April 2005 Newsletter

History through Documents and Memory:
A CWIHP Critical Oral History Conference of the Congo Crisis, 1960-1961

By Lise Namikas

On 23-24 September 2004, scholars and former U.S. and Congolese officials gathered at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to discuss the Congo crisis of 1960-61. The conference was one of a series of critical oral history workshops sponsored by the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) under the direction of Christian F. Ostermann and co-sponsored by the Africa Program. The other workshops sponsored by the CWIHP, including the July 2004 conference on the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, have dealt with relatively recent events. This conference delved farther back in time and was the first to put the spotlight on the Cold War in Africa.

To help guide the conference discussion former CWIHP scholar Sergey Mazov and I compiled a reader. It included documents gathered specifically for the conference from Russian, European, and U.S. archives, along with material recently declassified from U.S. and Belgian archives, several key articles on the crisis, and a comprehensive chronology. Conference participants also heard eyewitness testimony from veterans of the crisis, including Lawrence Devlin, former CIA station chief in the Congo; Thomas Kanza, former Lumumba confidante and ambassador to the United Nations; and Cleophas Kamitatu, the provincial president of a political party, Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA). With few people left to share personal accounts of events, their testimony added meaningfully to the historical record. Also attending were scholars from around the globe, including Sergey Mazov, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences scholar; Herbert Weiss, Wilson Center senior scholar and eyewitness to the events; Jean Omasombo, Congolese scholar and consultant on the Belgian Parliamentary Commission inquiry into Lumumba’s assassination; Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Congolese expert and current director of the U.N. Development Programme’s Oslo Governance Center; Stephen Weissman; and Tatiana Carayannis. Representatives from the National Security Archive at George Washington University also attended.

There were several important revelations at the conference, some of the most significant related to the events of September 1960. Lumumba’s dismissal on 5 September has long been controversial. From the memoirs of Belgian ambassador Jean van den Bosch, published in 1986, we know that the Congolese president, Joseph Kasavubu, began talking with Belgian advisors about revoking Patrice Lumumba’s premiership as early as July 1960. It is also known that Kasavubu talked with the UN’s temporary representative in the Congo, Andrew Cordier, who suggested that he was not averse to Kasavubu’s proposed action. Cleophas Kamitatu explained that Lumumba was told of Kasavubu’s impending move at least a week before his actual dismissal. Lumumba then met with Kasavubu and tried to work things out, but on 5 September he was suddenly dismissed. Cordier immediately closed the airport at Leopoldville and shut off access to the radio, abruptly stymying Lumumba’s attempts to rally support.

Historians suspect U.S. complicity in these events, but there has been little conclusive evidence. It has long been known that U.S. ambassador Clare Timberlake and Cordier were cooperating, but Timberlake’s actions in the days before the coup are a mystery. Lawrence Devlin recalled that Timberlake met with Kasavubu shortly before the dismissal. Timberlake told Kasavubu that he too favored revoking Lumumba, but he felt that Kasavubu had ignored him. Timberlake also met with Cordier before the coup, but the contents of their discussion remain unknown. Pushed by the Belgians and assured of indirect U.S. and UN support, Kasavubu acted. Documents translated by the CWIHP revealed that the Soviet Union was also working behind the scenes to urge other African states, including Ghana, to put their troops serving under the UN operation in the Congo at the disposition of the government of the Congo or create a joint command to aid Lumumba. But before the leaders of these states could meet to discuss either option, dramatic events intervened.

On 14 September 1960 Congolese Army Chief of Staff Joseph Mobutu launched his first coup (the second would take place in late 1965). Again, current documentary evidence does not shed much light on the U.S. role. But in a blow-by-blow account of the decisive hours before and after the coup, Devlin recalled how, under pressure, he agreed that the U.S. government would recognize Mobutu’s government. The relationship between Devlin and Mobutu has long raised suspicions, but Devlin confirmed that he met with Mobutu only twice before 14 September 1960. These meetings nevertheless convinced him that Mobutu had leadership qualities. On the night of his first coup, Mobutu told Devlin that if the United States would guarantee recognition of his new government then the coup would go forward. Not unaware of the risks involved, Devlin demurred. Impatiently, Mobutu asked again what the U.S. position would be. Devlin recounted how he went out on a limb and guaranteed U.S. government support.

Kamitatu surmised that the guarantee of U.S. support might explain why Mobutu felt confident enough to dismiss both Lumumba and Kasavubu. He said that he and others had been aware only of plans to remove Lumumba. Had the coup failed (and Timberlake thought it might because he believed that Mobutu was yielding to pressure to allow Lumumba to return), the U.S. position in the Congo could have been jeopardized. As it was, the coup did not fail, but it was not an overwhelming success. Washington in effect undermined Mobutu by insisting on the “de-neutralization” of Kasavubu to safeguard both the UN and the U.S. position in the Congo. The conference discussion also provided new details about the money that Mobutu used to pay his soldiers at the end of September, thereby sealing their loyalty and ensuring that the coup would not fail for lack of military support.

There were other revelations at the conference, particularly about Lumumba’s relations with Kasavubu and the West, which had begun to deteriorate long before September. The circumstances surrounding the granting of Congolese independence generated much discussion, as did the relationship between Lumumba and Kasavubu. The two leaders were longtime rivals, and Thomas Kanza recalled that after a secret agreement with Abako, the powerful political organization led by Kasavubu, Lumumba had little choice but to support Kasavubu as president. The discussions also corrected the long-held belief that Lumumba was furiously writing his inflammatory independence-day speech during Kasavubu’s speech. In fact, Kanza explained, Lumumba wrote the speech (with the assistance of his European advisors, as Jean Omasombo noted) in the days before independence. It reflected his growing anger with Belgian attempts to deny him the position of prime minister. Along with the many other revelations from the Belgian Parliamentary Commission inquiry, this disclosure suggests that the relationship between Belgium and Lumumba was more strained than previously assumed and should be reassessed.

