Secret Services in The Congo

CIA in the Congo By Godfrey Mwakikagile
Note of Victor E. Rosez: This is not completely correct, I refer to the papers of Pierre Davister
Mobutu did this and put the blame of the massacre on Lumumba. Pierre Davister told him
to never mention this publically this was a part of a well-constructed purpose to demonize
Lumumba with the intention to remove him from his post as Prime-Minister.
Note of Victor E. Rosez: one had to consider that the same advisor of Mobutu,
Pierre Davister, organized the High-Jacking of the plane of Tshombe on the
order of Mobutu, kidnapping which was executed by Bodenan.
A la dcouverte dune page de lhistoire politique du Congo Kinshasa :

Chapitre documents du massacre de Bakwanga
Pierre Davister ,Kestergat,Brassinne,Dr Kamanyi, Dr Mpuila
Documents privs de Victor Rosez
1)
Bonjour Zacharie,
Comment va?
Veux-tu bien mettre sur le site que l'Udps-Canada vient de crer, la confirmation
que j'apporte dans mon petit texte ci-aprs l'intention du Dr Kamanyi, en
appui la mise au point du Dr Mpuila sur le massacre de Bakwanga?
Cela parce que je ne suis pas connect au site "groupes Kasa Yahoo" anim par
Kasonga Zadain Bruxelles. Au fait le Dr Mpuila dmontre (rfrence l'appui)
que c'est Mobutu qui avait command l'opration de ces massacres, l'insu de
Lumumba.
Bonjour Dr Kamanyi,
Notre souci tous c'est justement de connatre la vrit sur des faits historiques
marquants de notre pays.
Je confirme la mise au point faite par le Dr Mpuila par rapport au massacre de
Bakwanga.
En effet, plus d'un document que nous avions lu au sein de la commission des
assassinats politiques de la CNS l'attestent. Je rappelle que j'tais le rapporteur
gnral de cette commission, avant de me faire remplacer par le Dr Kabamba
Mbwebwe, la suite de ma nomination comme membre du gouvernement
Tshisekedi.
Il importe de retenir par ailleurs qu' l'issue des dits massacres, Mobutu s'en
flicitait devant Pierre Davister en ces termes :
"Je les ai (les Baluba) massacrs comme des mouches".

Et Davister va ragir en demandant son interlocuteur de ne plus jamais rpter
cela qui risquait de ddouaner Lumumba de ce drame, dont la communaut
internationale tenait mordicus lui faire porter les responsabilits, (pour pouvoir
bien sr acclrer le processus de son limination physique).
Words of Mobutu:
"I slain them (Balubas) like flies."
Davister will respond to Mobutu by asking him for never repeat this openly because this
could erase the fault and responsabilities of Lumumba in this tragedy, the international
community was determined that Lumumba must bear these responsibilities (to accelerate
the course of his physical elimination ).
Voil ce que j'en sais et qui me parat vridique.

Bonne journe.
P.G. Kapita Shabangi.
2)
Dans plusieurs cas dassassinats massifs ayant endeuill le peuple congolais
pendant la priode trouble des indpendances, trs souvent le nom de Patrice
Emery Lumumba sy est toujours retrouv ml tort ou travers. Et parmi les
cas les plus frappants, se trouve les massacres de Bakwanga o plusieurs peuples
balubas furent massacrs par les troupes de lAnc. Selon les historiens, les
Nations Unies avaient t amen qualifier ces massacres du vritable gnocide.
Le docteur Franois Tshipamba Mpuila nous livre le fruit de ses recherches qui
incrimine feu prsident Mobutu cit comme celui ayant ordonn tous ces
massacres.
Le docteur Franois Tshipamba Mpuila nous livre sa rflexion sur lidentit du
vrai et du seul auteur du drame congolais depuis laccession du pays
lindpendance jusqu la veille de lentre des hommes de Laurent Dsir
Kabila Kinshasa.
Se considrant lui-mme comme lhomme seul, effectivement la lecture de ces
diffrents ouvrages cits par le docteur Franois Tshipamba Mpuila , feu
Marchal Mobutu a toujours agi seul dans toutes ses actions tant politiques,
scuritaires que celles ayant conduit des assassinats.
Massacres de Bakwanga : Rhabilitation de Patrice Emery Lumumba

Jusqu ce jour, nombreux Baluba originaires du Kasa Oriental (Congo/Kinshasa) dont je
suis originaire moi-mme - sont convaincus que cest M. Patrice Emery Lumumba, en sa
qualit du Premier Ministre et du Ministre de la Dfense du Premier Gouvernement
Congolais (1960) qui avait ordonn lenvoi des troupes de lArme Nationale Congolaise
(A.N.C.) dans le Sud-Kasa Scessionniste pour rduire la Scession et massacrer les Baluba.
LONU avait mme qualifi ces massacres dun vritable gnocide.
Ces massacres sont notamment la base dune hostilit sculaire tacite, latente ou parfois
ouverte entre les Baluba et les Batetela.
Est-ce que cette conviction est fonde sur les faits historiques rels et irrfutables ou
sommes- nous, nous tous, victimes et otages dune manipulation et dune falsification
historique ?
A notre niveau des cadres du pays, amis de la vrit et ses vecteurs ainsi que phares,
encadreurs et mobilisateurs de nos populations, nous ne devons pas nous contenter des
conjectures, des rumeurs, des vrits approximatives ni accepter de cheminer dans la
cohorte des victimes et otages de la manipulation et de lintoxication falsificatrice,
mensongre et meurtrire, do quelle vienne et qui entretient et vhicule tort des
haines, des divisions et des conflits latents ou ouverts dans la population favorables aux
intrts des ennemis internes et externes de notre Peuple et de notre Patrie.
Nous avons le devoir dinterroger lhistoire, de faire la relecture des faits, de recouper les
faits, de restaurer la vrit historique et daider nos populations dcouvrir et connatre
la vrit, adopter des comportements consquents et tisser des relations fondes sur
cette vrit objective.
Nombreux auteurs affirment que la responsabilit des massacres de Bakwanga incombe
Mobutu qui avait ordonn lopration et non Patrice Emery Lumumba. Je cite, ici, parmi
ces auteurs, les auteurs ci-aprs : Jacques Brassinne, Jean Kestergat, Pierre Davister et
Jules Chom.
Voici ce qui est crit dans le livre de MM. Jacques Brassinne et Jean Kestergat, intitul Qui
a tu Patrice Lumumba ? (Editions Duculot, 1991), p. 55 :
En ralit la principale responsabilit du massacre repose probablement sur Mobutu, qui
tait chef dtat-major. Certes, il na srement pas ordonn les massacres, mais cest lui
qui a organis lopration, se vantant dailleurs de lavoir fait seul, en dehors de tout
conseiller militaire. M. Pierre Davister, confident privilgi du colonel Mobutu, a confi
lpoque lun des auteurs de ce livre, Jean Kestergat, que Mobutu avait dit avoir organis
tout seul lopration. A quoi Davister rpondit : Joseph, ne te vante jamais de cela. Le
Conseil fut entendu.
Mais la seule responsabilit est celle dune troupe indiscipline qui va dailleurs se mutiner
nouveau aprs la reprise de Bakwanga. On la vu dj.
Cest le mme Mobutu qui avait dcrt le cessez-le-feu au Katanga lorsque les troupes de
lA.N.C. taient en train de rduire la Scession katangaise.
M. Jules Chom laffirme dans son livre intitul Lascension de Mobutu , p. 57-58
(Editions complexe, 1974) :
Cest le colonel Mobutu qui ordonnera le cessez-le-feu. Son biographe, Francis Monheim
(Mobutu seul, p.. 115) le reconnat expressment en ce qui concerne les oprations au
Sud-Kasa : Sans consulter personne, il donne lordre ses troupes de revenir
Lopoldville. Le Commandant en Chef, Lundula, ignorait tout. Se trouvant Luluabourg, il
voit donc revenir ses hommes Il se rend aussitt dans la capitale et va voir Lumumba.
Celui-ci, tout entier sa confrence des Etats Africains, ignore tout de la dcision de
Mobutu. Il convoque son chef dtat-major :
Je suis ministre de la Dfense nationale, dit-il Mobutu, et je ne suis au courant de rien.
Vous, vous ntes quun simple colonel et vous ordonnez le cessez-le-feu sans mme
consulter votre commandant en chef, le gnral Lundula.
Lundula ntait pas Lo, rpond Mobutu, je ne pouvais donc pas le consulter. Quant
moi, jai pris mes responsabilits.
Le coup dEtat militaire du 24 novembre 1965 et ltablissement de la dictature : Mobutu
vers la conqute du pouvoir absolu
Non seulement cest Mobutu qui tait le Vrai Matre de la situation politique, militaire et
scuritaire du Congo depuis 1960, mais il devenait aussi le Matre absolu, officiel et public
de son avenir :
Davister, quelques semaines aprs le coup dEtat, la affirm : Lavenir du Congo
devenait mobutiste (Spcial, 3 fvrier 1966).
Bref : Il existe trop de faits et trop de textes selon lesquels cest Mobutu qui, depuis 1960
jusquen 1997 (le 16 mai 1997 : la dfaite militaire de larme de Mobutu et la fuite de
Mobutu vers le Maroc via le Togo) tait le Vrai Matre de la situation au Congo (politique,
militaire, conomique, scuritaire). Cest lui qui ordonnait les oprations militaires, qui
les organisait, qui ordonnait le cessez-le-feu sans se rfrer ni au Prsident de la
Rpublique, ni Premier Ministre, ni au Ministre de la Dfense, ni au Commandant en Chef
de lArme :
1) Faits :
- Coup dEtat militaire du 14 septembre 1960 contre les institutions tatiques issus de la
Loi Fondamentale et neutralisation des gouvernants dmocratiquement issus aux
lections de 1960 ;
- Rquisition des Etudiants Congolais de partout pour former le Gouvernement des Etats
Gnraux ;
- Soutien M. Tshombe, la Scession katangaise et sa consolidation contre tous ceux
qui voulaient la rduire ;
- Appel des Mercenaires pour tenter de rduire la rvolte arme et populaire arme
conduite par MM. Pierre Mulele et Gaston Soumialot pour tenter de restaurer la lgitimit
issue des lections de Mai 1960 ;
- Coup dEtat militaire du 24 novembre 1965
3)
In het web van Mobutu.

De ontvoering van Mose Tshombe in juni 1967 is een van de onopgeloste
politieke misdaden van de twintigste eeuw. Niemand lijkt nog genteresseerd in
de Congolese leider. Behalve de documentairemaker Bert Govaerts, die een
nieuwe poging ondernam om de zaak uit te spitten.
In 2003 zond Histories al een documentaire uit over de Congolese politicus Mose
Tshombe, die president werd van het ,,onafhankelijke'' Katanga, een staat die
niemand wilde erkennen. Het programma eindigde toen met het einde van de
Katangese secessie, in januari 1963, en het begin van Tshombe's eerste
ballingschap.
De nieuwe documentaire begint bij zijn wonderbaarlijke comeback in de
Congolese politiek in 1964. Omdat er complete chaos dreigde, werd Tshombe
teruggehaald. Zijn populariteit steeg zienderogen en hij won in 1965 zonder veel
moeite de eerste ,,democratische'' parlementsverkiezingen. Dat was niet naar de
zin van president Kasavubu, die Tshombe met een juridische smoes opzijschoof.
Kort daarna greep generaal Joseph Mobutu de macht.
Vanuit Spanje organiseerde Tshombe het militaire verzet tegen Mobutu, maar
de operatie mislukte en Mobutu liet hem ter dood veroordelen. Op 27 juni 1967
maakte Tshombe met de Franse ,,zakenman'' Francis Bodenan een uitstapje

naar Ibiza. Op de terugweg kaapte Bodenan zijn eigen vlieguig en dwong de
piloten om koers te zetten naar Algerije. In Algiers werden alle inzittenden
gearresteerd. Na twee jaar huisarrest bezweek Tshombe er aan een hartaanval.
De dader van de ontvoering is bekend, Francis Bodenan, maar men weet niet wie
zijn opdrachtgevers waren. Govaerts dook in het Tshombe-dossier van de
Belgische Staatsveiligheid en sprak met Larry Devlin, lange tijd chef van het
CIA-station in Congo, die alle betrokkenheid ontkent. Hij reisde naar Algerije,
maar de autoriteiten weigerden er elke medewerking en hij kreeg geen
inreisvisum om de getuigen te ondervragen. ,,De huidige president Bouteflika
was destijds als minister van Buitenlandse Zaken dan ook nauw bij de zaak
betrokken'', zegt Govaerts.
Het vliegtuigje vond hij wel terug. De Hawker-Siddeley HS-125 staat al vele
jaren aan de ketting te rotten op het vliegveld van Lagos. ,,Leuk voor de
reconstructie van de kidnapping'', stelt Govaerts, die de volledige waarheid niet
boven water heeft gekregen.
In zijn zoektocht dook wel meermaals de figuur van wijlen Pierre Davister op,
een oud-journalist van het Franstalige weekblad Pourquoi Pas en uitgever van
het weekblad Spcial . Hij was een vertrouweling van Tshombe, maar na de
machtsgreep van Mobutu veranderde hij het geweer van schouder.
,,Hij had er alle belang bij dat Mobutu aan de macht bleef, zodat hij in Congo
zijn media-imperium verder kon uitbouwen'', stelt Govaerts.
Enkele opmerkelijke ontmoetingen doen vermoeden dat Pierre Davister de opdracht
gaf voor de kidnapping.
Uit De Standaard, 29 september 2005
Lien: biographie partielle Pierre Davister:

http://archives.lesoir.be/le-congo-devient-zaire-le-peuple-chante-et-danse-pour-l_t-19970520-Z0DQMP.html
et autres:
http://archive.indymedia.be/news/2002/11/38741.html
FRUS, 19641968, Vol. XXIII
CIAs Covert Operations in the Congo, 19601968:

Insights from Newly Declassified Documents
David Robarge
A comprehensive
set of primary sources
about CIA activities in
the Congo has not been
available until now.
From 1960 to 1968, CIA conducted a series of fast-paced, multifaceted

covert action (CA) operations in the
newly independent Republic of the
Congo (the Democratic Republic
of the Congo today) to stabilize the
government and minimize communist
influence in a strategically vital, resource-rich location in central Africa.
The overall programthe largest in
the CIAs history up until thencomprised activities dealing with regime
change, political action, propaganda,
air and marine operations, and arms
interdiction, as well as support to a
spectacular hostage rescue mission.
By the time the operations ended,
CIA had spent nearly $12 million
(over $80 million today) in accomplishing the Eisenhower, Kennedy,
and Johnson administrations objective of establishing a pro-Western
leadership in the Congo. President Joseph Mobutu, who became permanent
head of state in 1965 after serving
in that capacity de facto at various
times, was a reliable and staunchly
anticommunist ally of Washingtons
until his overthrow in 1997.
es in the State Departments Foreign

