Kennedy and Congo: The Battle for Africa Part 4

Kennedy's death causes a tragic endgame

As we have seen in the earlier parts of this series, John F. Kennedy had a special interest in Congo’s elected--and assassinated--leader Patrice Lumumba. He sympathized with his aim to make Congo an independent nation and this jibed with Kennedy’s overall interest to free Africa.  Which he openly expressed in his famous Algeria speech in 1957.  

Kennedy also had a relationship with UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold and had talked to him several times. In fact, in late April of 1961, he had met with the Secretary General at the presidential suite in the Waldorf Astoria. (JFK vs. Allen Dulles, by Greg Poulglrain, p. 151) Hammarskjold and Kennedy had similar aims in Congo. As we have seen Allen Dulles and the CIA had been ordered to do away with Lumumba. (ibid, p. 155) In 1998, documents discovered by Desmond Tutu for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee implicated Dulles in the murder of Hammarskjold. (Poulgrain, p. 157). One of the documents states  that the United Nations “is becoming troublesome and it is felt that Hammarskjold should be removed. Allen Dulles agrees and has promised full cooperation from his people.” (ibid)

But way before this, former president Harry Truman said about the death of Hammarskjold: “Dag Hammarskjold was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said, “When they killed him”. (NY Times, 9/20/61). This was within 72 hours of Hammarskjold’s passing. Both Conor Cruise O’Brien and George Ivan Smith, who worked for Hammarskjold, were convinced that Hammarskjold had been murdered. (Poulgrain, p. 159) As we have seen, there is evidence that ambassador Edmund Gullion had sent information to Washington that such was the case.  As we have also seen, Kennedy went all out to continue what Hammarskjold had been trying to do in Congo.  All of this ended when Kennedy was killed in Dallas. So, as we shall see, the descent of Congo into a failed fascist state was caused by three assassinations: Lumumba’s, Hammarskjold’s and JFK’s.

As many have shown, when it came to the Third World, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had differing views on how American power and influence should be used e.g. in Vietnam and Indonesia. The results in both of those cases were disastrous. Congo was no exception.

The Congo strife had galvanized many of the countries in Africa to the cause of independence, both before and after Lumumba.  The so called Casablanca group--which included Egypt, Ghana, Libya and Morocco—viewed the plight of Congo as an event and as a pretext:

….for an outright attack on colonialism and imperialism….The public debates about the Congo conflict were a formative moment for the emergence of the Third World as a political force. (Alanna O’Malley, “The Simba Rebellion, the Cold War, and the Stanleyville Hostages in the Congo” Journal of Cold War Studies, May 2021)

As we showed in Part 3, after the UN had stopped the Katanga secession—which was backed by Belgium and England—a rebellion broke out. It was in good part led by the followers of Lumumba.  One of the leaders of this rebellion was a man named Pierre Mulele who had worked for Lumumba.  But he had also visited Egypt and China.  His forces were mostly in central Congo.

The larger rebellion was in the east and was called the Simba Rebellion. One of its causes was the fact that the congress in Leopoldville had no confidence in the leadership of President Kasavubu, so he dismissed Parliament. (Mahoney, p.  229) A government in exile dedicated to Lumumba was set up in Brazzaville.

After Kennedy’s death, Lyndon Johnson decided that the UN was not the mode to intervene in what was a civil war.  The White House also decided that, unlike Kennedy, they would not back a moderate coalition. They decided to move to the right.  Startlingly, in the summer of 1964, Moise Tshombe was called back to Congo--the man who had just led the rebellion in Katanga. He was now named Prime Minister.  That act inflamed  the leaders of other African nations, and the rebels even more. (O’Malley, p. 82) And around this time, understanding that the new American leadership saw them as irrelevant, the UN withdrew. (Mahoney, p. 230)

Now, both the USA and Belgium directly intervened. The CIA sent in Cuban exile pilots to fly sorties strafing the insurgents. Both countries poured in military advisors, fighter planes, supply planes and various types of arms and equipment. The former colonizer, Belgium, was working with the country which had briefly backed Lumumba, but which now appeared to have imperial aims. After all Congo was rich in mineral wealth, including cobalt and uranium. (ibid)

Belgium and Washington had to intervene directly because the rebellion, by September of 1964, had taken control of one third of Congo. They declared Stanleyville as the seat of their alternative government.  This alternative seat was recognized by several African states as legitimate.  The reason being that they despised Tshombe. (O’Malley, p. 83)

The US and Belgium now set up a mercenary force of 700 soldiers. This force included South Africans and Rhodesians. (Op. Cit. Mahoney) The fact that these white supremacist countries were included shows just how far things had reversed themselves since Kennedy.

Contrary to State Department propaganda, the Simbas were not dedicated communists, or even socialists. What they mostly were was a large collection of farmers. Their standard of living had gotten worse, not better, after Lumumba’s death. Since they saw more of the same coming—and they knew how brutal the Belgians could be-- they now became primitive cutthroats. Not even Che Guevara, who was there for 9 months in 1965, could organize them. (Kwitny, p. 85)

This lack of leadership caused them to make a huge mistake, and then a fateful miscalculation--which made the mistake even worse.