The Congolese participants in the conference also explained the significance of the misunderstandings that colored Congolese foreign relations. Thomas Kanza shed light on the importance of the fiasco involving Edgar Detwiler, a shady American businessman who proposed to develop and manage Congolese mineral resources. Detwiler was introduced to Lumumba by the son of Belgian Minister without Portfolio W.J. Ganshof van der Meersch. In Lumumba’s mind Detwiler’s connection to Van der Meersch confirmed his credibility, and a contract was signed. The Congolese Parliament confirmed the deal, although they later revoked their approval. Even though he had been warned about Detwiler by Ambassador Timberlake, Guinean and Ghanaian representatives at the United Nations Diallo Telli and Alex Quaison-Sackey, and even concerned U.S. citizens in the Congo like the young Herbert Weiss, Lumumba was still surprised when he discovered that he had not signed a legitimate contract.

In light of the Belgian Parliamentary Commission’s extensive investigation into Lumumba’s death, the conference did not spend a lot of time on the assassination. But it became clear that Lumumba’s supporters feared the worst as the deposed prime minister remained under house arrest and then became a prisoner. Kanza revealed that in September he had fruitless discussions with Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev, whom he called a “showman,” and more serious discussions with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on the general topic of how to save Lumumba. Kanza learned, with disappointment, that the Soviet Union was apparently in no position to help directly. So he appealed to President-elect John F. Kennedy through Eleanor Roosevelt. It was Kanza’s recollection that an informal deal was struck with UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and President-elect Kennedy guaranteeing that Lumumba should remain in Leopoldville at least until Kennedy took office and then be brought to Parliament. Kanza also recalled that he asked Kennedy (again via Roosevelt) to intervene to protect Lumumba after he became a prisoner, but Kennedy responded that the handling of prisoners was the UN’s responsibility. Lumumba was transferred out of Thysville prison on the night of 16 January 1961 by Mobutu’s men, who carefully skirted UN guards, and assassinated the next day in Katanga.

Documents obtained for the conference from both Russian and German archives offered new details about the Soviet role in the crisis. Evidence from the former East German archives suggests that the Soviet Union supported giving aid to rebel leader Antoine Gizenga, formerly Lumumba’s deputy prime minister, who had established a rival government in Stanleyville in December 1960. However, the Soviets did not want to take the international risks involved in delivering him that aid. A memorandum of a meeting between Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Semenov and President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt confirmed that the Soviet Union wanted to send diplomats and military advisors to Stanleyville, but Nasser suggested rather dramatically that the only way to get them into the Congo was to parachute them in. On another occasion, Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky told Pierre Mulele, Gizenga’s representative in Cairo, that Soviet planes were ready to fly to the Congo, but he feared that UN forces would shoot them down. Documents also established that early in 1961 Moscow decided to send $500,000 to Gizenga in Stanleyville, but Lawrence Devlin said that when he heard that the first $250,000 was to be shipped via courier through Sudan, he sent a U.S. operative to distract the courier and snatch his suitcase.

The discussions revealed important details about the Lovanium conference of September 1961, called to form a new government for the Congo. The United States and the UN feared that Gizenga would be elected prime minister. As Kamitatu related, the nationalist bloc wanted Gizenga to take the job, but Gizenga refused, fearing a trap. The nationalists then agreed that the “moderate” Cyrille Adoula would be the “least evil” choice. Although they disliked him, they believed he could help re-unify the Congo. Adoula agreed to work with the bloc and, escorted by UN representative Robert Gardiner to Kamitatu’s residence, worked through the night with other nationalists to form a new government. At the last minute Gizenga surprised everyone by accepting the post of vice prime minister. However, after a short visit to Leopoldville he returned to Stanleyville, leaving his intentions open to suspicion. Gizenga’s mistrust of Adoula ran deep, in part because he was aware of Adoula’s secret connections, brought to light by the CWIHP conference, with the Binza group, a pro-Western band of Mobutu supporters. Adoula’s ties with this group were not widely known, but in light of them, his former relations with the AFL-CIO appear less significant. In the end Adoula’s premiership would depend heavily on the nationalist bloc. By December of 1962 Adoula, under great pressure from the nationalists, had called on the UN to use force to end the secession of Katanga province. U Thant felt he had few options and, tired of the whole affair, obliged, giving Kennedy little choice but to go along or see the UN withdraw from the Congo altogether.

If there was a single message to take away from the conference it is that the course of events in the Congo was at least as strongly influenced by events on the ground as by decisions emanating from Washington or Moscow. The conference confirmed that Lumumba had little Western support and that many people had a share in plans first to depose him and then to assassinate him, although how those plans were coordinated remains unclear. Washington seemed to keep its distance from unfolding events, with the result that its hand was sometimes forced at the last minute, while Khrushchev tended to be very cautious and was reluctant to act without the Afro-Asian states. The conference also highlighted the role the Congolese people played in the crisis but did not exaggerate their influence. Clearly, a general misunderstanding among the Congolese, Americans, Soviets and Belgians underlay the tragic events of 1960 and 1961–events that still haunt the civil-war-wracked Congo today.

*Thanks to Herbert Weiss and Sergey Mazov for their observations and comments on this draft.
The Cold War International History Project plans to post documents and a transcription of its conference on their website, along with several interpretive articles relating to the documents. An earlier version of this paper appeared on the CWIHP website at

http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=102105.