sovereignty was a death sentence if it got in the way of superpower greed.
The USA and the CIA: Lumumba as a Threat
While Washington initially paid lip service to the Congo’s independence, the U.S. government quickly grew terrified of Patrice Lumumba. The Eisenhower administration was gripped by a single, paranoid nightmare: that Lumumba would invite the Soviet Union into the heart of Africa, giving Moscow a backdoor to the continent’s strategic minerals and sparking a wave of anti-Western revolutions across the region. In reality, Lumumba wasn’t a communist ideologue; he was just a fierce nationalist trying to protect his country’s sovereignty. But through the zero-sum lens of the Cold War, Washington couldn’t tell the difference, and he was instantly branded a major threat.
With Lumumba firmly in its crosshairs, the CIA moved into the shadows to tear his government down. Top agency officials openly discussed permanently eliminating him, sending operative Larry Devlin to the Congo to orchestrate the chaos on the ground. The CIA began bankrolling Lumumba’s political rivals, most notably a young officer named Joseph Mobutu, to fracture his support base. They even cooked up a bizarre plot to assassinate the prime minister using lethal poisons—and while historians still argue over the exact logistics and how far that specific plan went, the agency’s ultimate goal was crystal clear: Lumumba had to go.
Mobutu’s Coup: The End of Congo’s First Democratic Experiment
Patrice Lumumba’s government never stood a chance. It collapsed under a perfect storm of engineered crises: Belgian troops invading, the wealthiest province of Katanga breaking away, bitter infighting at home, and crushing geopolitical pressure from the world’s superpowers. As the country slid into chaos, army commander Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seized his moment. In September 1960, he staged a military coup, kicked Lumumba out of office, and claimed he was just «restoring order.» Mobutu perfectly understood his audience; he pitched himself to Washington and Brussels as the reliable anti-communist strongman the West needed to stabilize the Congo, keep the Soviets out, and —most importantly— keep the mining pipelines open.
Mobutu did not fall from the sky. He was cultivated, like a crop, with patience and money. In 1960, when Washington decided that Patrice Lumumba was too dangerous to be allowed back into power, the CIA began to finance his enemies and to take an interest in a young colonel who listened much and said little. Lumumba had committed the crime of looking toward Moscow when the West refused to help him. Mobutu had the virtue of looking wherever he was told.
On 25 November 1965, the colonel, now a general, overthrew President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. The next day, the CIA instructed its station in Léopoldville to support the new regime, but discreetly, without too much American visibility. The available documents do not prove that the agency arranged every detail of the coup. It didn’t need to. When a plant has been watered for five years, no one needs to order it to grow. Washington simply welcomed the result, because Mobutu offered what it valued most in Africa: order, loyalty and access to copper, cobalt and uranium. Democracy could wait. It always should, when the minerals are already in the right hands.
And so it waited for more than thirty years. The general became a marshal, the marshal became a king without a crown, and the Congo, renamed Zaire, became his private estate, as it had once been Leopold’s. In the name of freedom, the free world sustained a dictatorship. In the name of fighting communism, it buried sovereignty. Few contradictions have lasted so long or been so profitable.
Lumumba’s Capture and Execution
Stripped of power, Lumumba tried to slip out of the capital to regroup with his loyalists in eastern Congo, but Mobutu’s troops hunted him down and captured him. In January 1961, he was flown directly into the hands of his executioners in the breakaway Katanga region. A firing squad shot him down in a coordinated effort between his local Congolese rivals, Katangan separatists, and Belgian officers who all wanted him dead. The cover-up lasted for decades, but eventual investigations laid bare the deep complicity of Brussels—culminating in 2002 when the Belgian government formally apologized and accepted «moral responsibility» for the murder.
Lumumba’s assassination became the definitive, chilling symbol of how far Western empires would go to crush African sovereignty. By eliminating him, the West successfully steered the Congo right back into its orbit. Mobutu would go on to rule the country with an iron fist for over three decades, amassing a legendary personal fortune while Washington and Paris happily bankrolled his dictatorship in exchange for unchecked access to the country’s wealth.