Relations of the United States (FRUS)
series, and random items on the
Internet and in other compilations, a
comprehensive set of primary sources
about CIA activities in the Congo
has not been available until now.
FRUS, 19641968, Volume XXIII,
Congo, 196019681 is the newest
in a series of retrospective volumes
from the State Departments Office
of the Historian (HO) to compensate
for the lack of CA-related material
in previously published collections
about countries and time periods
when CIA covert interventions were
an indispensable, and often widely
recognized, element of US foreign
policy.a
Some elements of the program,

particularly the notorious assassination plot against Prime Minister
Patrice Lumumba that was extensively recounted in 1975 in one of
the Church Committees reports,
have been described in open sources.
However, besides the documentary
excerpts in that report, limited releas-
a. The first intelligence-related retrospective volume was FRUS, 19521954,

Guatemala (Government Printing Office,
2003). It contained documents about the
CIAs regime-change operations there that
were not in FRUS, 19521954, Volume IV,
American Republics (Government Printing
Office, 1983). Forthcoming collections on
intelligence will deal with the 1953 coup
in Iran and the US Intelligence Community
during 195561.
After scholars, the media, and

some members of Congress pilloried HO for publishing a volume on
Iran for 195154 that contained no
documents about the CIA-engineered
regime-change operation in 1953,2
Congress in October 1991 passed a
statute mandating that FRUS was to
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of
the author. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying US
government endorsement of its factual statements and interpretations.
Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

Congo, 19601968 provides essential material for understanding how the United States and its Congolese allies
prevented the Bloc feast from happening.
be a thorough, accurate, and reliable
documentary record of major United
States foreign policy decisions and
significant United States diplomatic
activity and ordering other departments, agencies, and other entities of
the United States Government[to]
cooperate with the Office of the Historian by providing full and complete
access to the records pertinent to
United States foreign policy decisions and actions and by providing
copies of selected records older than
25 years.3
Notwithstanding the new law and
DCI R. James Woolseys pledge in
1993 to seek declassification review
of 11 covert actions, including in
the Congo, the two FRUS volumes
published in the early 1990s on that
country for 1958 through 1963 contained very few documents about the
Agencys CA operations thereeven
on the Lumumba assassination plot.4
In the case of the first volume, the
FRUS editors decided not to delay
publication by seeking additional
records under the access requirements of the just-enacted FRUS law.
In the second, HO and CIA were still
working out how to implement those
requirements, taking into account the
Agencys concerns about protecting
sources and methods and the fact
that its records management practices were not designed to facilitate
scholarly research. Serious interagency difficulties over HO access to and
CIA review of CA-related documents
arose over the next few years but
were mostly resolved by the early
2000s in an interagency agreement.
The new procedures in that agreement facilitated the completion of the
volume discussed here, which was

held up after HOs outside advisory
committee in 1997 questioned the
completeness and accuracy of the
previous collections on the Congo.
HO originally conceived Congo,
19601968 as a volume documenting US policy during the Johnson
presidency, but, at the committees
suggestion, it postponed publication
to incorporate relevant CA material
missing from previous compendia.
The collection is well worth the
wait, and specialists are making
use of it already.a In no other single
source will scholars find a richer
compilation of intelligence and
policy documents that, when used
in conjunction with the two earlier
volumes, helps underscore why the
fate of the Congo, as well as the other
newly independent nations in Africa,
drew so much attention from US national security decisionmakers then.
Before 1960, when, in British Prime
Minister Harold Macmillans famous
phrase, the wind of change began
blowing over the continent, the Soviet Union, China, and their proxies
had paid little attention to it.
By early 1965, however, communist countries had established over
100 diplomatic, consular, and trade
a. On 4 March 2014, HO and the Cold War
International History Project cosponsored
a half-day symposium at the Woodrow
Wilson Center titled New Evidence: The
Congo Crisis and Its Aftermath, 19601968 and featuring the new volume.
This reviewer was one of the participants.
Details can be found on the Wilson Center
website at http://www.wilsoncenter.
org/event/new-evidence-the-congo-crisis-and-aftermath-1960-1968.
missions; extended over $850 million

in economic grants and credits; set
up front organizations, cover entities,
agents of influence, and clandestine
assets; and provided assistance to
anti-Western groups directly and
through their allies. The Congoformerly a Belgian colony, one-quarter
the size of the United States, with
immense natural wealth and strategically situated in a now-contested
regionwas a Cold War prize of the
first order. If Congo deteriorates and
Western influence fades rapidly, the
chief of CIAs Africa Division (AF)
wrote in June 1960, 10 days before
the Congo gained its independence,
the Bloc will have a feast and will
not need to work very hard for it.5
Congo, 19601968 provides
essential material for understanding
how the United States and its Congolese allies prevented the feast from
happening. The volume contains 582
documents and editorial notes and
is divided roughly into two sections.
The first, covering 1960 to 1963,
depicts the Congos political crisis
and the extensive influence of CIA
covert actions to remove Lumumba
from power and then to encourage
allegiance to the Leopoldville governmentespecially the pervasive
use of money to buy loyalties within
leadership circles. The second part,
covering 1964 to 1968, describes
the continuation of the political
action programs and the expansion
of paramilitary and air support to the
Congolese government in its effort to
quell provincial rebellions, some of
them communist-aided.
Over one-third of the sources in
the volume are from CIA, and over
40 percent pertain to CA (the rest are
about diplomacy, policy, and military
matters). A number of the editorial

notes usefully summarize heavily

redacted documents or paraphrase
intelligence information that otherwise might not have survived the
review process in raw form. In both
the documents and the notes, the
editors helpfully have used bracketed
insertions to indicate names, titles, or
agencies in place of cryptonyms that
were not declassified. Similarly, in
cases when more than one individual
whose name cannot be declassified is
mentioned in a document, they have
been designated as [Identity 1],
[Identity 2], and so forth for claritya much better procedure than
repetitively using [less than one line
declassified].
A More Nuanced View

of the Situation
The documents from early 1960 at
the inception of the covert program
show CIAs nuanced view of the
Congos unsettled internal situation
and the Agencys fashioning of sensible operational objectives to achieve
the Eisenhower administrations goal
of regime change.6 President Dwight
Eisenhower clearly expressed his disquiet over developments in postcolonial Africa at a meeting with senior
advisers in August 1960:
The President observed that
in the last twelve months, the
world has developed a kind of
ferment greater than he could
remember in recent times.
The Communists are trying to
take control of this, and have
succeeded to the extent that
in many cases [people] are now
saying that the Communists are
thinking of the common man
while the United States is ded-
icated to supporting outmoded

regimes.7
CIA operations officers understood the challenges facing them
as they dealt with a population of
14million divided into over 200
ethnic groups and four major tribes,
with fewer than 20 Congolese college
graduates in the entire country, led
by a government heavily dependent
on the former Belgian colonialists to
maintain infrastructure, services, and
security, with an army that was poorly trained, inadequately equipped,
and badly led, and a fractured
political structure consisting of four
semi-autonomous regions and a weak
and factious central government in
the capital of Leopoldville (Kinshasa
today). The US ambassador in the
early 1960s, Clare Timberlake, sympathized with the Agency officers he
worked with: Every time I look at
this truly discouraging mess, I shudder over the painfully slow, frustrating and costly job ahead for the UN
and US if the Congo is to really be
helped. On the other hand, we cant
let go of this bulls tail.8
One of the most valuable contributions Congo, 19601968 is likely
to make is moving scholarship past
its prevailing fixation on Lumumba and toward an examination of
CIAs multiyear, multifarious covert
program and the complexities of
planning and implementing it. The
volume provides additional detail
about the assassination plot against
Lumumba and his eventual death at
the hands of tribal rivals abetted by
their Belgian allies, substantiating the
findings of a Belgian parliamentary
inquiry in 2001.a9 Beyond that, for
a. The inquiry concluded that Belgium
wanted Lumumba arrested and, not being
students of intelligence operations,

the collection demonstrates the wide
range of soft and hard covert
initiatives CIA undertook in an often
rapidly changing operational environment.
CIAs program initially focused
on removing Lumumba, not only
through assassination if necessary but
also with an array of nonlethal undertakings that showed the Agencys
clear understanding of the Congos
political dynamics. The activities
included contacts with oppositionists
who were working to oust Lumumba
with parliamentary action; payments
to army commander Mobutu to
ensure the loyalty of key officers and
the support of legislative leaders;
street demonstrations; and black
broadcasts from a radio station in
nearby Brazzaville, across the border
in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, to encourage a revolt against
Lumumba.
After Lumumba fled house arrest
in the capital in late November 1960
and was tracked down and killed
soon after,10 Agency CA concentrated on stabilizing and supporting
the government of President Joseph
Kasavubu and Prime Ministers
Cyrille Adoula and Moise Tshombe,
with Mobutu as behind-the-scenes
power broker. CIA used an extensive
assortment of covert techniques to
accomplish that objective:
particularly concerned with his physical

well-being, took no action to prevent his
death even though it knew he probably
would be killed. The report specifically
denied that the Belgian government ordered
Lumumbas murder but that Belgian
advisers to Lumumbas enemies assisted in
making it happen.

Documents in the collection show that CIAs political program was strategically coordinated with overt policies.
Advice and subsidies to political
and tribal leaders.
Funds to Mobutu to buy the allegiances of army officers through
salary subsidies and purchases of
ordnance and communications
and transportation equipment.
Payments to agents of influence in
the Adoula administration and to
sources in the leftist opposition.
Parliamentary maneuvering aided
by covert money.
Contacts with labor unions and
student associations.
Newspaper subsidies, radio broadcasts, leaflet distributions, and
street demonstrations.
Efforts to influence delegations
from the United Nations (UN) to
adopt positions that favored the
Congolese government.11
The CIAs program persisted
through several political crises in
the Congo during 196263 and at
least can be credited with helping
the government survive them. As of
mid-1964, however, the US strategic
goal of bringing about a broad-based
governing coalition with national
appeal remained unaccomplished.
The replacement of Adoula with
Tshombe, who led a different faction,
in July 1964 prompted a suspension
of political action efforts while the
new government established itself
and soon became preoccupied with
putting down rebel uprisings. By
August, insurgents controlled over
one-sixth of the country, and the
Agency redirected most resources
to reinforcing and rebuilding tribal

allegiances in contested areas and indirectly assisting the Congolese army
by funding mercenaries in its employ.
with local leaders. Still, Devlin largely had a free hand, and his skill and
connections were so valuable that
he was brought back as an informal
interlocutor with the Congolese government between his tours. The State
Department noted in 1965 that
For the better part of a year, CIA

opted to promote unity rather than
division by declining Tshombes and
other politicians approaches for individual subsidies. By mid-1965, when
Tshombe and Kasavubu seemed nearly beyond reconciliation, the Agency
tried to resume its previous political
intriguing and buying of access and
influence but became frustrated when
the embassy resisted. US ability to
affect Congolese leaders decisions
has never been lower since departure of Lumumba, Leopoldville Station wrote in late October. A month
later, Mobutuour only anchor to
the windward and the best man
to act as a balance wheel between the
contending political leaders, asserted CIAstaged a bloodless coup and
took over the government.12
from the outset the Congo

operation has had to cope with
successive crises on a crash
basis. The very nature of the
problem has meant that great
reliance had to be placed on
close coordination between the
Ambassador and the Station
Chief in the expenditure of
funds. Both Ambassadors
Guillon and Godley appear to
have had confidence in the CIA
Station Chief and in his conduct
of operations. Although courses
of action have frequently been
discussed between representatives of the Department and
CIA, the bulk of the day to day
operational decisions were taken in the field without reference
to the Department.13
In Concert with US Policy

Documents in the collection show
that CIAs political program was
strategically coordinated with overt
policies and benefited from close cooperation between the chief of station
(COS) and the ambassador, at least at
first, and the COSs back channel to
the Congolese government, particularly with Mobutu. Larry Devlin,
COS from July 1960 to May 1963
and July 1965 to June 1967, had productive relationships with Timberlake
and Edmund Guillon, less so with
G.McMurtrie Godley, who disapproved of the stations machinations
Devlins quasi-ambassadorial
dealings with Mobutu underscored
that the army chief was indispensable to the Congos stability and, by
extension, US policy in the Congo
and sub-Saharan Africa. Devlins
fascinating personal and professional interaction with Mobutu, so
evocatively described in his memoir,
comes through in the official record
as well, as does his indirect influence
on policy decisions in Washington.
The chief of AF wrote in 1967 that
Mobutu had
become accustomed and to
some degree dependent on the
informal channel to the U.S.
Government thus provided ...

