Completed: January 28, 2024
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody
Words for which I sought help:
bindle -- a bundle of clothes or bedding (it is probably not fully apt, but I thought of this as the collection of things that a stereotypical hobo carried on the end of a stick)
Review:
This is a story a little bit about the CIA and a little bit about an assassination, but it is not an assassination by the CIA. More than anything thing else, this is a history of the early days of a free Congo. Yes, the CIA was involved. So were the Belgians. In fact, far too many countries were involved. Thus, the book is a good book describing how the Congo stopped being part of the Belgian empire (as a colony) and started to become a nation ruled by a strong man (of course, not Lumumba or there would be no assassination). In the end, however, Lumumba is assassinated by a rival and that was only really possible because of the involvement of the CIA in general and the United States funds (via both the CIA and the State Department) in coordination with the United Nations and the Belgians. It did happen during the cold war. This is a fascinating story in its own right, it is just the title that is largely misleading. Of course, the title is not fully misleading. The way that foreigners treated the leaders of the Congo both before and after the transition from colony is pretty awful. The new leaders of the Congo were hamstrung from the get by the Belgians whose job was, at least in part, to facilitate a transition but who really had no interest in giving up their colony. Thus, people who were wholly unprepared and faithlessly mislead were left holding the bag. This devolved into a cult of personality and eventually lead to rampant death and torture. The CIA definitely had a hand, but its plans were not carried out directly.
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