Was it just paranoia, or something else (something old, very old else)?
Belgium’s Role: Colonialism Continued Through Economics
Once the Congo officially went independent in 1960, Belgium shifted its focus from administrative governance to pure corporate survival. The major concern in Brussels wasn’t losing political face; it was losing a massive cash cow. Belgian conglomerates were terrified that Lumumba would nationalize the mines, squeeze out foreign investors, and redirect the country’s immense wealth back to its own citizens. Because Lumumba refused to compromise on economic sovereignty, Belgium immediately began scouting for more cooperative, compliant Congolese politicians who would leave the old corporate monopolies alone.
This became the ultimate blueprint for modern neocolonialism: a sleeker system where direct empire was swapped out for economic puppet-strings. While Belgium pulled its governors out, its corporations stayed put, maintaining absolute control over the country’s crown jewels. In practice, the Congo had won the right to its own flag, but it was completely locked out of its own economy.
American Corporate Interests and Strategic Resources
The United States was playing the exact same game, driven by its own massive economic and military appetites. American industrial titans were desperate for a guaranteed, uninterrupted flow of Congolese copper, diamonds, and uranium. But the real prize was cobalt, a vital super-metal required for cutting-edge aerospace engineering, electronics, and advanced military tech.
To Western governments and their corporate donors, the absolute scariest phrase in the English language was «resource nationalism»—the radical idea that a newly free country should actually own, manage, and profit from its own natural resources. Lumumba’s vision of economic independence was a direct threat to a global capitalist system that relied on cheap, unchecked extraction of African wealth.
Congo and the Question of Neocolonialism
This is precisely why the Congo Crisis is studied as the definitive case study of neocolonialism. The old empires simply changed their tactics. Instead of ruling by decree, Western powers used deep pockets to buy local politicians, deployed intelligence networks to overthrow defiant leaders, and kept their hands firmly on the mining pipelines. When Belgium sent its military back into the Congo, or when Washington blacklisted Lumumba, they wrapped their actions in the righteous flag of Cold War anti-communism. In reality, it was a smoke screen; Lumumba wasn’t trying to build a Soviet utopia, he was just trying to build a self-sufficient Congo.
Looked at through this lens, Congolese independence was a carefully managed illusion. The country had all the superficial trappings of a state—a government, a seat at the UN, a national anthem—but its actual destiny, leadership, and wealth were still dictated by rooms full of white men in Brussels and Washington.
Historical Debate and Complexity
To be fair, it’s a mistake to blame the entire tragedy of the Congo solely on outside agitators. The young nation was dealt a terrible hand from the start, inheriting fragile, hollowed-out institutions from a brutal Belgian regime that intentionally avoided training a local civil service. The country was instantly fractured by deep ethnic rivalries, regional power struggles, and ambitious political factions fighting for control. Lumumba himself was a complex, fast-moving figure—not a robotic Soviet stooge, but a desperate nationalist who originally begged Washington for help before turning to Moscow as a last resort to save his country from fracturing.
Yet, while the internal tinder was already there, it was foreign intervention that poured gasoline on the fire. The Congo Crisis wasn’t just a local civil war; it was a violent collision where Africa’s raw demand for genuine freedom crashed head-first into the unyielding wall of Western corporate greed and Cold War superpower paranoia.
Doccuments
CIA’s Covert Operations in the Congo, 1960–1968: Insights from Newly Declassified Documents
CIA’s role:
Within 3 weeks of the day the Congo gained its independence on June 30, 1960, disorder and rioting broke out, Belgium flew in paratroopers to protect its citizens and protect order, and Katanga Province seceded. The new Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, whom U.S. officials already believed was a dangerous, pro-Communist radical, turned to the Soviet Union for political support and military assistance, confirming the worst fears of U.S. policymakers. In August 1960, the U.S. Government launched a covert political program in the Congo lasting almost 7 years, initially aimed at eliminating Lumumba from power and replacing him with a more moderate, pro-Western leader. The U.S. Government provided advice and financial subsidies. At the same time, based on authorization from President Eisenhower’s statements at an NSC meeting on August 18, 1960, discussions began to develop highly sensitive, tightly-held plans to assassinate Lumumba. After Lumumba’s death at the hands of Congolese rivals in January 1961, the U.S. Government authorized the provision of paramilitary and air support to the new Congolese Government.
