CONGO : THE UNTOLD STORY
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Document Creation Date:
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Publication Date:
August 28, 1962
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A_UGL a 1962
STATINTL .
Congo: The Untold Story
This much is certain : Continue to play the Nehru,
Afro-Asian game and, as surely as Tshombe is not
CPYRGI "clown," the strategically vital Congo will be lost
T
Our Congo policy is now clearly at
an impasse, and we seem to be headed
in the direction of another round of
bloodletting. The time has come to
speak out and to tell the American
people the incredible story of how
and where our Congo policy went off
the tracks.
In the Congo situation to date, we
have sought to use the UN not as an
essential vehicle of our foreign policy,
which it is, but as a substitute for a
foreign policy of our own, which it is
not. We have supported the dan-
gerous precedent of using military
forces under UN command for the
purpose of bringing about the reunifi-
cation of the Congo or, to be more
exact, for the purpose of forcing the
submission of the Province of Katan-
ga to the Central Government in
:Leopoldville.
Our Congo policy has been a prod-
uct of the utopian tendency to regard
the UN as a kind of neutral and
'benevolent international organism,
which by its nature, seeks to com-
promise conflicting national interests
in a manner that best benefits the
international community. This utopian
concept of the UN has led us, in a
number of situations, to submit pas-
sively to the will of the massive Afro-
.Asian bloc. In reality, the UN is an
organization with no policy of its own;
its policy in any given situation is
something that emerges from a con-
test between contending interests.
It should now be clear to all that
the UN policy in the Congo is not
paying off. The consequences of this
policy, in fact, run completely counter
to our stated objective in the Congo.
We seek unity in the Congo. But,
with force and threats of force as our
chief instruments, no formula has yet
been found for regulating the rela-
tionship between Katanga and the
Central Government. For that matter,
it is generally admitted today that
the authority of the Central Govern-
ment barely exists outside Leopold-
ville.
We seek to encourage the forces
of moderation. But our policy has
thus far only served to encourage the
extremists in the Central Govern-
ment who desire nothing less than
the total submission of Katanga;
while, on the other side, it has only
served to inflame the spirit of na-
tionalism among the peoples of Ka-
tanga and to harden their resistance.
We seek economic stability for the
Congo. But the Congo, outside Ka-
tanga, is still spiraling down and
down and down in the direction of
total economic chaos. Industries are
not operating; revenues are not being
collected; unemployment is massive;
the budget is more than twice as great
as the Government's anticipated in-
come; and the corruption and ineffi-
ciency of the Leopoldville govern-
ment have now become an interna-
tional scandal.
We have committed ourselves to
the maintenance of peace and the
avoidance of civil war as prime ob-
jectives in the Congo. But there has
in recent weeks been talk in the press
of the possibility that the UN will
again take military action against
Katanga, or else will support an in-
vasion of Katanga by the National
Congolese Army. Already the attempt
is being made to institute broad eco-
nomic sanctions against Katanga.
Civil war between Leopoldville and
Katanga would not be a simple civil
war, but a civil war superimposed on
a tribal war and a UN war. Such a
war might conceivably destroy what-
ever vestige of order still remains
in the Congo, and turn the country
THOMAS J. DODD
over, first to chaos, and then to Com-
munism.
In order to understand what is hap-
pening today in the Congo, and where
we have gone wrong, it is necessary
to go back to the beginning and ex-
amine the sequence of events since
July 1960, when the Congo received
its independence.
In evaluating the Congo crisis, there
are three basic background facts that
should always be kept in mind. The
first fact is that the Free World and
the Communist world are playing for
enormously high economic stakes in
the Congo.
Katanga is enormously rich in its
own right. It provides 8 per cent of
the world's copper, 70 per cent of
the world's cobalt, 80 per cent of
the world's germanium-from which
transistors are made-and large quan-
tities of other precious minerals. But
beyond this, it is the heartland of
the vast mineral wealth of the African
Continent.
Most of this mineral wealth is con-
tained in one large oval cluster, about
500 miles in width and 800 miles in
depth. Within the perimeter of this
oval, in addition to the mineral wealth
of Katanga, there are the diamond
mines of South Africa and Rhodesia,
the gold mines of South Africa, baux-
ite, asbestos, manganese, platinum,
chromium, iron, and many other min-
erals.