[and] would interpret the termination of this relationship

particularly if termination were
more or less coincident with
Devlins [second] departure
as evidence of a desire on the
part of the U.S. Government to
disengage from the close and
friendly relations that have
characterized dealings between
the governments for most of the
period since 1960.
Godleys successor, Robert McBride, whose posting coincided with
Devlins reassignment, even more
strongly disapproved of CIAs private
contacts with Mobutu and other Congolese leaders and quickly took steps
to limit them. Starting from when he
arrived at the embassy, the volume
contains none of the COS-to-Headquarters cables of the kind Devlin
used to send about his talks with
Mobutu because such encounters
were no longer allowed.14
When Mobutu assumed power
officially, the political side of the CA
program was effectively through,
although it did not formally end
until early 1966The objectives
of promoting stability and moderation remain the same, but the means
needed to pursue these objectives
are now different, the chief of AF
wrote thenand a few Congolese
politicians continued receiving
individual payments well into 1968.15
Although Washington had preferred
to achieve its goal of political order
in the Congo through parliamentary
means, with a military strongman
now in power, it had what it wanted:
a relatively stable, nationally based,
politically moderate, pro-Western
government in Leopoldville.a16
a. The US government showed its support
Paramilitary Operations
The primary emphasis of the
CIAs program then shifted to suppressing rebellions in the eastern
provinces through air and maritime
paramilitary operations. Congo,
19601968 contains many documents
that will help scholars appreciate the
difficulties in planning and running
such activities, especially in a vast
territory with very limited communications and transportation infrastructures and proxies of questionable
skill and reliability.
CIAs air operations began
modestly in 1962 as a propaganda
tactic to raise the Congolese governments prestige and demonstrate
its military potential to its citizenry,
provincial secessionist leaders, and
rebel factions. They grew to provide
tactical support to UN peacekeepers,
Congolese forces, and mercenaries
fighting the insurgents. Eventually
the aviation component of the CA
program provided aircraft, pilots, and
maintenance personnel for the socalled Congolese Air Force (CAF),
which existed only because of US
assistance. Through the course of
the program, the CAF had 11 T-6s,
13 T-28s, 7 B-26s, 2 C-45s, 3 C-46s,
3 Bell helicopters, and 1 Beech
twin-engine in its inventory. In total,
six CIA officers ran the operations
in country, aided by 125 contract
maintenance workers employed by
the Congolese government and 79
foreign contract pilots, who flew the
missions because the Congolese were
not reliably trained. Difficulties with
supplies, airfield and living conditions, communications, and mainfor Mobutu very demonstratively in 1966
and 1967 by forewarning him of coup plots
against him, which he quickly put down.
tenance beset the operations, as did

staffing issues: the State Department
was reluctant to approve positions for
Agency personnel, and CIAs Congo
program managers had to compete
with counterparts in Southeast Asia
trying to build their operations there
as the war in Vietnam expanded.17
CIA launched the first significant
CAF air operations in February 1964
against rebels in Kwilu, just north of
Leopoldville. Missions against the
eastern rebels followed in May. The
toughest operations came during late
1965early 1966, after Chinese- and
Cuban-provided weapons and training had improved the rebels fighting
ability. Some of the CAF sorties were
supply airlifts, which the Agency coordinated with the State Department
and the US Air Force. Besides helping suppress the insurgencies, CIAs
aviation program proved vital in the
crackdown Mobutu ordered against
army mutineers in Katanga in August
1966. In March 1966, the National
Security Council (NSC) decided that
the Congo should pay for its own
air force, and the Agency phased out
its involvement during the next 18
months, gradually melding activities
with US Air Force operations.b 18 By
late 1967, the CAF belonged to the
Congolese, who continued, however,
to receive assistance from foreign
workers.
CIA also assisted Mobutus
government in quashing the rebels
by staging maritime operations on
Lake Tanganyika along the Congos
eastern border and Lake Albert in
b. In late 1967, the Johnson administration
authorized CIA to recruit and pay five
pilots for 90 days (with a possible 30-day
extension) to fly missions assisting the Congolese government in quelling an uprising
of mercenaries on the eastern border.

DCI John McCones role in policymaking comes through

clearly in a number of the documents in the volume.
the northeast. Rebels in the region
were ferrying Chinese-supplied arms
across the two lakes and using them
in the ground fighting in the two regions, and the covert activities were
intended to interdict the shipments.
Lake Tanganyika especially was
a difficult environment for Agency personnel. It is the longest and
second-largest fresh-water lake in the
world, stretching for over 400 miles
but with an average width of only
30 miles. Monitoring such a lengthy
coastline was hard when smugglers
could cross the narrow water body
relatively quickly. The first CIA team
deployed to the area in March 1965
and conducted its first patrol in May.
What came to be called the Agencys
pocket navy also staged a successful amphibious landing operation to
deploy Congolese troops against a
rebel enclave.19
To run the maritime activities,
seven Agency operations officers and
one communicator worked with a variety of (initially unreliable) foreign
crewmen and a flotilla of six 21-foot
Seacrafts, one 75-foot trawler, assorted small boats, andafter the lakes
unpredictable weather showed the
need for larger, faster vesselstwo
50-foot Swifts equipped with radar
for night surveillance. The operations
had a psychological impact at first,
intimidating the rebels and inspiring
the Congolese troops, but over time
they largely disrupted the weapons
shipments and, combined with the
Agencys aerial and other activities,
helped tip the tactical balance on the
ground in the governments favor.
In addition to its air and maritime
operations, CIA secured the alle-
giance of tribal chiefs in the northeast

and got their assistance in cutting
off the flow of arms from Sudan and
across Lake Albert from Uganda
by providing them with covert cash
and other forms of aid. The Agency
also assisted with paying foreign
mercenaries if hard currency was not
available locally. As with its support
for the CAF, the Agency gradually
reduced its level of engagement in
maritime activities and in January
1967 turned over its ship inventory
to the Congolese. Acting on NSC
direction, CIA began phasing out
its paramilitary programs in June
1967, withdrawing personnel from
all fronts. After the activities ended
in late 1968, US aid to the Congolese
military only came through the Defense Departments Military Assistance Program.20
In late 1964, CIA had to deploy
some of its paramilitary capabilities
in the Congo to support the rescue of
nearly 2,000 Western hostages rebels
had seized in Stanleyville (Kisangani
today) in August.21 The two dozen
Americans among them included
three CIA and two State Department
officers. For the next four months, the
rebels tormented the hostages while
the US government, African leaders, and the International Red Cross
negotiated for their release.22
CIA and the Pentagon planned
various rescue scenarios without a
good feel for what was happening in
the area. Among the ideas were dropping Belgian paratroopers into Stanleyville from US aircraft; dispatching
an Agency commando team upriver;
letting the Congolese army recapture
the city; and inviting in a mixed force

from several African nations.
Washington decided on the first
and second options. The airborne
assault, codenamed DRAGON
ROUGE, began at dawn on 24November. American C-130 transports
dropped 340 Belgian paracommandos over Stanleyville and landed
another 280 at the airport, with
the CAF providing air cover. The
CIA paramilitary team, which was
supposed to be in the city at the same
time, encountered resistance from
the rebels and arrived a few hours
late. The combined force routed the
hostage-takers, freed their captives,
and secured Stanleyville. The rescuers suffered only nine casualties, but
the rebels killed or wounded several
dozen hostages during the first phase
of the mission. Two days later, the
United States and Belgium cooperated in another operation, DRAGON
NOIR, to rescue nearly 400 Western
hostages held near Paulis, about 240
miles from Stanleyville (CIA was not
involved). After hearing about the attack there, the rebels murdered nearly
30 detainees before the rescuers
arrived. The Johnson administration
then decided not to stage any more
such operations (two others, DRAGON BLANC and DRAGON VERT,
had been planned).23
The DCIs Role

DCI John McCones role in policymaking comes through clearly in
in the volume. A California businessman with some background in
intelligence from previous US government service and, more important,
a reputation as a hard-nosed manager
of large international enterprises, Mc-

Cone came to CIA in late 1961 with

a White House mandate to carefully
watch over covert operations and
avoid another Bay of Pigs debacle.
Beyond that, the new DCI believed
he should not only be the presidents
chief intelligence officer but, when
allowed, should proffer advice on
foreign policy as well.
McCone was not at all reluctant
to do so. He actively participated in
the deliberations of the NSCs covert
action planning group, called the
Special Group and the 303 Committee during the years of the Congo
crisis, and occasionally met with
policymakers (President Lyndon
Johnson among them) separately.
Besides presenting intelligence
information, McCone argued for and
against policy positions on many
issues, including several related to
the Congo. He doubted that negotiations with the rebels were feasible,
opposed suspending air operations
against them to signal a willingness
to parley, and advocated increasing
US aid to Tshombe after he became
prime minister.
McCone strongly believed that
Washington should support Tshombe
despite his use of South African
mercenaries and reputation as a front
man for Belgian economic interests.
I felt we had no choice except to
insure victory for Tshombe, he told
Secretary of State Dean Rusk in
early 1965. I said we should not be
deterred from this by the persuasion
of do-gooders, by reactions from
African states in the United Nations
who didnt like us anyway, or from
the vote in the OAU [Organization of
African Unity].
McCone also aggressively defended CIAs covert activities, rebuffing
The Congo covert action programs had an important organizational impact inside CIA by establishing the reputation and prominence of the new AF Division.
State Department complaints about
the Agencys use of contract pilots
and Ambassador Godleys attempt
to control the disbursement of covert
funds to Congolese politicians.
McCone had also argued in favor
of launching all the hostage-rescue
operations to show that the United
States was engaged in humanitarian
activities and not just propping up
Tshombe and the Congolese army.24
The Congo covert action programs had an important organizational impact inside CIA by establishing
the reputation and prominence of the
new AF Division in the Directorate of
Plans. Formerly paired with the more
important Near East area of operations, AF became a division in 1959
and was less than one year old when
the Congo became a high-priority
CA target. At the time, AF had few
stations in sub-Saharan Africa. Most
had opened during the previous five
years and had very small staffs. As
the State Department noted in 1965,
the Agency started from scratch in
most [African] countries, laboring
under the handicap of the visibility
of the white man, few natural cover
opportunitiesand language and
cultural differences.
The undersized CIA complement at Leopoldville Station, which
opened in 1951, had responsibility
for covering most of equatorial
Africa, an area as large as half of the
United States. The station grew rapidly during the three months after the
Congo became independent, and, as
with the Agencys other facilities on
the continent, the expansion of covert
activities over the next several years
forced its growth. Leopoldville soon
became one of CIAs most import-
ant outposts in sub-Saharan Africa,

which continued to attract significant
attention from policymakers through
the 1960s and after.25
Documents in the volume highlight the prominent role money
played in the CIAs program, not
only during the politically unsettled
years of the Adoula and Tshombe
governments but also after Mobutu
took over. If he and the United States
agreed that he was the indispensable
man, then money became the essential feature of their relationship. In
1965, the State Department observed:
A legitimate question is whether the
wholesale buying of politicalleaders is a sound basis for establishing a
stable government, and it answered
that in the Congo there appears to
have been no feasible alternative.
CIA pointed out in early 1966 that
Mobutu has no political organization which, as an alternative to the U.S. covert funding
program, can provide him with
the funds needed to ensure his
continuation in office. Nor is
there any wealthy managerial
or commercial class to whom he
can turn to finance his political
efforts.
Moreover, as Devlin wrote later that
year,
Cutting off payments to [Mobutu] would almost certainly
be interpreted by him as an
indication that [USG] no
longer supports him. Political
repercussions resulting from
terminatingpayments would
be almost as severe as if [USG]

Over the years, Mobutu proved to be the best geopolitical

friend the United States had on the continent, but he also
turned into one of the worlds most reviled kleptocrats.
were to cut off [international
development] funds.
Although US policymakers wanted to move away from slush funds
and toward genuine development
aid, when Mobutu asked for more
money in late 1968 with few strings
attached, he got it because, according
to the State Department,
significant loss of Agency access and

influence in the Congolese government. COS Leopoldville reported in
late 1968 that he had good rapport
with Mobutu, who remained the
beneficiary of largely open-ended US
support through the Cold War despite
the corruption and profligacy that
were increasingly evident near the
end of the Agencys covert activities.
He is the ultimate source of

power in Congoand ready
access to him is vital if we hope
to continue our long-standing
policy of assisting the Congo
to unity, stability and economic
progress, with the eventual goal
of seeing a stable, western-oriented government in the heart
of Africa. We do not wish to
risk the impairment of access to
him which if it occurred would
very probably be carried over
into contacts throughout the
Congolese Government.26
In mid-1968, Ambassador
McBride warned of the galloping
onset of the gold bed syndrome
vaguely and perhaps deliberately
reminiscent of a figure on the banks
of a more northern river called the
Seine. He was referring to Mobutus
plan to build three replicas of St.
Peters Basilica and five-million
dollar Versailles-like parks and
his purchase of a luxury villa in
Switzerland for 1million Swiss
francs and, for private use, a British
aircraft fitted with bar, salon etc.
and costing two million pounds.a 27
The CIA Board of National

Estimates echoed that view soon
after: Mobutus departure, if sudden,
would probably result in prolonged
political turmoil and a sharp decline
in internal security, not to mention a
That Mobutu has apparently

risen in souffl-like grandiloquence,
a. The amounts mentioned in 2014 dollars
are, respectively, $34.1 million, $1.6 million, and $32.6 million.
in McBrides words,28 did not trouble

Washington then or later. The goals
of CIAs program and US policy were
mostly achieved, although not always
as originally envisioned. Lumumba
was removed from the scene but became a revolutionary martyr and an
inspiration to anticolonial activists in
Africa and elsewhere. Over the years,
Mobutu proved to be the best geopolitical friend the United States had
on the continent, but he also turned
into one of the worlds most reviled
kleptocrats and drove his country
into economic ruin and, ultimately,
political chaos.
The Soviet Union was kept out
of the Congo but soon moved its
anti-Western subversion elsewhere in
the region. CIAs covert activities in
the Congo during the 1960s achieved
success in the short and medium term
but sometimes set in train developments that were not always consistent
with democratic values. Those outcomes, which characterize some but
by no means most of the Agencys
covert action programs, often result
from the policy decisions that follow
the completion of the operations and
are not necessarily inherent in them.
As the documents in Congo, 1960
1968 show so well, CIAs activities
during that time there exemplify that
fact.
vvv

