JOSEPH ANTHONY ZUZARTE MURUMBI

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06704502
• 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: November 27, 1964

Approved for Release: 2017/09/21 C06704502
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KENYA
Minister of State in the Prime Minister's
Office
Joseph Anthony Zuzarte MURUMBI
Able, intelligent, articulate and urbane, Joseph
Murumbi was named Minister of State in the Prime Min-
ister's Office on 1 June 1963. In this post he has a
major influence in the areas of defense, 'internal secury
ity and foreign affairs. A close personal Rriviser and
confidant of Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta, Murumbi has
served as Acting Prime Minister when Kenyatta has been
out of the country. He is regarded as a candidate for
Vice President of Kenya when the country becomes a
republic in December 1964.
In. September 1964 Murumbi came to the US as the personal representative
of Kenyatta, who was serving as chairman of the Ad Hoc Commission on the Congo
established by the Organization of African Unity. After some discussion be-
tween the governments involved, the delegation stated that it had come to the
US on a goodwill mission and that it was not the commission's intention to
raise, with the US, matters affecting the sovereignty of the central Congo
government.
Murumbi visited the US
previously in 19b3 as part of the Kenyan Cabinet delegation to the UN. In
April and May 1964 he visited the USSR and Communist China, and upon his re-
turn he stated that Kenya would support that country's admission to the UN.
He has since denounced colonialism in white soupqern Africa as well as neo-
colonialism in the rest of Africa.
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Murumbi was born in this Rift Valley on �8 June 1911 of a Goan father and
a Masai mother. His father took him to India when he was six years old. He
was educated in Bangalore and Bellary (south India) and probably graduated
from the University of Madras. He returned to Kenya in 1933 and subsequently
served in the Medical Department. From 1941 to 1950 he serVed withilthe-Briti-s-Ej
Army administration of Italian Somaliland. Murumbi left Kenya in March 1953, �
shortly after the declaration of the State of Emergency, and spent most of
the next eight years in London.
Murumbi� who prefers to speak extemporaneously, is fluent in English as
well as Italian, Hindi and Swahili. He is a Roman Catholic.
His wife, a Somali, had an Italian father.
FA:pf
27 November 1964
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
downgrading end
declassification
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Approved for Release: 2017/09/21 C06704502