August 14, 2000

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Africa

Eisenhower ordered Congo killing

By Alex Duval Smith in Johannesburg

THE revelation that President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the CIA to "eliminate" Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of Congo and a celebrated African freedom martyr, has again turned the spotlight on a country that, 40 years after independence, remains the world's biggest and most anarchic battleground.

Police officers from Belgium, the former colonial power, are understood to have overseen the killing of 35-year-old Lumumba on 17 January 1961. [...]

WE regret that by letter dated Tuesday, December 12, 2000 a Ms. Louise Hayman, the head of legal services at The Independent newspaper, requested that this article be removed from this website. We have adjusted the masthead accordingly.

WEBSITE COMMENT: The fact that Eisenhower ordered political assassinations will not surprise historians who have worked in his archives at Abilene, Kansas. The unpublished parts of the diary of his naval aide Harry C Butcher contain several references to this. But even he was shocked and stunned by the British-ordered assassination of US protege Admiral Darlan on December 24, 1942. For all this and more: David Irving, Churchill�s War, vol. ii, out late 2000. -- Adolf Hitler dictated to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of his Intelligence, that Nazi assassinations of foreign leaders and military staffs were flatly forbidden: see the diary of Canaris's No. 2, Erwin Lahousen.