Endnotes
1. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States, 19641968, Volume XXIII, Congo, 19601968
(Government Printing Office, 2013). Quotations from the FRUS volumes in this review are as they appear in print.
2. FRUS, 19521954, Volume X, Iran, 19511954 (Government Printing Office, 1989).
3. The controversy is well recounted in Department of State, Office of the Historian, Toward Thorough, Accurate, and Reliable: A History of the Foreign Relations of the United States Series, chapters 9 and 10, at http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus-history,
accessed 19 May 2014.
4. FRUS, 19581960, Volume XIV, Africa (Government Printing Office, 1992); FRUS, 19611963, Volume XX, Congo Crisis (Government
Printing Office, 1994).
5. Facts and quote from David Robarge, CIA during the Congo Crisis: Political Action and Paramilitary Operations, 19601968, briefing package derived from internal studies and documents and cleared for public use by the CIA Publications Review Board on 6 March
2014.
6. See, among others, documents 4 and 5.
7. FRUS, 19581960, XIV, document 157.
8. Ibid., document 254.
9. Documents 24, 28, 30, 32, 33, 43, 46, 60, 62, 68, 70, 72, 75, and 76. Footnote cite: The Conclusions of the Enquiry Committee, 16
November 2001, at http://www.lachambre.be/kvvcr/pdf_sections/comm/lmb/conclusions.pdf, accessed 20 May 2014.
10. Documents 60, 62, 68, 70, 72, and 75.
11. Documents 810, 16, 37, 40, 55, 57, 73, 82, 87, 90, 94, 100, 109, 123, 138, 142, 143, 146, 155, 167, and 170; CIA during the Congo
Crisis.
12. Documents 169, 186, 209, 219, 223, 241, 253, 301, 371, 394, 407, 417, 419, 420, 430, 434, 442, 450, and 459.
13. Department of State, Review of 1964 Operations in the AF Area, undated but c. 1965, FRUS, 19641968, Volume XXIV, Africa
(Government Printing Office, 1999), document 191; Congo, 19601968, documents 40 note 9, 64, 170, 194, and 217.
14. Documents 19, 48, 101, 119, 122, 191 notes 2 and 3, 192, 194, 446, 448, 454, 498, and 499.
15. Documents 466 and 573.
16. Documents 470, 471, 474, 475, and 490.
17. Documents 71, 123, 124, 127, 168, 171, 219, 237, 272, 427, 440, 462, 483, 544, 546, and 564; CIA during the Congo Crisis.
18. Documents 415, 440, 472, 478, 486, 492, 497, and 500; CIA during the Congo Crisis. Footnote cite: Documents 544, 546, and 564.
19. CIA during the Congo Crisis.
20. Documents 219, 223, 427, 431, 462, 464, 486, 494, and 575; CIA during the Congo Crisis.
21. Many documents on the hostage-takings and rescue operations are between pages 338 and 526 of the collection.
22. Two of the hostages have written of their ordeal in books: David Reed, 111 Days in Stanleyville (Harper & Row, 1965); and Michael
P.E. Hoyt, Captive in the Congo: A Consuls Return to the Heart of Darkness (Naval Institute Press, 2000).
23. Thomas P. Odom, Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo, 1964, 1965 (Command Studies Institute, US Army Command
and General Staff College, 1988); Fred E. Wagoner, Dragon Rouge: The Rescue of Hostages in the Congo (National Defense University, 1980).
24. Documents 178, 180, 211, 218 note 3, 289, 362, 369, 373, and 383.
25. Review of 1964 Operations in the AF Area; CIA during the Congo Crisis.
26. Documents 54, 65, 77, 102, 109, 219, 227, 462, 485, 501, and 578; Review of 1964 Operations in the AF Area.
27. Documents 577, 579, and 581.
28. Document 581.
vvv
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Breaking the Rules: The CIA and

Counterinsurgency in the Congo
19641965
Jeffrey H. Michaels
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JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
Breaking the Rules: The CIA and

Counterinsurgency in the Congo
19641965
A good deal of recent scholarship and official discourse on the role of United
States intelligence in the area of counterinsurgency has focused on the finer
points of intelligence analysis in support of large-scale military operations.1
The assumption underlying this perspective is the idea that intelligence
services will play a subordinate role to the military in the conduct of
counterinsurgency operations. This assumption is understandable, given
the level of attention devoted to the ongoing operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq, which itself is due in large part to the amount of national
resources devoted to these two conflicts. One chief consequence of this
focus is to marginalize the study of cases in which the U.S. government
wanted to assist a friendly governments counterinsurgency efforts but has
been unwilling to consider a significant military intervention.2 In such
Dr. Jeffrey H. Michaels is a Research Associate in the Department of War

Studies at Kings College London, where he coordinates an Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC)-sponsored project headed by Professor Sir
Lawrence Freedman titled Strategic Scripts for the 21st Century. Earlier,
he was a Lecturer with the Air Power Studies Division of the colleges
Defence Studies Department. Holder of a Ph.D. in War Studies from Kings
College, he has served as an intelligence officer attached to the United States
European Command and the Pentagons Joint Staff, consulting for the Office
of Net Assessment of the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Dr. Michaelss book, Shock and Flawed: The Discourse Trap From the
War on Terror to the Surge, is forthcoming from Palgrave publishing.
130
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
BREAKING THE RULES: CIA IN THE CONGO
131
cases, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has served as an important

tool of foreign policy. In many respects, its counterinsurgency role
differs considerably from that which it would perform if subordinate to the
military. Indeed, throughout the Cold War, the CIA was involved in many
counterinsurgency operations. And in many cases, the Agency rather than
the U.S. military took the lead. Despite the recent surge of interest in
counterinsurgency generally, many of these cases have yet to receive
scholarly attention. Instead, the overwhelming focus has been placed on
the one case where large-scale U.S. military intervention occurred, namely
Vietnam, most likely because that conflict is viewed as having the most
relevance for Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of historical interest and
lessons learned.3
But a successful case of U.S. counterinsurgency that has yet to receive
much scholarly attention is the CIAs effort to counter the Simba
rebellion in the Congo in 19641965. Among historians, interest in the
CIAs role in the Congo primarily concerns its connection to the
assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, as well as
the Agencys relationship with Joseph Mobutu.4 Although many instances
of CIA activities during the Simba rebellion have been discussed in
relation to other events, such as the role of both pro-Castro and
anti-Castro Cubans fighting in Africa, the Agencys involvement has not
be en studied e ithe r as a subject i n its own right, or through a
counterinsurgency lens. 5 This lack of interest is all the more surprising
given the increasing amount of declassified material and number of
memoirs becoming available on the subject.6
Yet this case is noteworthy from a counterinsurgency perspective in several
important respects. First, it represented a case where the U.S. government
was supporting a weak and diplomatically isolated friendly government
against an insurgency supported by numerous outside powers, including
the Soviet Union and China. Second, the Congos enormous physical size
and the diverse nature of its population of fifteen million, combined with a
weak administrative apparatus, worked against the imposition of central
authority. Third, the insurgency itself, though rife with internal divisions,
nevertheless numbered in the tens of thousands of men under arms, a
figure that was at least equal to, if not greater than, the government
forces, and within a matter of months the insurgents conquered more than
one-third of the Congo. Fourth, the duration of the conflict defied
expectations of being a long war, with the insurgency effectively defeated
within two years. Last, the CIAs activities in the Congo broke all the rules
often discussed in relation to the role of intelligence in contemporary
conflicts. Most notably, rather than the CIA being used to enable U.S.
military forces to conduct counterinsurgency, the CIA was used to ensure
that the U.S. military would not become involved. Consequently, one of
AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 1
132
JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
the chief functions of the CIA in the Congo was to support proxy forces who
would fight the insurgency on Americas behalf.
THE SIMBA REBELLION

Among the many reasons an insurgency erupted in the Congo in 1964 were
government corruption and incompetence, poor economic conditions, and a
lack of opportunity. The insurgency itself was not a unified uprising, but
instead consisted of several loosely coordinated components. The first
rebellion, began in January 1964 in Kwilu Province, was led by Pierre
Mulele, who had previously served in Lumumbas government as Minister
of Education. Following Lumumbas death, Mulele served as an
ambassador for the secessionist Stanleyville-based regime of Antoine
Gizenga, though this had ceased to exist by early 1962. As a political exile,
Mulele traveled to China, where he was given instruction in guerrilla
warfare, before returning to the Congo in July 1963. Based in Kwilu
Province, with a population of roughly one million, Mulele spent the
remainder of the year organizing a rebellion. The Kwilu rebellion reflected
a mix of Maoist approaches to guerrilla warfare, Communist
indoctrination, and traditional magic. Muleles poorly armed followers
believed he was invulnerable to bullets, and would rush into battle
shouting mai Mulele (water of Mulele) in the belief that the bullets fired
at them would turn to water.7 Within a month after starting the rebellion,
Muleles guerrillas controlled an area roughly the size of Belgium. 8
Although measuring the size of this insurgency is difficult, estimates from
that period suggest it numbered between 10,00020,000 insurgents,
supported by about one-tenth of the Kwilu population. 9 In the first
months of the rebellion, the insurgency scored several notable successes
against the Congolese National Army (ANC). This prompted the
Congolese government to dispatch reinforcements, who subsequently
proceeded to wage a scorched-earth campaign against the rebels. By April
1964, the ANC slowly regained the tactical initiative, although another
year-and-a-half would pass before the rebellion was defeated.10
While a significant amount of ANC resources were being committed to
Kwilu, rebellions broke out in other areas as well. Following the closing of
the Congolese parliament in 1963, a number of Congolese politicians fled
to Brazzaville, across the river from Leopoldville, and formed a
government-in-exile known as the Comite Nationale de Liberation
(CNL). 11 Beginning in April 1964, the CNL, headed by Christophe
Gbenye, would become the political and diplomatic face of the insurgency
based in the eastern Congo. Among the senior CNL officials were its
Defense Minister Gaston Soumialot and Foreign Minister Thomas
Kanza. Laurent Kabila, then in his mid-20s, was also working for the CNL.
133
Beginning in May 1964, the CNL was reportedly responsible for

conducting a succession of anti-government plastic-bomb explosions in
Leopoldville. But their true achievement was to take advantage of
widespread grievances in the eastern Congo in order to recruit thousands
of supporters to wage an insurgency. From his base in Burundi, Soumialot
launched a rebellion in the Uvira region of Kivu province. At about the
same time, Kabila organized rebel forces from among the towns on the
western shores of Lake Tanganyika.12 These two CNL-led rebellions would
later merge with the Popular Army headed by General Nicolas
Olenga. Initially, Olengas Popular Army lacked a political organization.
Following their capture of Stanleyville in early August, however, Gbenye
and Soumialot simply attached themselves to Olengas forces and created
the Peoples Republic of the Congo, with Stanleyville its capital.13
Unlike Muleles rebellion in Kwilu province, the rebels in the eastern
Congo were considerably better armed. Numerous accounts suggest this
force was equipped with a multitude of different weapons, ranging from
spears to automatic rifles, machines guns, mortars, and anti-tank weapons.
Due to their geographic proximity to countries that were sympathetic to
the rebel cause, they were able to receive foreign arms shipments.14 From
April through September 1964, the eastern rebellion would gradually take
control of more than one-third of the Congo. Yet, the rapid growth of the
insurgency also meant that the rebel leaders did not have time to form an
organization capable of administering the conquered territory. Having
initially gained enormous support by exploiting popular grievances, the
rebellion brought with it terror and maladministration far surpassing the
misdeeds of past Congolese administrators.15
The fall of Stanleyville, and specifically the capture of five U.S. consular
personnel working there, three of whom were CIA employees, convinced
U.S. policymakers that urgent action was required to reverse the situation.
The degree to which the situation was viewed as a crisis was evident in a 6
August 1964 National Security Council (NSC) memo that stated:
Stanleyville is in rebel hands. All of Eastern Congo may go in next
several days; Katanga, Leopoldville, and entire Central Government may
collapse in next several weeks. 16 From that point on, American and
Belgian military assistance would be increasingly forthcoming, and with
the arrival of foreign mercenaries, the rebellion would be gradually driven
back.17
THE JOHNSON ADMINISTRATION AND THE CONGO
Unlike President John F. Kennedy, who sought to raise the profile of Africa
in U.S. foreign policy, President Lyndon B. Johnson sought as best he could
to keep Africa off the agenda.18 Prior to the rebel capture of Stanleyville,
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the Congo had received significant attention, particularly in the State

Department, but had not reached a point of political crisis in which the
Johnson administration feared it could have negative connotations for the
upcoming 1964 presidential elections. 1 9 Similar to the Dwight D.
Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, U.S. policy toward the Congo
under Johnson was predicated on the perceived need to maintain a
pro-Western government in power, fearing that a Congolese government
that had close relations with the Communist bloc would have negative
repercussions for the West. This concern over the Congo was not simply a
fear that its mineral resources could be denied to Western markets. 20
Rather, the principal fear was that a radical takeover of the Congo,
following the rise of other radical African governments, would have a
domino effect that would undermine Rhodesia and the Portuguese hold
over Angola and Mozambique, and isolate South Africa. Similar to
Vietnam, the Congo was discursively constructed as the key domino in
Africa.21
By August 1964, the Vietnam-style domino thinking was quite evident in
the discourse of senior U.S. policymakers. At an 11 August NSC meeting
dedicated to the Congo crisis, one of the main concerns expressed was
that, even if the rebellion were principally rooted in tribal conflict, the
Chinese and Communists would profit from their victory.22 The head of
the U.S. Strike Command, General Paul Adams, expressed even more
extreme views. He wrote that the Congos loss to communist control
would be a political catastrophe. The impact of such a loss could
jeopardize U.S. national interests throughout all of Africa south of the
Sahara, and could in time lead to a communist dominated black Africa.
Adams even went so far as to suggest that the Communist backing for the
insurgency is evidencing itself as a double envelopment of the Congo.23
As CIA paramilitary officer Richard Holm noted, The Simbas, a ragtag
bunch of illiterate dissidents, certainly werent communists. But they posed
a threat to the pro-Western [Moise] Tshombe government in Leopoldville.
Thus they gained the support of the Soviet Union, China, and their
minions. And that prompted determination from the United States and its
allies to provide all support possible to Tshombe and his government. It
was that simple . . . 24 Indeed, despite evidence from the Intelligence
Community suggesting that the rebels were not Communist-controlled,
senior policymakers continued to act as if they were.
Interestingly, the domino thinking evident in high-level discussions on the
Congo was accompanied by a strong desire by these officials to avoid
another Vietnam. Despite the talk of falling dominoes, U.S. policy to
maintain the stability of the Congo in the early 1960s was limited, and
consisted mainly of CIA political action activities, which in 1963 were
expanded to include a paramilitary program to supply a handful of pilots
135
for the Congolese air force. U.S. policy also consisted of a relatively small
military assistance program aimed at improving the quality of the
Congolese Army. By the start of the Simba rebellion, however, the ANC
was not considered fit for that purpose. Whatever value Joseph Mobutu
may have later had as President of the Congo, his tenure as ANC chief
was considered to be somewhat disastrous. The U.S. Army attache
described Mobutu as doubtfully militarily capable to simultaneously
command two platoons.25
At this time, the Johnson administration was reluctant to commit U.S.
military forces. In August, a request by Congolese Prime Minister
Tshombe and ANC head Mobutu to deploy three U.S. airborne battalions
to retake Stanleyville, Albertville, and Uvira, and to dispatch U.S. Special
Forces, was rejected out of hand.26 At the 11 August NSC meeting, one
senior official expressed the view that direct American military
involvement in the Congo should be considered only as an extreme last
resort. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JSC) General Earle
Wheeler concurred, noting that was also the long held view of the JCS.
Despite taking serious military action off the table, Johnson nevertheless
observed that time is running out and the Congo must be saved.27 In
due course, a U.S. military task force was deployed, consisting of four
C-130s, three troop-carrying helicopters, and some fifty paratroopers from
the 82nd Airborne Division who were mainly used to provide logistics
support to the ANC.28 Additional military options were also considered,
though even in the worst-case scenarios being contemplated, U.S. military
intervention was to consist of indirect advisory efforts rather than direct
combat. For instance, General Adams wrote to Wheeler that This
command appreciates current U.S. policy to maintain American support
and assistance in the Congo at a minimum level and to insure that U.S.
military personnel do not become intentionally involved in combat and
combat support operations. Yet Adams also believed that dispatching six
to twelve U.S. military teams numbering ten to twelve officers and enlisted
men each could rapidly change the current military situation.29 In other
words, from the U.S. militarys point of view, waging counterinsurgency in
the Congo was to consist of a very small military commitment, certainly
in comparison with Vietnam, but not too dissimilar f rom U.S.
counterinsurgency assistance elsewhere.30
In August 1964, the U.S. was still months away from deploying combat
troops to Vietnam, though it did have a significant advisory presence at
that time. And yet, even at this early stage, Washingtons policymakers felt
that even the U.S. advisory presence in Vietnam was too great a
commitment to be replicated elsewhere. Throughout this period, numerous
references were made by U.S. officials that the Congo did not constitute
an African Vietnam.31 The shadow of Vietnam hung over U.S. policy
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towards the Congo in two principal ways: first, U.S. counterinsurgency