Operation Supporting Anti-Communist Congolese Politicians
Even before Congolese independence, the U.S. Government attempted to ensure election of a pro-Western government by identifying and supporting individual pro-U.S. leaders. During August 1960, reporting from the Station in Leopoldville warned Washington that unless Prime Minister Lumumba was stopped in the near future, he would become a strongman and establish a government under the influence of, or completely controlled by, Communists. Washington authorized limited funds for an operation in the Congo with the objective of replacing Lumumba with a pro-Western group. These funds were to be channeled in such a way as to conceal the U.S. Government as a source.
On September 14, 1960, Congolese Army Chief of Staff Joseph Mobutu carried out a virtual coup by establishing a College of Commissioners to administer the country on an interim basis. The Station provided the new government with covert funds as part of a general program of covert support, using the previously established, not attributable to the United States, channel. In addition, the covert program included [Page 2]organizing mass demonstrations, distributing anti-Communist pamphlets, and providing propaganda material for broadcasts.
The Special Group (later the 303 Committee), the high-level interdepartmental group set up to approve and supervise covert operations, made its first approval of major funding to strengthen Mobuto’s de facto government, in order to prevent Lumumba from regaining control, on October 27, 1960. U.S. covert support continued during the series of political crises that followed.
After the Special Group’s authorization in October 1960, a pattern evolved. One of the Congolese leaders urgently asked the Station for funds to avert an imminent crisis, such as the establishment by Lumumba supporters of a rival government in Stanleyville, an army mutiny, or a parliamentary defeat. Expenditure of at least some of the requested funds was almost always authorized. Periodically, the Special Group would meet and approve overall funding and direction of covert operations. On February 14, 1961, following a near mutiny of the Congolese army and police, the Special Group approved an even larger request to the Congolese Government through clandestine channels. President Kennedy’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, reported to the Special Group on June 21, 1961, that the President had approved a CIA recommendation, with Department of State concurrence, for a substantial contingency fund. The fund was to be used for a covert political action program to help elect a pro-U.S. prime minister and government during the upcoming parliamentary session at the University of Lovanium scheduled to convene in late July. On August 2, 1961, the Congolese parliament approved a predominantly moderate government headed by Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula.
On November 22, 1961, the Special Group approved additional funding to strengthen the Adoula government as a moderate force and eventually build a new cohesive national political party. This carried the funding through fiscal year 1962 and averted two parliamentary crises: a proposed censure of then Foreign Minister Bomboko in June and a vote of no confidence in the government in late November.
In March 1963, the Embassy warned that terminating U.S. financial support would probably result in the fall of the government. Responding to the warning, the Special Group on April 25 approved funding for FY 1964 for continuation of the covert action program supporting the government. The Congolese were subsequently warned, however, that the United States would not continue the crash ad hoc funding it had provided in the past and wanted instead an organized program leading to formation of a national political party that would act as a political instrument in the forthcoming national elections. On November 6, 1963, the Station in Leopoldville submitted an additional [Page 3]budget to support establishment of a national political party. This was approved on November 8.
On June 1, 1964, a revised budget was approved for the project for FY 1964. Following former Katanga premier Moise Tshombe’s appointment as Prime Minister in July 1964 and the fall of Stanleyville to rebel forces in early August, the program continued to provide limited support to selected Congolese leaders. On June 30, 1966, the program was formally terminated on the recommendation of CIA and Department of State officials that it was no longer necessary to engage in large-scale political funding in the Congo. However, limited funding continued into 1968.
