JOSEPH ANTHONY ZUZARTE MURUMBI

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06704501
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: September 29, 2017
• Case Number: F-2016-02190
• Publication Date: May 21, 1965

Approved for Release: 2017/09/21 C06704501
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KENYA Joseph Anthony Zuzarte MURUMBI
Minister of External Affairs
Urbane, intelligent and articulate, Joseph
Murumbi was named Kenya's Minister of External
Affairs on 10 December 1964. He is a forceful,
hardworking and able administrator who will cer-
tainly dominate his staff, and Kenya will probably
follow a more dynamic foreign policy under Murumbi..
For the previous 18 months he had been Minister of
State in the Prime 'Minister's Office. There he
was a major influence in the areas of defense,
internal security and foreign affairs. In both
positions he has been a driving force behind Presi-
dent Jamo Kenyatta's Congo policy. He has appar-
rentivl een the key figure in the Kenyan hard core which
anti-Tshambe campaign since September 1964.
Murumbi has no firm political base of his own and depends on the confi-
dence of Kenyatta, wham he serves as a lieutenant.
(1963)
has directed an
Murumbi has tried to keep a foot in both the moderate and radical
camps, but when the chips are down, he generally goes along with Kenyatta.
The son of a Goan father and a Masai mother, Murumbi was born on 8 June
1911 at Eldama Ravine in the Rift Valley province. Taken to India by his
father in 1917, he was educated in Bangalore and Bellary, in Southern India.
He received at least a high school education and may have attended, and
possibly graduated from, the University of Madras. During this period
Murumbi worked for the Burma Shell Oil Company. Returning to Kenya about
1933, he farmed for a year in the Masai reserve and then served with the
Kenya Medical Department from 1935 to 1941. In 1941 Murumbi went to Italian
Somaliland where he served as a chief clerk in the British administration
and, from 1948 to 1950, as assistant controller of imports and exports, nor-
mally a post held by a British official. When the Italians returned to
administer Somalia, he lost his post and returned to Kenya where he obtained
a job in a transport company.
In October 1952, after Kenyatta's arrest, MuruMbi became acting general
secretary of the Kenya African Union. The following March he left for India,
ostensibly to study community development; instead he embarked on an eight-
month speaking tour in which he advanced the views of the Kenya African
nationalists. Declared a "specified person" in Kenya at this time, Murumbi
settled in London. In 1954 he was a member of the Coordination Committee
of the Anti-Colonial Bureau and assistant secretary of the Movement for
Colonial Freedom. He was also reported to be assistant secretary of the UK
section of the Congress of Peoples against Imperialism. Offered a scholar-
ship by a Quaker school in Philadelphia in 1954, he was refused a visa because
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Joseph Anthony Zuzarte MURUMBI (cont.)
of his alleged pricination in the Mpli Mau movement,
Murumbi was a book dealer in London
for several years. In January 1958 he was employed in the press service of
the Moroccan EMbassy in London. While in London he served as the represent-
ative of the Kenya African National Union (KANU).
Returning from exile in 1961, Murumbi became an advisor to Kenyatta
early the following ,year about this time he was also named managing direc-
tor of Sauti Ya Mwafrika (The Voice of Africa). Subsequently be became
assistant to the KANU executive officer and, by early 1963, he had become
the party's national treasurer. In the latter post he did an excellent job
of utilizing and accounting for the funds made available to the KANU by
other African countries. He gained respect for pulling dissident party ele-
ments together for the May 1963 general election and thus played a key role
in the KANU's election triumph. He himself was elected ftam the Nairobi
South constituency. In June 1963 he was named Minister of State in the Prime
Minister's Office. Later he played a major role in discussions with Kenya
and Tanganyika about federation, and with the Somali Republic about Kenya's
Northern Frontier province. By 1963 Murumbi had become a member of the Board
of Directors of the Pan-African Press (TAP), and late that year he was work-
ing closely with Pio da Gama Pinto (now deceased), PAP's chairman and pay-
master of the Odinga group. The two remained fast friends until Pinto's
assassination in February 1965.