efforts were to consist of an austere program due to the perceived
limited military resources available for deployment to the Congo. 32
Second, U.S. public opinion was hostile to the notion of potentially getting
involved in a long drawn out indecisive campaign such as we have in
South Vietnam today, and this had a negative impact on U.S.
policymakers who might otherwise have considered military intervention as
a legitimate option.33 The upshot of this attitude was that policymakers
were more willing to opt for a covert intervention in which the CIA, rather
than the U.S. military, took the lead.
Given the ANCs weakness, and not wanting the U.S. to get directly
involved, the Johnson administration was initially quite willing to accept a
Belgian military intervention to stabilize the situation. When it became
evident that the Belgians were unwilling to undertake a military
intervention, the decision was taken to support the creation of a unit of
foreign mercenaries. While Washington policymakers realized the
inevitable fallout from supporting white mercenaries in Africa, this option
was still preferable to a U.S. military intervention. As one policymaker
noted in early August 1964, the situation is basically power vacuum,
could probably be retrieved by small security force (ideally white, at a
minimum white-led and, if really good, as few as 1,000). He went on to
say that the U.S. should help the Congolese in every way to organize a
mercenary-led force.34
THE CIAS COVERT INTERVENTION IN THE CONGO
From the Congo gaining its independence from Belgium in 1960 to the start
of the Simba rebellion in 1964, CIA political action activities in the new
country can be divided into two distinct periods: the overthrow of Patrice
Lumumba and the events leading to his execution in January 1961, and the
Agencys efforts thereafter to support the legitimate Congolese
Government in the hopes of bringing stability to the Congo and
frustrating Communist efforts. 35 Throughout these years, CIA covert
operations in Africa were still relatively new, and because the Congo
was a Belgian colony, both a new American Embassy and a new CIA
station had to be developed after independence. 36 In due course, U.S.
consulates would be opened in Stanleyville and Bukavu, with the
vice-consul position being occupied by a CIA officer.37 The CIAs Africa
Division was also in its infancy at this time. Although by the 1970s it
would eventually grow into a large organization, in the early 1960s, its
successes in the Congo were the result of a handful of operatives.38
The CIAs role in the overthrow of Lumumba, including the part played by
CIA Station Chief Lawrence Devlin, has been well covered elsewhere, and
137
doesnt need further elaboration here. 39 Particularly in the period that

followed Lumumbas death, the CIA established close relations with
several key figures in the Congolese government, informally referred to as
the Binza Group, and also played an important role in establishing Cyrille
Adoula as Lumumbas successor as Prime Minister.40 The Agency provided
covert funding for Adoula to buy the support of political and military
leaders.41 In terms of the CIAs dealings with Mobutu, who was initially
head of the Congolese army and subsequently President of the Congo
(Zaire) from 19651997, the relationship was quite close.42 According to
Devlin, I met Mobutu almost daily, often over breakfast on the terrace of
his home. 43 Even the CIA contract aviator Ed Dearborn had a close
relationship with Mobutu.44 Similarly, the CIA also worked quite closely
with Victor Nendaka, the head of Congo state security. Thus, at the time
of the Simba rebellion, the CIAs Congo station had direct access and a
close working relationship with the leaders of the Congolese military and
security forces.45
Within weeks of the rebel capture of Stanleyville, and at the instigation of
Washington and Brussels, Tshombe began hiring a mercenary force to
bolster the ANCs counterinsurgency efforts. In the course of the following
year, the CIA would work closely with the mercenaries. Former British
Army officer and ex-Katanga mercenary Mike Hoare was hired to lead
this mercenary force, which he named 5 Commando. 46 The Congo
counterinsurgency campaign that followed can be broken into three phases
in which Hoares mercenaries spearheaded ANC attacks against rebel-held
areas, all the while being supported by the CIA. In the first phase, the
counterinsurgents set out to recapture Stanleyville, culminating in
Operation Dragon Rouge in November 1964. In the second phase, the
gains from the first phase were consolidated, with the mercenaries pushing
into the northeast Congo and capturing towns along the Ugandan and
Sudanese borders that had been used by the rebels to bring in supplies
from abroad. The final phase consisted of the governments attack on the
rebel-held Fizi Baraka pocket in the autumn of 1965. The CIA played a
crucial role in each of these phases of the counterinsurgency.
Relationship with Mercenaries
Over the course of the Simba rebellion, both the CIA and the U.S. military
attache in Leopoldville developed a close, albeit covert, working relationship
with the mercenaries, especially with Hoare. Throughout the course of the
conflict, Hoares 5 Commando never amounted to more than several
hundred mercenaries at any one time, the majority of whom were South
Africans and Rhodesians. Technically, the unit was subordinate to the
ANC command structure, with Hoares nominal superiors being ANC
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head Joseph Mobutu and Colonel Frederic Vandewalle, a Belgian Army

officer on loan to the Congolese government. 47 In practice, Hoare was
given significant leeway to conduct his own operations, though within a
strategic framework developed by Vandewalle. A separate French-speaking
unit called 6 Commando was also formed, but its main duties were to
garrison captured towns and bolster the ANCs ranks. While U.S. officials
maintained contacts with this unit as well, the CIAs relations with 6
Commando ranked considerably lower than its relations with 5
Commando, which was at the forefront of the counterinsurgency operation.
Officially, the U.S. government wanted to avoid being seen as having any
relationship with the mercenaries. This point was made explicit in an
Embassy cable that stated, For public consumption believe we must
continue take no comment line on all aspects of mercenary
problem . . . Overtly at last, U.S. reps should keep as far away from
mercenaries as possible. At the same time, however, a very different view
was to be held internally. According to the same cable, For purposes of
orienting our own thinking, it seems to us important to recognize that
security has deteriorated in Congo to [the] point [that] only white
mercenaries or direct intervention by non-African military units can save
day. Perfect but unlikely solution would be for mercenaries to come in
quickly and quietly, re-establish peace, and then get out. 48 Once the
decision was made to support a mercenary force in the Congo, the
question arose of how to pay for them, given the poor state of Congolese
government finances. By Vandewalles account, CIA Station Chief
Benjamin Hilton Cushing offered to covertly finance the mercenaries,
although the likelihood is that in the end the funds were made available
through an overt increase of the military assistance budget.49
The American relationship with the mercenaries that eventually emerged
was a covert and highly effective partnership. This was not predetermined
however. Indeed, initial U.S. assessments of the mercenary support to the
retaking of Albertville in September 1964 were highly critical of Hoares
competence.50 Over time, this view changed completely, and within a few
months thereafter, during which 5 Commando conducted a number of
successful operations against the Simbas, culminating in their drive to
Stanleyville, CIA analysts lavished considerable praise on Hoare. At the
working level, a close relationship emerged, reflected in the fact that the
CIA had provided air support to the mercenaries, and later maritime
support as well, with the U.S. military providing logistical support and
strategic lift. To be effective at providing close air support, for instance, a
good working relationship was essential. Significant intelligence
collaboration also occurred, with the mercenaries providing U.S. officials
with intelligence acquired from their operations, as well as supplying them
with captured Soviet and Chinese arms. Hoare personally briefed CIA and
139
military officials on numerous occasions.51 Moreover, while the CIA air and
naval assets were placed under Hoares command in order to facilitate his
operations, Hoare in turn also facilitated CIA intelligence collection in
areas controlled by 5 Commando.52
This close relationship was not simply a matter of mutual interest.
Significant evidence suggests that both sides viewed the relationship in
more personal terms. Both CIA and U.S. military officials based in
Leopoldville held Hoare in high regard. In one of his reports, the U.S.
military attache in Leopoldville, Colonel Knut Raudstein, observed:
Tshombe supporters most fortunate in having man of Hoares
temperament, character, and capability in his position. He [is] somewhat
amused [at] being tabbed a South African as he claims Brit citizenship and
conducts himself as typical upper class Briton proud of Irish extraction.53
Larry Devlin, who in July 1965 replaced Cushing as Station Chief, also
enjoyed good relations with Hoare, whom he referred to as a gentlemen
adventurer.54 In his memoirs, Devlin wrote, Well-educated, articulate, a
man of tremendous charm, Mike Hoare had proven himself to be a serious
and capable soldier, a far cry from the Mad Mike image created by the
media. Mike had dash and pizzazz. He read Christopher Marlowe and
Shakespeare, he told great stories that made your hair stand on end, and
he was a man of integrity and dignity. We became good friends, a
friendship that has lasted over the years.55 Following Hoares departure
from the Congo in late 1965 after the rebellion had been defeated, the
CIAs relations with the mercenaries quickly deteriorated. Not only did the
personal connection between the mercenary leadership and the CIA break
down, but the Agencys main objective in the Congo, namely to support
stability generally, and President Mobutu in particular, took priority, with
the mercenaries becoming a source of instability.56
The Instant Air Force
Arguably the most significant contribution the CIA made to the Congo
campaign was the creation of what The New York Times called an instant
air force.57 The air force itself would ultimately include several types of
World War II-era aircraft flown mainly by anti-Castro Cuban exiles. Their
contribution to the campaign would include providing air reconnaissance,
close air support, air interdiction, and psychological operations missions.
Although the CIAs Congo air force did not defeat the insurgency on its
own, that the government forces could have succeeded without it is
inconceivable.
While little information on the original decision to employ Cuban exile
pilots for the Congo is available, there is little doubt about the date.
According to numerous sources, the first Cuban exile pilots were sent to
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the Congo in 1963, months before the start of the Simba rebellion.58 Within
the CIA, the air branch of the Special Operations Division in the Deputy
Directorate of Plans (DDP) organized this operation. This unit also had
experience organizing CIA air activities in Asia and against Castros Cuba.
The Cuban exiles were veterans of the Bay of Pigs, some of whom had
also served as pilots for the Cuban Air Force under then-President
Fulgencio Batista, while others had joined the U.S. military after the Bay
of Pigs and were then given honorable discharges to fight in the Congo.59
A CIA proprietary company, the Caribbean Marine Aero Corporation
(Caramar), was set up in Miami to hire the pilots, initially to fly unarmed
T-6 training aircraft that had been donated to the Congo by Italy.60
Hiring the Cubans had two principal advantages. First, they were ideal
from a covert operations perspective since they were not U.S. citizens, and
therefore the U.S. government could claim plausible deniability. Second,
as it became increasingly apparent, particularly after President Kennedys
death, that the U.S. would not support an invasion of Cuba, and due to
the concern that the Cuban exiles would mount rogue operations against
Castro if left to their own devices, Washington felt that the Congo was an
ideal place to send the exiles, telling them they would be fighting
Communism there.61
Initially, at least two American pilots were contracted to fly in the Congo.
As of June 1964, CIA contract aviators Ed Dearborn and Don Coney were
flying close air support missions for the ANC. Curiously, even though they
were nominally working for the CIA, little attempt was made to keep their
presence a secret. An article in Time magazine included the real names and
background of Dearborn and Coney, suggesting they were not provided
with an official cover. The article also noted that after being questioned by
newsmen, the U.S. Embassy in Leopoldville at first denied that Americans
were involved, and then later admitted that no Americans would be
directly involved in fighting henceforth. Both Americans were reassigned to
supporting the Cuban exile pilots, but not themselves flying. Embassy
officials also disassociated themselves from the Cubans, who they claimed
had been hired by the Congolese government.62 As one Embassy cable
noted, Although a lot will be said about Cubans being U.S. mercenaries,
we will want to continue to say as little as possible and refer all inquiries
to GOC [Government of Congo], with whom pilots have contracts. 63
Despite the denials, the foreign press, such as the Soviet TASS, accurately
reported on the pilots being recruited in Miami and working for the CIA.64
Prior to the Congo, the CIA already had some experience and an
organizational mechanism that could provide aircraft for this type of
covert operation.65 As indicated, the unarmed Harvard T-6 aircraft flown
by the Cuban exiles were originally donated by Italy. As the rebellion in
Kwilu Province gained traction in early 1964, a decision was taken to arm
141
the T-6s and to fly combat support missions.66 The CIA modified the T-6s to
carry air-to-ground rockets and .30 caliber machine guns. But because the
half-dozen T-6s were not considered sufficient to counter the rebel
advance, the CIA proprietary firm Intermountain Aviation, in the spring
of 1964 provided T-28 two-seater fighter-bombers that were an
improvement over the T-6s in speed, range (300 miles), and firepower.
Though nominally a training plane, the T-28s were equipped with .50
caliber machine guns, 500-pound bombs and rockets. Following
Stanleyvilles capture, CIA officials, including Director of Central
Intelligence John McCone and Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms,
decided to increase the CIA air contingent of T-28s and to add B-26K
bombers to its fleet. The B-26K, a WWII twin-engine bomber, had greater
range than the T-28, thereby allowing it to reach Stanleyville. At its height,
the CIA air force in the Congo would include thirteen T-28s and seven
B-26K bombers, as well as C-47 transport aircraft, two small twin-engine
liaison planes, and H-21 helicopters.67
Having provided both aircraft and pilots, the CIA then needed to provide
ground maintenance crews to service the aircraft. This was achieved by
setting up another proprietary company based in Liechtenstein. This firm,
given the name Western International Ground Maintenance Organization
(WIGMO), would employ at least 150 European aircraft technicians on
one-year contracts. At the height of the rebellion, the WIGMO
technicians, based at four or five airfields in the Congo, were overseen by
CIA officers. According to a British report, the technicians at one of the
airfields were under the supervision of a retired U.S. Air Force colonel.
Also stationed at the airfield was a CIA communications man named
Mitch. 68 Other accounts similarly confirm the presence of CIA air
operations officers at forward bases such as Bunia and Paulis.69
Despite their different backgrounds, nationalities, and languages, the
CIA air controllers and their Cuban exile pilots worked remarkably well
with Hoares mercenaries. Apart from a few cases of friendly fire, Hoare
noted that the airground coordination was highly effective in supporting
5 Commando spearheads.70 Apart from Hoares memoirs, which give
high praise to the CIA air support, a separate analysis of the operation
that led to the recapture of Stanleyville in November 1964 noted that
CIA aircraft terrified the Simbas, who learned that their magic did not
protect them from .50-caliber machine guns or rockets. Both Tshombe
and Mobutu grasped the importance of the close air support in their
campaign against the rebels.71 That the Cuban pilots were earning their
pay was evident from the fact that, in NovemberDecember 1964, some
of the pilots had put in 170 hours of flying time in one month, an
amount that was expected to increase rather than decrease after Dragon
Rouge.72
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Benefits of Air Support

