JOSEPH ANTHONY ZUZARTE MURUMBI

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06704500
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: September 29, 2017
• Case Number: F-2016-02190
• Publication Date: September 2, 1966

Approved for Release: 2017/09/21 C06704500
KENYA Joseph Anthony Zuzarte MURUMBI
Vice President
In mid-1966, after the open breach between President
Jomo Kenyatta and former Vice President Oginga Odinga,
Joseph Murumbi succeeded Odinga as Vice President. Form-
erly Minister of External Affairs, Murumbi still serves
as Kenyatta's lieutenant with special responsibilities in
foreign affairs. Reportedly the President will finally
allow Murumbi to resign after he has led Kenya's delega-
tion to the UNGA and other conferences in the near fu-
ture. When he has been able to do so, Murumbi has freely
interpreted his instructions and taken a more extreme
action than the President intended;
One notable example was when.Marumbi headed the
delegation from the OAU Ad Hoc Commission which unilaterally declared its in-
tention to come to the US to discuss the Congo with President Johnson; it was
also Murumbi who led the Kenya delegation to join the radical states who
walked out of the OAU conference to protest KWame Nkrumah's overthrow.
Joseph Murumbi was born on 8 June 1911 at Eldamt Ravine in the Rift
Valley province. He accompanied his father to India in 1917, was educated
there and may have graduated from the University of Madras. He returned to
Africa and worked in the British administrations in Kenya and Somaliland. In
1952, after Kenyatta's arrest, he succeeded to the acting secretary general-
ship of the Kenya African Union (the alleged Mau Mau parent body), later left
on a speaking tour abroad and, facing arrest if he returned to Kenya, settled
in London. He returned from exile in 1961 to become a close adviser and
political organizer for Kenyatta.
�
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
(b)(
Murumbi is urbane, intelligent and articulate. Ells nature is outgoing; (b)(
he speaks well extemporaneously, he can converse
in English, Italian, Hindi and Swahili. He is a bibliophile specializing in
Africana. Murumbi is married and has two sons. He is a Roman Catholic.
HR:mpt 2 September 1966
Ea7:.)7S
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
downgrading and
declassification
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
Approved for Release: 2017/09/21 C06704500