The second basic fact is that the
Congo is also the center of what might
be described as a belt of political
vulnerability stretching across the
southern portion of the African Con-
tinent. If political vulnerability were
indicated by shadings, Portuguese
Angola on the west of the Congo,
Northern Rhodesia on the south, and
Portuguese Mozambique on the east
would have to be depicted in dark
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The Third World War
Wandering Planet's Course
"Are We Headed in the Wrong Di-
rection?" Dwight Eisenhower asks
in the August 17 Saturday Evening
Post. He concludes, if I have suc-
ceeded in penetrating the thickets of
platitude, that where we are moving
fast and up, in budgets or spaceships,
the answer is Yes.
"What we need in this country is
. to put first things first." "No rea-
sonable person wants to endanger na-
tional security by cutting defense
spending below safe limits." "Money
alone cannot solve the problem [of
the Red threat], and to spend more
than necessary can damage our over-
all position as surely as spend-
ing too little." General Eisenhower
deploys these invulnerable truisms
as a screening force to cover the ad-
vance of a flanking paragraph on the
space program.
"By all means," he continues, "we
must carry on our explorations in
space, but I frankly do not see the
need for continuing this effort as such
a fantastically expensive crash pro-
gram. . . . Why the great hurry to
get to the moon and the planets? ...
From here on, I think we should
proceed in an orderly, scientific way,
building one accomplishment on an-
other, rather then engaging in a mad
effort to win a space race.
"If we must compete with Sovi
Russia for world `prestige', why . of
channel the struggle along the Ines
in which we excel-and whicy mean
so much to the masses of 6rdinary
citizens? Let's put some other items
in this `prestige' race: . . . our cars
for almost everybody instead of just
the favored few ... our supermarkets
loaded with a profusion of appetizing
foods."
Many of his readers will share these
qualms-or would have until ten days
ago--about our vast space programs,
particularly about Project Apollo and
its successors, designed to take man
himself to the moon and other planets.
General Eisenhower objects with a
conservative rhetoric, protesting from
a sound - dollar, balanced - budget
JAMES BURNHAM
premise the "fantastic" cost and "mad"
haste. But objections are also being
launched from a Liberal base. In
Saturday Review, for example, Pro-
fessor Warren Weaver, one-time
president of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science,
mournfully lists all the welfare that
could be bought with the moonshot
billions: big salary hikes for all pro
fessors; juicy fellowships for oodl
of scientists; ten new medical scho
new nations, etc.
Both conservative and iberal
critics are applying a , tilitarian
standard. In sum, they ax e that the
far-out space progra is not "ra-
tional": by which th mean that it
does not serve any, seful economic,
scientific or milita purpose.
Now whe f er the super-space pro-
gram is i act rational as so defined
is, I thi , arguable. No one knows
what t economic consequences, di-
rect d indirect, may be; but it does
see probable that a slower, less
w nching program would be pre-
rable economically. The scientific
alance is not so clear. Doubtless
there is no strictly scientific reason
in favor of a fast, all-out pace for
Apollo and his offspring, but there
are sure to be great scientific and
technological gains, many of them un-
anticipated by-products, from the big
projects.
In the military dimension, the first
establishment of a permanent space
platform or moon base might well
yield overwhelming preponderance;
and if we interpret "military" to in-
clude the whole range of conflict with
the Communist enterprise, there is
more than. enough justification for a
space program on our part even more
grandiose than anything so far
planned. Surely the world response
to Vostok III and IV should put that
beyond doubt. In spite of General
Eisenhower's reasonable conviction,
our cars for almost everybody and
our supermarkets loaded with a pro-
fusion of foods--appetizing or not-
just don't mean as much to the masses
of ordinary citizens as Sputnik, Tel-
star, Friendship, Aurora and Vostok.
To appreciate the weight of the space
factor in the world power equilibrium,
Cold War sc_ re would stand today
if the Com[xnists had done nothing
in space.
t whatever the net accounting
terms of rational purpose, this by
o means settles the matter of our
space program. There is a great deal
more to man than is allowed for in
either General Eisenhower's or Pro-
fessor Weaver's philosophy. The
overriding reality is the fact that man
has decided to move out into space.
Not for any reason, for no more rea-
son than drives men up the slopes
of Everest or in a tiny boat across
the Atlantic or on a scaffolding for
ten years under the Sistine Ceiling.
The "reasons" are, really-even if
they happen to be valid in their own
right-rationalizations of what springs
from roots far deeper, and darker,
than reason.