The importance of the CIA air force to the counterinsurgency cannot be
understated. First, it provided the counterinsurgents with an air
reconnaissance capability, both from a tactical perspective in support of
advancing columns, as well as being able to supply intelligence from which
to plan operations.73 Second, it gave the ANC and 5 Commando a close
air support capability.74 Without this capability, the counterinsurgency
campaign could not conceivably have succeeded, at least not in the
relatively short time period it did. As Hoare makes quite clear in his book
on the Congo campaign, the flying artillery provided to 5 Commando
by the Cuban exiles proved a decisive force multiplier in many battles,
given his own units modest strength. During Dragon Rouge, the dropping
of Belgian paratroopers from U.S. C-130s was preceded by two B-26Ks
that conducted strafing runs on Simba positions.75 In this sense, the air
force facilitated counterinsurgent battlefield successes, and did so in a way
that minimized casualties among the counterinsurgents. Third, the CIA
planes not only conducted psychological warfare through the traditional
means of dropping leaflets, but their very presence was a psychological
weapon in its own right. As the senior NSC official responsible for Africa
noted, the relatively heavily armed B-26Ks represent such an escalation of
anything ever experienced in this part of Africa that they have caused a
profound psychological shock.76 Che Guevara also noted that despite the
planes being antiquated, that this little air force is sowing terror among
the Congolese comrades.77 Fourth, it allowed the counterinsurgents to
conduct interdiction missions against insurgent supply lines.78 For instance,
the T-28 that crashed on 17 February 1965 with CIA paramilitary officer
Richard Holm on board was conducting an air reconnaissance search for
rebel arms crossing the Sudan border.79
Negative Side Effects
Among the ironies of the CIA air forces success against the rebels was its
possible provocation or at the very least exacerbation of the Stanleyville
hostage crisis. Substantial evidence indicates that not only did the rebels
blame the air attacks on the United States, as opposed to Belgium, and
that the Americans captured in Stanleyville were treated worse than the
Europeans as a result, but also that the hostages may have been released
in exchange for assurances that the air force would be grounded. 80 An
internal NSC memorandum noted that the rebel leadership has made it
clear that the official Americans are hostage against air attacks on
Stanleyville (they apparently dont blame or threaten Europeans). 81
Michael Hoyt, the U.S. Consul in Stanleyville being held hostage, was
allowed to send a cable warning Washington that further air
143
reconnaissance of the Stanleyville area would provoke rebel retaliation

against the American hostages. Similarly, following air strikes against rebel
targets in October, the rebels repeatedly threatened to kill the hostages,
and in some cases did execute European hostages.82 Also noteworthy is
that rebel Foreign Minister Kanza suggested the rebels might free the
hostages if the U.S. grounded its air force.83
Clearly, the air attacks had proved a considerable irritant to the rebels, and
for the U.S. leadership, their success was a troubling conundrum. The CIAs
air force was a deniable covert operation, and a very successful one at that.
To have withdrawn the air force at that time would almost certainly have
changed the course of the conflict, allowing the rebels to regain the
initiative. Yet, continuing the air operations increased the risk to American
lives. In the end, the U.S. decided that both the Congo and the hostages
could be saved, and that a short-term military operation to free the
hostages could remove them from the equation and allow the air
operations to proceed.
Following Dragon Rouge, the CIA air force continued to increase in size,
adding additional B-26Ks, and they remained an integral part of the
counterinsurgency until the collapse of the rebellion in late 1965. In the
aftermath of the rebellion, the air force remained in place, most likely as a
deterrent and hedge against the possibility of a resurgence in rebel activity.
By mid-1966, the air force had been reduced to approximately twelve
Cuban pilots and 100 WIGMO personnel. The operation was finally closed
down in mid-1967. By this time, the need for foreign pilots declined as
Congolese pilots started returning from European military schools.84
STANLEYVILLE
The capture of Stanleyville created a crisis for policymakers in Washington.
Although the rebellion was not initially directed against foreigners,
General Olenga was fixated on the idea that U.S. planes and
mercenaries were fighting with central government forces. Consequently,
the American consular officials at Stanleyville would be held as hostages.
Shortly after their capture, the CIA began contemplating different methods
to secure their release or escape, and the CIAs former Congo chief, Larry
Devlin, was recalled to assist in these efforts. 85 The first attempt at a
rescue, known as Operation Flag Pole, called for the CIA and military
personnel based at the Embassy in Leopoldville to participate in a
helicopter rescue mission. To be staged out of Lisala, a T-28 would strafe
the area around the U.S. consulate in Stanleyville with machine gun fire
and rockets, after which helicopters would extract the consulate staff. But,
before it could be put into effect, this operation was canceled. The town of
Lisala was about to be taken over by the rebels, making its use as a
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forward operating base untenable. Also, Consul Hoyt informed the Embassy
that one of the CIA communications men was not at the Consulate but
hiding elsewhere in the city. Furthermore, Olenga had just arrived in
Stanleyville and demanded a meeting with the consular corps, thereby
raising the prospect that Hoyt could negotiate the release of his staff,
although it soon became apparent that Olenga had no intention of
releasing them.86
A more diplomatic method involved the dispatch of Devlin in late August
to meet with rebel political leader Christophe Gbenye, whom he had known
while station chief. Gbenye was traveling abroad at the time. The hope was
that Devlin could meet him while he was transiting Burundi back to
Stanleyville. Devlin traveled from Washington to Bujumbura and briefly
met with Gbenye. However, Gbenye was non-committal to the idea of
pushing for the release of the US officials, most likely because he wielded
little influence over General Olenga, the man responsible for incarcerating
them.87
In the course of the next couple of months, the CIA considered additional
rescue options and ensured that the assets to conduct a rescue would be in
place. As noted, the decision to dispatch the B-26Ks was influenced by the
need to have an aircraft capable of flying to Stanleyville. The CIA also
dispatched a team of seventeen Cuban exiles led by paramilitary officer
William Rip Robertson. During this period, the Agency developed
numerous plans for a rescue attempt, but DCI Helms expressed the
opinion that the chances for success were lousy. 88 One of the plans,
called Operation Low Beam, envisaged Robertsons team going up the
Congo River in motorboats and conducting a nighttime rescue, but it was
abandoned as impractical.89
The result of these failed attempts at rescue, combined with a lack of
success in negotiating the hostages release, led the Johnson administration
to reluctantly support a military operation. In late October, as government
forces gradually drove back the insurgents, hundreds of Belgians and more
than a dozen other Americans residing in Stanleyville were placed under
arrest, joining the U.S. consular officials in captivity. This action led both
the U.S. and Belgian governments to formulate a combined rescue plan.
The military operation they devised, codenamed Dragon Rouge, consisted
of U.S. C-130s transporting a battalion of Belgian paratroopers to
Stanleyville who would attempt to rescue the hostages. This airborne
operation was to be coordinated with a ground advance by the ANC
spearheaded by 5 Commando. Colonel Vandewalle was given the overall
command of this force. One of the ANC columns would include
Robertson and the Cuban exiles, whose assignment was to enter
Stanleyville and rescue the American hostages. By one account, all the
Cuban exiles had beards and were wearing dark wool caps. Vandewalle
145
observed that the Cubans brought their own vehicles, and had an impressive
amount of firepower, with at least three personal weapons for each man.90 As
they were expected to be among the first in the column to enter the city, they
were placed under Hoares command immediately prior to the final advance
on Stanleyville. According to Hoare, I stopped to talk to a truckload of
Cubans who had just joined me. I called them 58 Commando and they
were proud of the title. They were as tough a bunch of men as I have ever
had the honour to command. Their leader was a remarkable man and the
most dedicated soldier I have known.91
On 24 November 1964, Dragon Rouge commenced. Following airstrikes
by the B-26Ks, Belgian paratroops were dropped from the C-130s and
secured the airport before entering Stanleyville. By the time the paratroops
had fought their way into the city, the Simbas had killed some fifty of the
hostages, including an American missionary. The ground force that
contained the CIA unit arrived shortly thereafter. Having secured the
American consular officials, Robertson and the Cuban exiles set about
rescuing other U.S. missionaries in the area. In the aftermath of the rescue,
this unit was withdrawn from the Congo.92 Although the risk was present
of American missionaries elsewhere in the Congo being killed by the
Simbas, the White House record noted that President Johnson doesnt
want to get tied in on the Congo and have another Korea, another
Vietnam, just because of somebody wandering around searching for Jesus
Christ. 93 As such, he was unwilling to sanction further American
involvement in rescue operations, apart from the transport of the Belgian
paratroops to the city of Paulis as part of Operation Dragon Noir.
MARITIME ASSISTANCE
With 5 Commando and the ANC having closed off the Congo border with
Uganda and Sudan in the spring 1965, the one major supply route that
remained for the rebels was from Tanzania across Lake Tanganyika. As
the number of supplies reaching the rebels along this route steadily
increased, the CIA was determined to interdict the arms flow. To do so
would necessitate creating a maritime patrol for the Congolese
government. This task was given to Thomas Clines, the deputy head of the
DDPs Special Operations Division maritime branch. Clines faced two
problems: how to transport suitable maritime craft into the middle of
Africa, and to find crews to man them. The first problem was solved when
an idea, proposed by CIA contract agent Edwin Wilson, was to cut the
boats into sections, transport them by C-130s to the lakeside city of
Albertville, and then reassemble them. 94 The type of boat that was
eventually sent was the U.S. Navy patrol craft called the Swift boat.
Several of these boats were being used at the time by Cuban exiles based
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JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
out of Nicaragua. This boat was fifty feet long and was armed with three
heavy machine guns as well as an 81 mm mortar. Due to the absence of
trained Congolese to operate the boats, the CIA contracted sixteen Cuban
exiles who had previous experience launching seaborne attacks against
Cuban targets and also took the boats they were using.95 An additional
thirty sailors from 5 Commando were given training by the Cubans. U.S.
Navy SEAL Lieutenant James Hawes was brought from Vietnam and
placed in charge of this unit, which reported directly to the CIA station in
Leopoldville. 96 In addition to the half dozen or so Swift boats, the
maritime patrol included several troop-carrying barges. The CIA also
provided radar and armaments for the Belgian steamer Ermans, the ship
that would eventually become Hoares flagship.97
Although the maritime patrol had been constituted nearly a year after the
rebellion began, it became increasingly effective in preventing Simba traffic
on the lake, whereas this traffic had previously been relatively
unencumbered apart from the occasional air attack.98 Nevertheless, when
attempting to prevent Ernesto (Che) Guevaras force of Cubans and other
Simbas from crossing into the Congo from Tanzania, the maritime force
was clearly inadequate to the task, though Che noted that the maritime
presence did cause them some difficulties in making the crossing. 99 In
addition to the lake patrol, the maritime force played a critical role in the
last months of the war, when operations were conducted to eliminate the
Simba mountain bastion known as the Fizi-Baraka pocket, which was
defended by some 5,000 rebels plus more than 100 Cubans under Che
Guevara.100 Because its excellent defensive location made a land operation
impracticable, Hoare decided to launch a combined air, amphibious,
and land operation, in which the maritime force boats, including the
Ermans, would be employed for an amphibious landing of 200 mercenaries
to the enemys rear, with the B-26Ks providing air cover.101
INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Apart from the reconnaissance carried out by its air force, CIA intelligence
collection in the Congo was reliant mainly upon its intelligence relationships
with senior Congolese officials such as Mobutu and Victor Nendaka, thus
giving it access to intelligence collected by the ANC and the Congolese
Su rete . The CIA also worked closely with Vandewalle and the Belgian
military mission, and with Hoare and 5 Commando. Prior to the capture
of Stanleyville, the CIA chief there, David Grinwis, had a close working
relationship with the ANCs intelligence section. He also appears to have
had a number of agents reporting to him, but with the citys fall, this
network collapsed. 102 No evidence indicates that the CIA was able to
recruit any spies within the Simba ranks, or that this constituted a high
147
priority for the CIA station. Indeed, as a station priority, intelligence

collection seemed to rank below the paramilitary operations being
conducted, or put slightly differently, intelligence collection was often
treated as being necessary to support operational activities rather than to
enhance policymakers understanding of the conflict.103
The recruiting and running of agents does not seem to have been a
significant function of the Station, almost certainly because the Agency
Station was itself quite small and its officers were preoccupied mainly with
handling the burgeoning paramilitary operations. To the extent that agents
were run, they were officials in the Congolese government, rather than in
the rebellion. 104 Moreover, many of the CIA officers assigned to the
Congo in 19641965 had little or no experience working in Africa. Richard
Holm, assigned in late 1964 to replace Grinwis as the CIA chief in
Stanleyville and tasked with collecting intelligence on the presence,
activities, and supply lines of the Simba units, had just returned from a
paramilitary posting in Laos and Thailand, after which he served a short
period of time working on North Africa issues.105
This lack of Africa background was true, not only for the operations
officers assigned to the Congo, but also for the analysts working on the
Congo at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. For instance, the lead
analyst working on Congo issues during the rebellion was Sam Adams, a
junior intelligence officer with no Africa background. Fortunately for the
CIA, Adams proved to be a first-rate analyst who was able to keep
policymakers regularly informed of Congo developments.106 Immediately
after Stanleyvilles fall, the Congo desk was tasked with producing a daily
situation report, although this later changed to a weekly report.107 These
reports covered a full range of topics, such as Congolese political
developments, the Congos relations with other countries and with the
Organization of African Unity (OAU), updates on military operations,
information on the rebels both inside the Congo and abroad, information
on the Congolese military and mercenaries, and reporting on arms
deliveries to the rebels, among many other issues. In addition to providing
analysis of developments inside the Congo, other country desks were also
tasked with providing intelligence on outside support to the rebels.
CIA Priorities
A key intelligence task was to track arms shipments to the rebels. Intelligence
on this subject was used not only for assessments of rebel strength, but
perhaps more importantly, to target the supply convoys. By knowing when
arms shipments had arrived in neighboring countries, the CIAs air force
could be given warning and directed to intercept them once they entered
the Congo. 108 But the Agencys success in tracking these shipments is
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JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
questionable. For instance, as of late February 1965, a senior State