Asi-i-DF:tiof a Kenyan delegation to the UN, Murumbi visited the US in
December-1963 and while here he was given a partial Leader Grant. In April
and May 1964 he was part of a group that visited, and signed aid agreements
with. the USSR and Communist Chins.
pe stated that Kenyans
wouiu ueiena Lmperialism, upon his return he said, in
that America should mend its fences with
Communist China and that the latter should be admitted to the UN.
When Kenyatta went to the London Commonwealth Cwference in July 1964,
he appointed Murumbi Acting Prime Minister. Odingal.Who regards himself as
second only to Kenyatta, resented this, and so much political infighting
occurred that Murumbi was reportedly considering retiring from 7litics.
neir country against
September 1964 marks MuruMbi's departure upon a radical course. That
month Kenyatta had accepted the chairmanship of the Ad Hoc Commission on the
Congo established by the Organization of African Unity TUTU) and Murumbi be-
came Kenyatta's representative on the daily working level at several meetings
of the commission. In late September the Ad Hoc Commission, apparently guided
by Murumbi, decided to send a delegation, headed by Murumbi, to the US to
talk about American aid to the Congo. The decision to send a delegation to
Washington was made ultra vires since a Foreign Ministers meeting at Addis
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Joseph Anthony Zuzarte MUBUMBI (cont.)
Ababa had already rejected the idea. The decision created difficulties
After some discussion among the governments involved,
the delegation retreated to the position that it had come to the US on a
goodwilI:mission and that it was not the commission's intention to raise,
with the US, matters affecting the sovereignty of the Congolese government.
Whatever Murumbi's reasons were for engineering the move, the result was an
awkward situation for the US and Kenya, particularly for President Kenyatta.
Murumbi does not want Tshombe as Premier of the Congo
Several times he has stated that
Tshombe is not the constitutional Premier since his appointment was not
ratified by the Congolese Parliament within 30 days.
He has recommended that the OAU and UN supervise Congole6e
elections, and military and technical programs.
He has charged that imperialist powers
try to dictate to small nations because they possess the atomic bomb; that
crises in such places as Cyprus and Malaysia are created to keep remote areas
in turmoil while the great powers develop in tranquility; that the excesses
in the Congo rebellion were the fault of the Belgian-American airdrop into
Stanleyville,and that the airdrop itself--planned months before--was a cal-
culated effort to undermine the OAU;
On the other hand
Murumbi conceded the legality of Tshombe's government in tne uongo oairectly
contradicting his public and other private statements). He has also warmly
praised President Johnson's proposal for unconditional talks on Vietnam while
characterizing Peking's reaction as "stupid." And he flatly turned down an
East German request for representation in Kenya, explaining
that Kenya valued West German relations too highly to endanger them the way
Tanzania had.
Pinto's murder was apparently a severe blow to Murumbi. Murumbi is
reportedly now determined to quit politics in.a few months and retire to his
farm near Kitale. During the middle of April Murumbi was reported to be
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Joseph Anthony Zuzarte MURUMBI (cont.)
making some effort to identify himself with the anti-Communist and anti-
Odinga line put forward by the Kenya democratic parliamentary group.
Murumbi has been a delegate to several inter-African conferences,
including meetings of the All-African Peoples Conference (April 1961) and
the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization (February 1963). He is a
member of the Board of Directors of the Lumumba Trust and Fund, and of the
Patrice Lumumba Institute-. The institute, which has allegedly received
financial support from the USSR, is reportedly designed to train KANUloacti-
vists and the fund allegedly promotes educational and charitable activities.
He was received by President Charles de Gaulle in March 1965.
He is clear and unemotional on the platform,
where he prefers to speak extemporaneously. Murumbi speaks fluent English
as well as Italian, Hindi and Swahili. He is interested in books on Africa
and-has a private collection of them. Murumbi's wife, Cecilia, a Hawiya
Somali, had an Italian father. The couple has at least two sons. who are
reportedly studying in Moaadiscio. He is a Raman Catholic.
FA:tmt 21 May 1965
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