It makes no difference what the
space program will cost-and of
course it is going to cost double, triple,
ten times as much in money as any
figure anyone has so far mentioned,
and very much, too, in suffering and
death: not all space flights will have
happy endings. It will make no dif-
ference whether anyone proves in-
controvertibly that the whole pro-
gram is worthless in economic, scien-
tific, military and all other rational
terms. The terrible cold and dark-
ness, the destroying radiations, the
silence and desolation and tragedy
will make no difference, will only
make the seduction of space more
compelling.
Our souls, whose faculties can
comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the
world,
And measure ev'ry wandering
planet's course,
Wills us to wear ourselves and
never rest .. .
And Tamburlaine will no more find
sweet fruitions in a galactic than in
an earthly crown.
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gray. The establishment of a Com-
munist regime in the Congo would
enable the Kremlin to take over all
of the countries within this band of
political vulnerability, and this with
this were done, the Kremlin
if at a given signal, soldiers through-
out the Congo mutinied against their
white officers, and berserk demonstra-
tors rampaged through the residential
areas of Congolese cities in a national
orgy of murder, mayhem, rape, and
pillaging. Instead of attempting to
restrain his countrymen and restore
order, Patrice Lumumba, as Prime
Minister, fanned the flames and in-
cited his people with demagogic ap-
peals to black racism.
The reaction to the July events was
a mass flight of Belgian technicians,
administrators, and medical men. For
would have bases on both the At-
lantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean..
Having bisected the African Con-
tinent, it would then be in a position
to push north and to push south, to
complete its conquest of the African
Continent.
The Congo, therefore, is the key to
the control of the African Continent,
economically, politically, and mili-
tarily. This is basic fact No. 2.
Basic fact No. 3 has to do with the
strategy of political conquest which
the, Kremlin has designed for this
portion of Africa. This strategy is
incredibly simple, incredibly cruel,
and has proved itself incredibly effec-
tive. It seeks to drive out the white
people by violence and terror, thus
creating a vacuum which only the
Communists can fill. Indeed, I am
informed that the Communists are of-
fering large sums of cash to African
nationalist leaders for "delivered"
acts of violence against whites.
To the extent that the Congo is
held together economically, it is de-
pendent on the core of white tech-
nicians who work in its mines, its
plantations and its industries, to the
white teachers who staff its schools
and universities, to the white doctors
who will have to staff its hospitals
for many years to come, to the mis-
sionaries who have done so much to
bring peace and order and civilization
to the Congo. A single incident, how-
ever, is sufficient to persuade thou-
sands of white people to leave the
Congo, taking with them their families
and a critical portion of the fabric of
order and civilization.
Before the massacre of the thirteen
Italian airmen at Kindu last Novem-
ber there were approximately one
thousand white technicians in the
city, most of them associated with
Kindu's great river port facilities.
After the massacre, I was told, only
fifty of these white technicians re-
mained.
Such is the terrible price of the
violence fanned by Lumumba and the
agents of Moscow.
The Congo got its independence on
June 30, 1960. On July 6, 1960, as
diverted its
entire fleet
to the Congo
to remove
the terrified
refugees. To
protect Bel-
gian lives
and proper-
ty, the Bel-
gian Gov-
ernment sent
several units
of paratroops
week, Sabena Airlines
back to the Congo. It was at this point
that Lumumba appealed to the UN,
requesting the urgent dispatch of UN
military assistance to protect the
Congo against Belgian military inter-
vention. Meeting on the night of July
13 and 14, the Security Council
adopted a Tunisian resolution calling
upon Belgium to withdraw its troops
from the Congo and authorizing the
Secretary General to provide such
military assistance as might be neces-
sary until the Congolese security
forces were in a position to meet
fully their tasks. This was the be-
ginning of the UN Congo army which
today numbers some fifteen thousand
men.
Meanwhile, on July 11, President
Tshombe had proclaimed Katanga an
independent country, after moving
resolutely to put down a mutiny
among the troops stationed in Elisa-
bethville and to restore public order
in the Province. In explaining his ac-
tion, President Tshombe pointed to
the disorders that were rampant
throughout the northern Congo. "I
am seceding from chaos," he said.
The United Nations did not rec-
ognize Katanga's secession. On the
other hand, Secretary General Dag
Hammarskjold refused Lumumba's
demand for UN intervention and took
the stand that the UN force could
not become a party to internal con-
flicts in the Congo.