Lumumba Assassination Attempt
On August 27, 1960, Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles cabled the Leopoldville Station Chief that there was agreement in “high quarters” that Lumumba’s removal must be an urgent and prime objective. CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans, Bissell, told a CIA scientist in late summer or early fall 1960 to have biological materials ready at short notice for the assassination of an unspecified African leader and that he (Bissell) had Presidential authorization for such an operation. In September 1960, the Chief of CIA’s Africa Division, Bronson Tweedy, instructed the scientist to take the materials to the Congo and deliver instructions to the Station Chief to mount an operation if it could be done securely. The scientist traveled to Leopoldville, but Mobutu’s coup on September 14 resulted in Lumumba becoming a de facto prisoner in the Prime Minister’s residence guarded by U.N. forces who were in turn surrounded by Congolese troops. The scientist returned to the United States on October 5, but planning continued in Leopoldville to try to implement the assassination operation.
On October 15, Tweedy cabled the Station in Leopoldville that “disposition” of Lumumba remained the highest priority. It was subsequently reported that Lumumba was so closely guarded that he could not be approached. On November 27, 1960, Lumumba escaped but was recaptured by Mobutu’s forces on December 1. On January 17, 1961, the Station reported that Lumumba had been removed from the Thysville military camp to Elizabethville in Katanga province and had been beaten. Between January 17 and February 7, Lumumba’s fate was unknown, although there was widespread speculation that he was dead. On February 7, a Field Report informed Washington that Lumumba and his two companions had been executed on January 17 by Katangan soldiers and a Belgian officer.
Covert Support of the Congolese Air Force
In October 1962, the Congolese Government asked the United States to provide jet fighters, pilots, several transport aircraft, trucks [Page 4]and other military equipment to fight leftist rebels. It was subsequently authorized for the Congolese Government to contract for the services of pilots. On December 7, 1962, the Special Group approved a proposal to provide additional personnel and logistical support to the Congolese Air Force (CAF).
On April 24, 1964, President Johnson authorized the Department of Defense to provide the CAF with six T–28, ten C–47, and six H–21 aircraft, plus a 6-month supply of parts and ammunition. The Special Group approved a proposal on May 28, 1964, to provide covert support to the CAF for maintaining the six U.S.-provided T–28 aircraft and a minimal helicopter rescue capability, in addition to continued operation of the current six T–6 aircraft. The program was further expanded with 303 Committee approval on August 24, 1964, when rebellion throughout the eastern half of the Congo threatened the government’s survival.
On October 28, 1965, the 303 Committee approved a request for continuation of covert support to the CAF at its current funding level. A memorandum for the 303 Committee, dated February 5, 1966, proposed continuing covert funding of the air program through CY 1966 at a reduced level, and on February 17, the 303 Committee reduced the air program again. At Deputy Director of Intelligence Helms’ request, the Committee agreed to await the results of a Joint Chiefs of Staff study to determine the Congo’s military needs. On July 19, 1966, the 303 Committee approved by telephone contingency air support if a coup were mounted against Mobutu.
On October 10, 1966, the 303 Committee was informed that a State-Defense-CIA working group had been established to draw up plans for the phase-out of the air program. The Committee agreed in early November that a turnover of the U.S.-operated Congolese Air Force to the host government should be effected with all convenient speed, with minimum sacrifice of efficiency and order. On March 3, 1967, a progress report warned that the pace of the phase-out had been delayed and might require underwriting beyond the original estimated date of June 30, 1967, on a month-to-month basis. On March 8, the 303 Committee directed that the project be liquidated as soon as possible.
A June 14 progress report alerted the 303 Committee to the problems arising from the Congolese Government’s continued failure to meet its commitment to deposit funds in the account of a maintenance company originally set up under Congolese Government sponsorship to service Congolese aircraft. Finally on June 16, 1967, the Committee refused to authorize further support. The next month, however, a mutiny of white mercenaries and Katangan forces broke out and the 303 Committee directed that the project be extended to December 31, 1967. On November 22, the Committee approved a Department of State [Page 5]recommendation that the contracts of pilots hired on September 4 to fly for the Congolese Government also be extended to December 31. In May 1968, the project was terminated.