Department official attached to the Congo Working Group requested
intelligence from Britain on arms supplies arriving via Tanzania and
Uganda, complaining that U.S. intelligence on this subject was thin. 109
Ultimately, the arms shipments ceased, not because of any CIA action, but
after 5 Commando and the ANC closed off the border with Uganda and
Sudan. Having closed off this main supply route, rebel supplies had to be
ferried across Lake Tanganyika from Tanzania.110
Several additional collection and analysis priorities should be mentioned.
Tracking diplomatic support for the rebels and the negotiations that were
being brokered by the OAU were topics that feature prominently in CIA
analyses.111 Prior to Dragon Rouge, another top collection priority was to
ascertain the location and condition of U.S. consular personnel in
Stanleyville, as well as to collect intelligence on Simba defenses in that
area.112 A number of intelligence reports generated on this topic were used
in the planning of various rescue operations, including Dragon Rouge.113
Finally, throughout the course of the conflict, another of the CIAs main
intelligence collection priorities was to determine whether or not foreign
advisors were assisting the Simbas. Numerous intelligence reports
suggested the presence of Chinese, Algerian, and other advisers operating
inside the Congo or in one of the neighboring countries, although these
mostly proved false.114 The fear among U.S. officials was that the rebels
single disadvantage related not to the quality of their armaments, but
instead to the absence of any formal training in guerrilla warfare. The
belief was that only a small number of advisers would be needed to
transform the Simbas into an effective military force that could defeat the
government forces. Therefore, CIA collectors and analysts tracked this
issue closely.
Shortcomings and Failures
Despite the CIAs best efforts to accurately assess the conflict, several notable
intelligence failures occurred. First, policymakers were apparently caught
unprepared when rebel forces captured Stanleyville. Agency analysts were
also overoptimistic prior to Dragon Rouge, believing that the rebellion was
on its last legs, whereas in fact it would continue for another year, not for
the least of reasons that the U.S.Belgian intervention had resulted in
increased diplomatic and military support for the rebels from abroad.115 In
this regard, the intelligence failure most often associated with the Congo
was the CIAs inability to learn of the presence of the contingent of Cuban
advisers led by Che Guevara.116
Following an official trip on behalf of the Cuban government, in which
Guevara visited eight African countries and also traveled to China from 17
149
December 1964 to 14 March 1965, he subsequently disappeared from public

sight.117 Despite growing evidence of the presence of Cubans in the Congo in
the summer 1965, such as the acquisition of the diary of a Cuban killed
during a raid against the mercenaries, the idea that a large number of
Cubans were operating in the Congo found few supporters in Washington.
Not until September 1965, shortly before the start of operations against
the Fizi-Baraka pocket, did the evidence become overwhelming, and this
view changed.118
Regardless of the improved military performance enabled by the Cuban
advisors, the rebels were quickly defeated in the Fizi-Baraka pocket. This
military defeat, combined with a newfound desire on the part of the
Congos neighbors to drop their support for the rebels, particularly
following the 13 October replacement of Tshombewho was disliked by
most African leaders because of his use of white mercenarieseffectively
ended the insurgency. In late November, Mobutu would launch a coup
detat and assume the presidency. He would remain president, backed by
the U.S., until himself overthrown in 1997 by the former Simba leader
Laurent Kabila.
RELUCTANT INTERVENORS
Simultaneous to Washington policymakers consideration of augmenting
the U.S. militarys advisory presence in Vietnam with combat troops was
the perceived need to respond to the deteriorating situation in the Congo.
The concern about falling dominoes in Asia led to similar concern about
Africa. With a key ally on the brink of being overthrown, threatened by
an insurgency supported by the Soviet Bloc, China, Cuba, Egypt, Algeria,
and the radical African states, a costly and potentially open-ended U.S.
military intervention may have seemed the only plausible option of
saving the Congo. Instead, despite facing such a grave situation, U.S.
policymakers from the start ruled out American military intervention.
Wary of taking on too many military commitments, they also feared being
tarnished with the neo-colonialist brush. Consequently, less overt means
were required to achieve the policy objective of maintaining a friendly
government in Leopoldville. Opting for a covert CIA paramilitary
operation, rather than an overt U.S. military intervention, allowed the
Johnson administration to not only limit U.S. liability from a political,
diplomatic, and military perspective, but also ensured that the costs of the
counterinsurgency mission would be minimized. Moreover, avoiding overt
U.S. military intervention was predicated on the fear that countries such as
the Soviet Union or China would respond to this escalation by also
becoming heavily involved in the conflict, thus creating a quagmire. As it
happened, only following the U.S. airlift of Belgian paratroopers during
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JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
Operation Dragon Rouge did foreign powers begin to make the Congo a
major political issue and to radically increase their previously modest
support to the rebels.
The Congo venture represents only one of many successful CIA-led
efforts designed to bolster a pro-U.S. government faced with an insurgency
without committing a large American military force. Admittedly, the Congo
success can be attributed in large part to a combination of the military
victories achieved by 5 Commando and the ANC, and to the ineptitude of
the insurgents in securing their gains. Yet, without CIA assistance,
conceptualizing how the insurgency could have been defeated is difficult.
The CIA provided critical force multipliers that would have been
unavailable to the counterinsurgents, short of a large military intervention.
From the perspective of Western counterinsurgency theory, the Congo case
breaks many of the rules that were considered the norm, in both the early
1960s and the current context of Afghanistan and Iraq. This theory is
predicated on several principles, such as the need to win hearts and minds
by protecting the population in the face of insurgent intimidation.
These principles were scarcely, if at all, in evidence in the Congo.
The Relevance of Counterinsurgency Theory
Counterinsurgency theory is also predicated on the idea that large numbers
of security forces are required. In the early 1960s, the ratio of 1020
counterinsurgents for every insurgent was often touted as the baseline for
success. More recently, the official metric has been 4050
counterinsurgents per 1,000 people. Again, the Congo proved an exception
to the rule, with the counterinsurgents numbering in the tens of thousands
rather than the hundreds of thousands. Then as now, counterinsurgency
was believed to be a process that took many years. Yet, in the Congo, the
insurgency lasted less than two years before it was defeated.
By the logic of counterinsurgency theory, the success achieved in the
Congo would seem unthinkable. How then to account for it? Can the
results be attributed merely to the fact that the contest occurred in
Africa rather than Southeast Asia, and that perhaps a cultural
component to counterinsurgency exists that means that there are no one
size fits all approaches? Likewise, can geographic or technological
factors be said to have played a role? Did the lack of an overbearing
bureaucracy mean that the CIA officers in the field could innovate
faster than could a large military organization, or at least not be
hamstrung by a complex chain of command? Were the counterinsurgents
merely lucky?
Rather than seeking to answer these questions the main purpose here has
been to show that counterinsurgency theorists must first ask these questions
151
before suggesting that large-scale U.S. military intervention is the only means
by which success in counterinsurgency can be achieved, or that success is
impossible if the intelligence services play a leading role as opposed to a
subordinate one.
As with any large-scale intervention involving the U.S. military, theorists
must account for the problems created, rather than solved, by taking such
an approach. The cases of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have
demonstrated that large military commitments not only increase the
national financial burden, risk significant casualties, and make the
winning of hearts and minds at home and in the host-nation a major
issue, but also create otherwise artificial credibility issues and time
pressures. By contrast, in cases such as the Congo, where the CIA has
taken the lead and worked with proxy forces, the U.S. limited its liability,
thereby ensuring that many of these self-generated problems never arose.
REFERENCES
1
One of the most important examples of this trend is Major General Michael T.
Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint
for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan, Center for a New American
Security, January 2010. For a discussion of FM 3-24s approach to
intelligence, see General David H. Petraeus, Lt. General James F. Amos, LTC
John A. Nagl, Sarah Sewall, The U.S. Army=Marine Corps Counterinsurgency
Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 79135.
For a discussion of this point, see my article Agents for Stability or Chaos:
Conceptualizing Intelligence Relevance in Counterinsurgency, Studies in
Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 34, No. 3, March 2011, pp. 212227.
This is particularly true for official histories. See Michael Warner, U.S.
Intelligence and Vietnam: The Official Version(s), Intelligence and National
Security, Vol. 25, No. 5, 2010, pp. 611637.
Stephen R. Weissman, American Foreign Policy in the Congo 19601964
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974); Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant:
The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire (Washington, DC: The American University
Press, 1993).
Frank R. Villafana, Cold War in the Congo: The Confrontation of Cuban
Military Forces, 19601967 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books,
2009); Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and
Africa, 19591976 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press,
2002).
Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone
(New York: Public Affairs, 2007); Richard L. Holm, The American Agent: My
Life in the CIA (London: St. Ermins Press, 2003). Unfortunately, the Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS) volume dealing with the Congo from
19601968 remains classified.
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 1
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JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
Mulele would shoot himself with blank cartridges to achieve this effect. His
followers were mostly armed with spears and poisoned arrows, although they
did also employ captured ANC small arms. Because of its isolation, the
Mulele rebels were unable to receive arms shipments from abroad.
8
Stephen L. Weigert, Traditional Religion and Guerrilla Warfare in Modern Africa
(London: Macmillan Press, 1996), p. 57.
9
Ibid., p. 60.
10
Stephen L. Weigert, Traditional Religion and Guerrilla Warfare in Modern
Africa, pp. 5461; Renee C. Fox, Willy de Craemer, and Jean-Marie
Ribeaucourt, The Second Independence: A Case Study of the Kwilu
Rebellion in the Congo, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 8,
No. 1, October 1965, pp. 78109; Claude E. Welch, Jr., Ideological
Foundations of Revolution in Kwilu, African Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 2,
September 1975, pp. 116128; Mark Traugott, The Economic Origins of the
Kwilu Rebellion, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 21, No. 3,
July 1979, pp. 459479.
11
Leopoldville was the capital of the Belgian Congo and Brazzaville was the
capital of the French Congo. Consequently, the two states would be referred
to as Congo (Leopoldville) and Congo (Brazzaville).
12
M. Crawford Young, Post-Independence Politics in the Congo, Transition,
No. 26, 1996, p. 39.
13
Major Thomas P. Odom, Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo,
19641965, Leavenworth Papers No. 14, Combat Studies Institute, 1988; The
Congo: With Magic Juice and Lucky Grass, Time, 12 June 1964.
14
Memorandum for the President from Brubeck, 15 June 1964. Referring to the
rebel victories in the eastern Congo, Brubeck observed, well-armed troops
are being routed by Pygmies carrying spears and machetes. For more details
on the composition of the Popular Army, see M. Crawford Young,
Post-Independence Politics in the Congo, p. 40.
15
Keith Wheelock and M. Crawford Young, The Congolese Rebellion of 1964,
June 1965, in Ernest K. Lindley Files 6169, Box #4, Lot 71D273, RG #59,
MLR 5441, National Archives, College Park, MD. As this study notes, the
Gbenye regime was a phantom government, replete with titles, but lacking
the ability and resources to administer the rebel held areas.
16
Memorandum for the President from Brubeck, 6 August 1964.
17
The Congo: Elation for Moise, Time, 11 September 1964.
18
Terence Lyons, Keeping Africa off the Agenda, in Warren I. Cohen and
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, eds., Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World: American
Foreign Policy 19631968 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994),
pp. 245277.
19
By one account, the White House was very cautious about the effect of the
Congo crisis on the 1964 election. Due to the fear of American diplomats and
missionaries being killed in reprisal attacks resulting from the CIA air attacks,
they ordered all air activity stopped in October. The Stanleyville operation
153
was also planned to occur after the U.S. election. See Sean Kelly, Americas
Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, pp. 129, 152.
20
In 1959, the Congo produced 9 percent of the Free Worlds copper, 49 percent
of its cobalt, 69 percent of its industrial diamonds, and 6.5 percent of its tin, as
well as a number of specialized metals used in the nuclear and electrical industry.
See Stephen R. Weissman, American Foreign Policy in the Congo 19601964,
p. 28.
21
Peter J. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy Towards Africa: Incrementalism,
Crisis and Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp.
5177. Throughout this period, there was considerable tension within the U.S.
government about supporting African nationalists as opposed to the interests
of the colonial and ex-colonial powers.
22
Memorandum from Brubeck, 11 August 1964. This document, and all
subsequent documents that are not otherwise labeled, were acquired via the
Declassified Documents Reference System.
23
Message from CINCSTRIKE to JCS, 9 September 1964.
24
Richard L. Holm, The American Agent: My Life in the CIA, p. 14.
25
U.S. Army attache Leo message, 10 September 1964.
26
Major Thomas P. Odom, Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo,
p. 8; and Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, p. 115.
27
Memorandum for the files from Brubeck, 11 August 1964.
28
Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, p. 112.
29
Message from CINCSTRIKE to JCS, 9 September 1964.
30
In the mid-1960s, the U.S. was involved in at least a dozen counterinsurgencies
in countries such as Thailand and Colombia. Beginning in 1962, the U.S.
Overseas Internal Defense Policy, which served as the U.S. governments
coun terin surgency doctrine, laid out an inter-agency app roach to
counterinsurgency in which the U.S. militarys role was mainly limited to
indirect supply and advisory functions.
31
Martin Staniland, Africa, the American Intelligentsia, and the Shadow of
Vietnam, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 98, No. 4, Winter 19831984,
pp. 602603; Lloyd Garrison, Another Vietnam Feared in Congo, The New
York Times, 13 December 1964; Tshombe Employs Mercenary Pilots: Will
Fly Bombers Supplied by U.S., The Irish Times, 18 August 1964.
32
The military chiefs were looking at the growing involvement in Vietnam in
the context of their overall resources and their ability to deal with trouble
spots around the world. That is why they were not very interested in
volunteering to commit any forces in a place like the Congo. Interview of
Jonathan Dayton Stoddart, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and
Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, 19 January 2000. In 1964,
Stoddart was serving as Deputy Director of the Near East, South Asia and
African Region, Office of International Security Affairs in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense. See also cable from Godley to SECSTATE, 30
October 1965.
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 1
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JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
33
Piero Gleijeses. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa,