With the army of Tshombe and military commander Josef Mobutu marching on Stanleyville—and the combined force of 700 not far behind—the Simbas decided to stage a mass kidnapping in Stanleyville. They rounded up hundreds of white merchants, missionaries and government officials, including the US consul Mike Hoyt. The total included 59 Americans. (O’Malley, p. 84, Kwitny p. 81). The aim was dual edged.  First as an act of revenge for the Europeans and Americans backing Tshombe, and second as leverage against the advancing Congolese army, called the ANC.  As Jonathan Kwitny has noted, if the USA had not “formed and supplied the white mercenary army, the hostages probably never would have been taken.” (Kwitny, p. 81)

Realizing this very serious threat, Washington and Belgium now recruited thousands more mercenaries—mainly British and Belgian, led by the Brit Colonel Mike Hoare. They united with the ANC to begin to dislodge the rebels, who mostly were followers of Lumumba. This intervention angered many of the African countries in the UN, because the fact remained that this was a civil war: Lumumba had been elected and Tshombe had been appointed. Although the advancing army was billed as a humanitarian  mission, most everyone understood its underlying motive: which was to defeat the last of Lumumba’s followers. (Kwitny, p. 81) To top it off Tshombe declared that the Simba rebellion was actually inspired by China. (Kwitny, p. 79)

And now the mercenary soldiers were being supplied by the USA with C-130 supply planes, C-47 transport planes, B-26 light bombers, T-48 fighters equipped with rockets and machine guns, H-21 helicopters, military ground vehicles, and American combat troops. (Ibid). There is evidence that this mission between Belgium, the USA and England was backgrounded by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and undersecretary Averill Harriman. (O’Malley, p. 85)

An indication of what the true aim of this odd alliance really was is this: there was no agreement to even talk about a cease fire. This is what the rebels requested before negotiations for the hostages could begin.  As anyone could see, with that request not met and Hoare’s army advancing toward Stanleyville, the situation escalated. Since, for the first time, the Simbas began to be pushed back. (ibid, p. 86)

Several US nationals were now placed on trial in Stanleyville. They were declared guilty and sentenced to execution beneath a statue of Lumumba. The only way their execution could be stopped was by calling a halt to the ANC procession on Stanleyville. (State Department telegram of 11/19/64) But that was not going to happen. In fact, word leaked out that England had allowed Belgian troops to organize an attack from their territory, Ascension Island. This created a public relations debacle throughout Africa. (British cable from Nairobi, 9/13/64) Now, the hostages began to write farewell letters. (O’Malley, p. 87)

There was another attempt at negotiations. But again, this failed when Tshombe and his allies refused to stop the ANC advance. On November 24, 1964—a year after JFK’s death—Operation Dragon Rouge began.  Hundreds of Belgian paratroopers were dropped at the Stanleyville airfield by C-130 planes.  Some of the hostages were shot, others tried to escape.  Reportedly about thirty white hostages were killed.(Kwitny, p. 81). No one knows how many of the Simbas, and Lumumba’s followers, were killed.  Some estimates go as high as 10,000 or more. (Lise Namikas, Battleground Africa, p. 208)

The impact of Dragon Rouge in Africa was quite deleterious.  And it was made all the worse by the continued deception about the real aim of the mission. The USA even tried to deny it was involved. (State Dept. telegram of 11/27/64; Kwitny, p. 82) Algerian leader Ben Bella responded to this by saying,  that the “pretext of hostages would deceive no one.” (British cable from Algiers, 11/25/64) The leaders of Africa accused all involved of intervening in what was a civil war, and this intervention had a racist tinge to it. The African states secured a UN resolution condemning Western policy in Congo. That resolution was accompanied by protests from around the world. In the United Arab Republic the US Information Service Library was torched; in Nairobi, crowds chanted calls for President Johnson to be executed. (New York Times, 11/28/64)

It all ended in a military coup in November of 1965. The five year struggle, from the declaration of Congo as a free country, to the murder of Lumumba, the death of Hammarskjold, and the assassination of Kennedy, this had been reversed and then neutralized by those who came after JFK. Josef Mobutu’s seizure of power was recognized by Washington within a week. And there were reports that he was encouraged, and even aided, by the USA and Belgium.(O’Malley, p. 96) Mobutu ruled Congo for the next three decades. He sacked the country of hundreds of millions and built himself various resorts, and purchased properties abroad.(Kwitny, pp. 97-98; The Independent, 5/16/97)

Congo never recovered from those three murders. It is classified as a ‘least developed country’ by the UN. Due to wars and civil strife over 600,000 have fled the country.  Fighting has displaced over four million and two million children are at risk to starvation. This from a nation that was one of the richest in all Africa.

 And this is why Lumumba, Hammarskjold and Kennedy are heroes to this day in Africa. In fact, the journal West Africa declared that, “Not even the death of Dag Hammarskjold dismayed Africans as much as did the death of John Kennedy.” (Philip E. Muehlenbeck, Betting on the Africans, p. 229)

Years after his death, in Accra, an American diplomat showed a documentary about Kennedy. The screen was placed in the middle of the town square. To his surprise, thousands showed up sitting on all sides to see the film. (Ibid, p. 238).  For years on end, the president of Cameroon kept a picture of JFK in the reception area of his presidential compound.  When he would escort a guest into his office he would point to the photo and comment, “Well, there’s my hero.” (Muehlenbeck, p. 233)

As we have seen, all of that died at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Operation Dragon Rouge, and the events that led up to it, epitomize that sea change.