Political Action in Support of Tshombe and Maritime Interdiction Program
On August 13, 1964, the 303 Committee approved a proposal to provide covert financial aid and other support to be used periodically as needed for assuring tribal support of pro-Western Congolese leaders in critical areas and also to supplement the pay of white military technicians working for the Congolese Government. In early 1965, a capability was established to interdict supplies going to the Congolese rebels via Lake Albert and Lake Tanganyika, creating a “pocket navy” comprised of eight craft belonging to the Congolese Government and five U.S.-owned craft on Lake Tanganyika, which would be under general U.S. control.
Anticipating the cost of the programs for FY 1966, additional funds were requested to finance a greatly expanded maritime operation based in Albertville, to support selected tribal elements in the Northeast Congo, and to provide a contingency fund for use in preserving the existing political balance. On September 23, 1965, the 303 Committee approved the purchase and manning of six additional boats.
On October 7, 1965, the 303 Committee approved a reduced contingency fund, but on November 26 it approved a request for an expanded program. The emergence of Mobutu as head of a new regime was not deemed to eliminate the need for the program.
On February 5, 1966, the 303 Committee was requested to approve continued covert maritime operations in the Congo, as well as covert political funding. The last covert payment to Mobutu under this program was made in September 1966, and 303 Committee authority to make such payments expired on December 31, 1966. In compliance with a 303 Committee decision on November 4, 1966, to phase out U.S. Government participation in the maritime program, control of the boats was transferred to the Congolese on January 7, 1967. The project was terminated effective December 31, 1967.
The Special Group/303 Committee-approved aggregate budget for covert action in the Congo for the years 1960–1968 totaled approximately $11,702,000 (Political Action, $5,842,000; Air Program, $3,285,000; and Maritime Program, $2,575,000).
For purposes of briefing the National Security Council for its meeting on September 21, 1960, the Central Intelligence Agency prepared a summary in outline form, excerpted below, of telegram 0963 from the Station in Leopoldville, September 18:
“I. Chief of Station states crash operation needed to bolster Colonel Mobutu and opposition to Lumumba.
“A. Mobutu needs financial assistance to pay certain troops and officers, provide gas for troop movements.
“B. Mobutu needs French-speaking economic, political and security advisers.
“C. Mobutu desires security team to work against Lumumba and Communists.
“II. Assassination plot against Mobutu on 18 September almost successful.
“A. Plan was to sound general alarm Camp Leopold II and turn out all troops. Mobutu would be shot when he arrived on the scene.
“B. Mobutu, learning of plot, locked central alarm and called in former friend, a major, who was behind plot.
“C. Major tried to draw pistol but Mobutu grappled with him until guards arrived.
“D. He then ordered arrest of all Communist-influenced ministers in Lumumba government.
“III. Mobutu plans to cooperate with Ileo–Kasavubu group.”
A. On urging of Chief of Station, “he agreed to name Bomboko chief Congolese UN delegate with Kanza as his deputy.
“B. Promised to turn over government to Ileo group by end of October but meanwhile must save face by living up to promise which he made to army of neutralizing political factions.
“C. Stated that until end October, the technical council would take orders from Kasavubu. (Central Intelligence Agency Files, Job 79R00890A, Box 12, Folder 9, NSC Briefings, September 1960)
For a record of discussion of the Congo at the NSC meeting on September 21, see Foreign Relations, 1958–1960, volume XIV, Africa, Document 223.
Connections
Congo Today
Supply and Demand Is a Scam to Disguise Inhumane Working Conditions
If Congolese slaves are essential in the cobalt trade chain and are essential to the functioning of our digital world, why are their wages below the minimum conditions of survival?
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