19591976. The quote referencing Vietnam is from General Adams, 9
September 1964.
34
Memorandum for the President from Brubeck, 6 August 1964.
35
FRUS, 19641968 Vol. XXIV, Africa, Document 191.
36
Ibid.; Prior to independence, the U.S. maintained a Consulate General in
Leopoldville. For more information on this period, see interview of
Ambassador Owen W. Roberts, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and
Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, 11 February 1991.
37
Due to the presence of American mining interests in Katanga, the U.S. had
maintained a consulate in Elizabethville before independence.
38
According to The New York Times, at the time of the Simba rebellion, the CIA
station in Leopoldville had mushroomed overnight into a virtual embassy and
miniature war department. See Tom Wicker, John W. Finney, Max Frankel,
and E.W. Kenworthy, How CIA Put Instant Air Force Into Congo, The
New York Times, 25 April 1966. Upon his return to the Congo as the new
station chief in July 1965, Devlin noted that The CIA office was
considerably larger than the one I had left two years previously. Paramilitary
operations inevitably mean expansion. Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo,
p. 227. By the 1970s, the Africa Division was said to have included 300
officials and would continue to expand as a result of its operations in Angola.
Rene Lemarchand, The CIA in Africa: How Central? How Intelligent?, The
Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3, 1976, pp. 401426; John
Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (London: Andre Deutsch, Ltd.,
1978).
39
Devlin covers this period in his memoirs, although numerous other books have
focused squarely on this topic. See, for instance, Ludo de Witte, The
Assassination of Lumumba (New York: Verso, 2002).
40
These figures included Joseph Mobutu, Victor Nendaka, and Albert Ndele.
See also Tom Wicker et al., How CIA Put Instant Air Force Into
Congo. Although figures such as Mobutu had been involved with the CIA
prior to Lumumbas overthrow, these ties became increasingly close in its
aftermath.
41
Tom Wicker et al., How CIA Put Instant Air Force Into Congo; Victor
Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), pp. 117118; FRUS, Document 191.
42
Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire; Jerry Puren,
Mercenary Commander (Alberton: Galago Press, 1986), pp. 196, 206.
43
Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo, p. 232.
44
Christopher Robbins, Air America: The True Story of the CIAs Mercenary
Fliers in Covert Operations from Pre-War China to Present Day Nicaragua
(London: Corgi Books, 1979), p. 100.
45
As Lewis Hoffacker, the Chief of the Embassys Political section during
19621963, later noted, the CIA was running most of the show in the
155
Congo. Interview, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign

Affairs Oral History Project, 17 July 1998.
46
Several years earlier, when Tshombe ran the newly formed independent state
of Katanga, Hoares mercenary unit was called 4 Commando. See Mike
Hoare, The Road to Kalamata: A Congo Mercenarys Personal Memoir
(Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008).
47
Vandewalles time in the Congo ended following Dragon Rouge.
48
Cable from Embassy Leopoldville to Secretary of State, 27 August 1964.
49
50
CIA memorandum on Congo situation, 4 September 1964.
51
See, for instance, Message from U.S. Army attache Leopoldville, 2 December
1964; Richard L. Holm, The American Agent: My Life in the CIA, p. 18;
Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo, pp. 165, 228229, 249, 255.
52
See, for instance, Richard L. Holm, The American Agent: My Life in the CIA,
p. 18.
53
Message from U.S. Army attache Leopoldville, 2 December 1964.
54
Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo, p. 165.
55
Ibid., p. 229.
56
Ibid., pp. 253255; Anthony Mockler, The New Mercenaries (London: Sidgwick
and Jackson, 1985), pp. 111161.
57
Tom Wicker et al., How CIA Put Instant Air Force Into Congo.
58
Frank R. Villafana, Cold War in the Congo, p. 37. Richard Holm notes that the
Cuban exile pilot Juan Peron had been sent to the Congo in November 1963
after receiving training on the T-6. During his Congo service, he also trained
in the T-28 and the C-46. See Richard L. Holm, A Plane Crash, Rescue, and
RecoveryA Close Call in Africa, Center for the Study of Intelligence,
Historical Perspectives, Washington, D.C., Winter 19992000. In 1963, the
CIA also hired Wallace Moessmer to supervise and train pilots in the Congo.
Obituary, Wallace Moessmer, 70; Pilot for CIA, Retired Navy Officer,
St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch, 24 October 1992. Ed Dearborn arrived in
the Congo in October 1963. See Christopher Robbins, Air America: The
True Story of the CIAs Mercenary Fliers, pp. 99100.
59
Frank R. Villafana, Cold War in the Congo, pp. 3951; Sean Kelly, Americas
Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, p. 115.
60
Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence,
p. 136.
61
Frank R. Villafana, Cold War in the Congo, p. 38. The process of hiring Cuban
exile pilots for the Congo would continue until 1967.
62
The Congo: Is Anyone in Control?, Time, 26 June 1964; Major Thomas
P. Odom, Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo,
19641965, Fn 11; Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu
of Zaire, p. 100.
63
Cable from Embassy Leopoldville to Secretary of State, 27 August 1964.
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 1
156
JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
64
CIA, The Congo Situation, 25 August 1964.

pp. 137153.
66
Belgian Army Colonel Vandewalle attributed the idea to arm the T-6s to the
CIA station chief in Leopoldville. See Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA
and Mobutu of Zaire, p. 96.
67
Adams, in Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, pp. 13, 16; Larry Devlin, Chief
of Station, Congo, p. 225; Stephen R. Weissman, CIA Covert Action in Zaire
and Angola: Patterns and Consequences, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 94,
No. 2, Summer 1979, pp. 263286. According to Jerry Puren, Mercenary
Commander, p. 200, the CIA also supplied napalm bombs to the air force,
although this is the only source for this information.
68
FO 1100=12. Note on meeting with aircraft maintenance men.
69
According to Holm, the air operations officer at Bunia was a former WWII
Polish fighter pilot named Big Bill Wyrozemski. His unit consisted of a
couple of Cuban pilots, two mechanics, a radio operator, and a logistics
officer. See Richard L. Holm, The American Agent: My Life in the CIA,
pp. 25, 27.
70
Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, pp. 96, 133134.
Two cases of friendly fire are referred to in Mike Hoare, The Road to
Kalamata, pp. 140, 201.
71
Major Thomas P. Odom, Dragon Operations, p. 40.
72
CIA Situation in the Congo, 16 December 1964.
73
See, for instance, Mike Hoare, The Road to Kalamata, pp. 87, 246, and Mike
Hoare, Congo Warriors (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008), p. 37. Prior to the
Fizi-Baraka operation, Hoare made a personal reconnaissance in one of the
B-26Ks in order to select a beach for the amphibious landing, The Road to
Kalamata, p. 255.
74
See for instance: Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire,
p. 128; Mike Hoare, Congo Warriors, pp. 170171; Lloyd Garrison,
Mercenaries Leading First Big Drive on Stanleyville, The New York
Times, 6 November 1964; Lloyd Garrison, Congo Mercenaries Get
Supplies, Food and Pay, The New York Times, 10 November 1964; Congo
Planes Hit Albertville in Softening Up, The Washington Post, 27 August
1964; 3 Congo B-26s Attack Besiegers of a Column, The New York
Times, 11 February 1965.
75
76
Memorandum for Bundy from Brubeck, 5 October 1964.
77
Ernesto Che Guevara, The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary
War in the Congo (London: The Harvill Press, 2001), pp. 184, 229.
78
CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 30 December 1964; CIA Situation in the Congo
Report, 21 April 1965.
79
Richard L. Holm, A Plane Crash, Rescue, and Recovery: A Close Call in
Africa.
65
80
157
A detailed account of the treatment of the U.S. consular personnel in Stanleyville

can be found in: Michael P. E. Hoyt, Captive in the Congo: A Consuls Return to
the Heart of Darkness (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000).
81
Memorandum for Bundy from Brubeck, 5 October 1964.
82
CIA Congo Situation, 6 October 1964.
83
CIA Congo Situation, 3 November 1964.
84
Stephen R. Weissman, CIA Covert Action in Zaire and Angola: Patterns and
Consequences, p. 272.
85
Michael P. E. Hoyt, Captive in the Congo, p. 60. Shortly after the citys capture,
Hoyt quotes Grinwis as saying I notice Devlin is back . . . That means they
realize this is really serious.
86
Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, pp. 110111; Larry
Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo, pp. 211212.
87
For details, see Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo, p. 212; Sean Kelly,
Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, p. 136; Michael P. E.
Hoyt, Captive in the Congo, p. 159; and CIA intelligence cable, 14 October
1964.
88
Sam Adams, quoted by Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, pp. 1819.
89
Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, pp. 141142. A
plan put forward by U.S. Strike Command, known as Operation Golden
Hawk, that would involve a rescue attempt by U.S. Green Berets was
similarly rejected. See ibid., pp. 123124.
90
Ibid., pp. 141142, 148.
91
Mike Hoare, Congo Warriors, p. 118.
92
93
White House record, 25 November 1964.
94
Edwin Wilson would later gain notoriety as a rogue agent working for Libyas
Muamar Qaddafi.
95
Frank R. Villafana, Cold War in the Congo, p. 171; David Corn, Blond Ghost:
Ted Shackley and the CIAs Crusades (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994),
pp. 115116, 137, 319; Felix I. Rodriguez and John Weisman, Shadow Warrior
(New York: Pocket Books, 1989), p. 147; Peter Maas, Manhunt (London:
HARRAP, 1986), pp. 2829; and Joseph C. Goulden, Death Merchant: The
Rise and Fall of Edwin P. Wilson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984),
pp. 3940.
96
Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, pp. 134135; and Mike Hoare, Congo
Warriors, p. 242.
97
Ibid.; Sean Kelly, Americas Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire, p. 162; CIA
situation report, 14 April 1965; Mike Hoare, The Road to Kalamata, pp. 3345.
The exact number of Swift boats sent varies depending on the source, but ranges
from six to eight.
98
See, for instance, CIA Intelligence MemorandumSituation in the Congo, 1
July 1965.
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 1
158
JEFFREY H. MICHAELS
99
Descriptions of these crossings can be found in Ernesto Che Guevara, The

African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo. On the
difficulties caused to the rebels by the maritime force, see pp. 186, 229.
100
According to Mike Hoare, this pocket was roughly twice the size of Wales.
101
Mike Hoare, The Road to Kalamata, pp. 246262.
102
Michael P. E. Hoyt, Captive in the Congo, pp. 3031, 3637.
103
In October 1964, INR specialist Keith Wheelock was dispatched to the Congo to
conduct a study of the Simba rebellion. In early 1965, M. Crawford Young of the
University of Wisconsin joined him. The preface to their classified report notes
the CIA provided significant assistance to this INR project. See Keith
Wheelock and M. Crawford Young, The Congolese Rebellion of 1964.
104
To give two examples: CIA cable, 29 August 1964 includes detailed information
on a hit squad run by the Congolese Surete. A separate cable discusses coup
planning by ANC officers. See CIA cable, 31 August 1964.
105
Richard L. Holm, The American Agent: My Life in the CIA, pp. 7, 24.
106
After his stint at the Congo desk, Adams was assigned to do Viet Cong order of
battle estimates, during which time he gained notoriety for challenging the
estimates produced by Westmorelands headquarters in Saigon.
107
Sam Adams, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir (South Royalton, VT:
Steerforth Press, 1994), p. 14.
108
CIA Memorandum, 14 September 1964; CIA: Situation in the Congo, 17 March
1965.
109
DO 216=5525 February 1965 Memo from the UK embassy in Washington to
Foreign Office. The official referred to here is Curtis C. Strong.
110
In addition to the Swift boats, the CIAs air force also patrolled the Lake and
attacked suspected rebel transports. See, for instance, CIA Situation in the
Congo, 21 April 1965.
111
Some examples include: CIA Intelligence MemorandumTanzanian Support
for the Congo Rebels, 7 April 1965; CIA Special ReportTanzania Taking
the Left Turn, 21 May 1965; CIA Intelligence MemorandumThe Southern
Sudan Problem and Its Relationship to the Congo, 28 May 1965; CIA
Intelligence MemorandumUgandan Prime Ministers Congo Policy, 17
March 1965; CIA Memorandum, 31 December 1964.
112
CIA intelligence cable, 14 October 1964.
113
See, for instance, CIA Intelligence Information Cable, 16 October 1964; CIA
intelligence report, 20 November 1964; CIA Congo Situation, 29 September
1964.
114
Memo from Denney Jr. to Harriman, 11 August 1964; CIA Memorandum, the
Congo situation, 14 September 1964; CIA Memorandum, 31 December 1964;
CIA Situation in the Congo, 5 January 1965.
115
CIA intelligence report, 17 November 1964.
116
p. 125.

117
Research Memorandum from Hughes to Rusk, 10 April 1965.

Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, p. 136. Sam Adams recalled the head of the
Congo Desk, upon learning of the Cuban presence, remarking: This was once a
perfectly respectable Cold War confrontation. Now its the goddamn West Side
Story. Sam Adams, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir, p. 21. See also
CIA report, 4 October 1965.
118
159
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CIA in the Congo By Godfrey Mwakikagile

A la dcouverte dune page de lhistoire politique du Congo Kinshasa :

"Je les ai (les Baluba) massacrs comme des mouches".

Voil ce que j'en sais et qui me parat vridique.

Massacres de Bakwanga : Rhabilitation de Patrice Emery Lumumba

In het web van Mobutu.

maakte Tshombe met de Franse ,,zakenman'' Francis Bodenan een uitstapje

Lien: biographie partielle Pierre Davister:

FRUS, 19641968, Vol. XXIII

CIAs Covert Operations in the Congo, 19601968:

From 1960 to 1968, CIA conducted a series of fast-paced, multifaceted

es in the State Departments Foreign

Some elements of the program,

a. The first intelligence-related retrospective volume was FRUS, 19521954,

After scholars, the media, and

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

volume discussed here, which was

missions; extended over $850 million

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

notes usefully summarize heavily

A More Nuanced View

icated to supporting outmoded

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

students of intelligence operations,

particularly concerned with his physical

to reinforcing and rebuilding tribal

For the better part of a year, CIA

from the outset the Congo

In Concert with US Policy

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

[and] would interpret the termination of this relationship

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

tenance beset the operations, as did

DCI John McCones role in policymaking comes through

giance of tribal chiefs in the northeast

the city; and inviting in a mixed force

The DCIs Role

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

Cone came to CIA in late 1961 with

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

ant outposts in sub-Saharan Africa,

Over the years, Mobutu proved to be the best geopolitical

significant loss of Agency access and

He is the ultimate source of

The CIA Board of National

That Mobutu has apparently

in McBrides words,28 did not trouble

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

Studies in Intelligence Vol 58, No. 3 (September 2014)

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BREAKING THE RULES: CIA IN THE CONGO

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