Another overlooked factor in JFK’s notorious assassination in 1963 was his advocacy and support for African independence against the post-colonial power structures still present on the African continent under the guise of private corporations (The East India Company was a “private” corporation and spearheaded colonialism in India, for example). The CIA acted independently of the President, instead favouring the interests of private money, this was one of the biggest points of friction faced by JFK during his presidency; a deadly, cold-blooded rogue institution.
Susan Williams in her book White Malice shows how the CIA plotted with businesspeople who stood to benefit from pro-Western African governments in both the Congo and Ghana.
Despairing of the CIA’s disproportionate influence, John F. Kennedy famously described his desire to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds,” much to his peril.
JFK’s presidency emerged during a critical period in history; The decolonisation of Africa, some number of decades after the “Scramble for Africa”. This was a process that took place in the mid-to-late 1950s to 1975 during the Cold War, with radical government changes on the continent as colonial governments made the transition to independent states. The “transition” of course, was largely a bluff, and colonial powers sought to retain de facto control over their former possessions in all but name. JFK stood in the way of this by supporting real independence and self-determination for the African states.
Kennedy’s interest in ending colonialism and supporting the struggle for self-determination, which first attracted national attention in the 1950s as a result of his speeches attacking French colonialism in Vietnam and Algeria, extended as well to the struggles for independence in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1958, the State Department first established a Bureau of African Affairs and the following year, Kennedy became chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
During the 1960 campaign Kennedy repeatedly faulted the Eisenhower administration for neglecting “the needs and aspirations of the African people” and stressed that the U.S. should be on the side of anti-colonialism and self-determination. Kennedy learned during that campaign summer that a group of Kenyan students who had won scholarships to study at American universities were unable to raise the funds to cover their travel expenses to the U.S. When the Eisenhower administration refused to intervene, JFK arranged to have the Kennedy family foundation underwrite their travel. The airlift received a great deal of national and international attention.
President Kennedy recognized, in the ever-present context of Cold War politics, that Africa was on the cusp of a historic revolution; if the U.S. continued to side with the colonialists there was no doubt which side would be chosen by the Soviet Union. Kennedy was particularly careful about selecting skilled and open-minded ambassadors to the newly emerging independent African states and made a special effort to personally meet with them during their periodic consultations at the State Department.
Unfortunately, Kennedy’s somewhat idealistic notions about Africa’s potential for democracy soon came into direct conflict with the Soviet Union’s effort to expand its influence throughout the African continent. The Congo had become independent from Belgium in 1960 and was almost immediately torn apart by what President Kennedy described as “civil strife, political unrest and public disorder.” Former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba had been murdered early in 1961 despite the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping force; Moïse Tshombe, leader of Katanga Province, declared its independence from the Congo and the Soviet Union responded by sending weapons and technicians to underwrite their struggle. Khrushchev even charged that the U.N. had been involved in Lumumba’s murder and was covertly trying to prop up Africa’s dying colonial regimes. The bloody struggle, exacerbated by Cold War tensions and the 1961 death of U.N. secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld in a Congo plane crash, continued well into the 1960s.
JFK also employed very effective personal diplomacy, inviting more than two-dozen African leaders to the White House during his brief presidency. In each case, Kennedy made clear that he was committed to African nationalism and independence. He repeatedly surprised many of his African visitors by declaring that he understood their professed need to remain neutral in the Cold War. He also expressed the hope that the United States would eventually win them over by example, rather than by words alone.
The independence of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo is widely considered to be the richest country in the world regarding natural resources; its untapped deposits of raw minerals are estimated to be worth in excess of U.S. $24 trillion.
Belgium set 30 June 1960 as the date of independence for its colony Congo, and national elections for May 1960. Patrice Lumumba’s party won the election and formed the new government with Lumumba as the Congo’s first prime minister, and Joseph Kasavubu as the first president. Yet, dark schemes were afoot in Brussels to deprive the new African state from its independence, its wealth, and its very survival. The CIA arranged for a coup against Lumumba by Congo’s Army Chief of Staff, Colonel Mobutu in September 1960.
On 17 January 1960, Lumumba was assured by two Congolese leaders he trusted that he could return safely to his position as prime minister in Leopoldville. But it was a trick, and he and two other officers were tortured on a five-hour flight to Katanga Province where they were brutalized more and then executed.
Lumumba’s assassination is remembered today as one of the low points of the early years of African independence, but a lacking documentary record has allowed partisan investigators to minimize the CIA’s role. It’s a failure of accountability that has allowed the agency to appear blameless while reinforcing a fatalistic view of African history, as if the murder of an elected official was merely another terrible thing that “just happened” to a people utterly unprepared for the challenge of independence.
But, as Williams shows, the CIA was actually one of the chief architects of the plot. Only days after Lumumba’s visit to Ghana, Larry Devlin, the agency’s leading man in the Congo, warned his bosses of a vague takeover plot involving the Soviets, Ghanaians, Guineans, and the local Communist Party. It was “difficult [to] determine major influencing factors,” he said. Despite a complete lack of evidence, he was certain the “decisive period” when the Congo would align itself with the Soviet Union was “not far off.” Soon after, President Dwight D. Eisenhower verbally ordered the CIA to assassinate Lumumba.
The CIA’s agents did not, in the end, man the firing squad to kill Lumumba. But as Williams makes clear, that distinction is minor when one considers everything else the agency did to assist in the murder. After inventing and disseminating the bogus conspiracy plot of a pro-Soviet takeover, the CIA leveraged its multitude of sources in Katanga to provide intelligence to Lumumba’s enemies, making his capture possible. They helped to deliver him to the Katanga prison where he was held before his execution. Williams even cites a few lines from a recently declassified CIA expense report to show that Devlin, the station chief, ordered one of his agents to visit the prison not long before the bullets were fired.
The CIA’s destabilising influence altogether “contributed to the objective of keeping the whole of the Congo under America’s influence and guarding the Shinkolobwe mine against Soviet incursion.” Perpetuating a policy of neocolonialism against foreign major powers who, too, vied for control over the African continent.
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