Nov 2, 2023
In late 1960 the Congo crisis was front-page news. Photographers
and newsreels captured the humiliating arrest and imprisonment of
the newly independent country's ousted prime minister, Patrice
Lumumba. In January 1961, his domestic political enemies murdered
Lumumba in a remote clearing. What the world did not know at the
time was the role the Eisenhower administration had played in
backing the coup d'etat to topple Congo's first
democratically-elected leader while covertly supporting the army
officer who would then rule Congo for more than three decades,
Mobutu. Also secret in late summer 1960 was Eisenhower's decision
to have Lumumba assassinated, although multiple CIA killers never
got to him. In this episode, Stuart Reid, the author of "The
Lumumba Plot" discusses the enduring importance of a largely
forgotten Cold War drama, part of a transformative period for the
CIA as well as the United Nations, with utterly tragic consequences
for the people of Africa.