During the months of July and
August, Soviet and Czechoslovak and
other Communist-oc ' technician;
poured into- the' Congo by the hun-
dreds.-At the height, there were some
six ii f. _there experts in
Leopoldville attached to the Com-
munist embassies. e rp .. intelli-
gence agencies were also able to trace
the influx of~ fantastic' sums of Com-
munist money. Communist arms and
trucks and planes began to arrive,
most of them through Stanleyville.
It seemed as though nothing could
save the Congo.
We have been told repeatedly over
the past year that the UN saved the
Congo from Communism. The UN did
no such thing. The Congo was saved
by the courageous action of two men,
President Tshombe of Katanga, and
Colonel Mobutu. As Colonel Mobutu
-now General Mobutu-told me per-
sonally when I was in the Congo last
November, the UN, under Rajeshwar
Dayal, did everything in its power to
undercut his. position and to impede
his operations against Lumumba and
the Lumumbaists.
These are facts.
Recognizing Tshombe as an arch-
enemy, Lumumba attempted to in-
vade Katanga in the month of Au-
gust. He suffered a disastrous and
humiliating defeat, which weakened
his hold on the government and
facilitated his overthrow.
Lumumba's Legacy
In mid-September 1960, Colonel
Mobutu overthrew the government of
Lumumba, ordered the Communist
embassies and technicians out of the
Congo, and set up the so-called Col-
lege of High Commissioners, consist-
ing of university graduates, to admin-
ister the country on an interim basis.
But the damage wrought by Lu-
mumba before he was overthrown was
so great that, even given the most
favorable developments, it will take
years and conceivably decades for the
Congo to recover. The fabric of so-
cial order in a primitive country like
the Congo, once it is shattered, is
about as difficult to put together again
as Humpty Dumpty's fragile shell.
When I was in the Congo last No-
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/-'vember, I'was told that the Congolese the labor force is out of work. Gov- we taken the Tananarive Agreement
National Army had remained in a ernment revenues are not being col- as a starting point, and had we used
state of chronic mutiny and banditry lected. Even with the massive sub- our influence in a friendly way to
ever since the uprising of July 6, 1960. sidies from the UN, from Belgium, urge tightening up where we felt it
There are possibly several thousand and from the United States, the Congo needed tightening up, Tananarive
soldiers in the army who may be Government stands on the brink of might have led to a viable and endur-
considered reasonably disciplined. insolvency and breakdown.
The rest of the 25,000 men, while re- For much of this mess in the Congo,
ceiving their pay, are terrorizing the Patrice Lumumba and his racist and
populace and defying every effort to Muscovite cohorts are to blame. But
bring them under control. To my frankness demands that at least a
mind, there has probably never been portion of the blame be assessed
a more preposterous situation. On against the ineptness of a UN policy
the one hand, the American taxpayer that has made the forced submission
is being called upon to subsidize an of Katanga its prime objective rather
army of bandits and mutineers whose than the restoration of order in the
GIs get paid at the fantastic rate of rest of the Congo.
more than $180 per month, compared The overthrow of Lumumba en-
with $85 per month for the American couraged the Congolese leaders, in
GI. On the other hand, the American
taxpayer is being called upon to pay
the lion's share of the bill for a UN
army whose prime function, in the
Congo north of Katanga, has been to
defend the Congolese people against
their own army. It is high time that
an end was called to this nonsense.
When Ambassador Clare H. Tim-
berlake arrived in the Congo in early
July, 1960, it was immediately ap-
parent to him that the restoration of
discipline in the Congolese Army
took precedence over everything else,
and he made repeated representations
to this effect. The UN might have
brought the situation under control
when it first came into the Congo had
it acted resolutely and immediately
to disarm the mutineers, disband the
worst units, and restore order in the
others. But the UN could not make
up its mind that it had the authority
to take such action; and, under the
regime of Rajeshwar Dayal, who be-
came UN director for the Congo on
August 20, 1960, the UN seemed to be
far more interested in supporting Lu-
mumba and undermining Mobutu
than it was in restoring discipline in
the Congo Army.
The result was that nothing was
done.
In any country which has only re-
cently emerged from the jungle, the
maintenance of order is the beginning
of everything. In the absence of or-
der and effective government, the
once-rich Belgian Congo has become
an economic wasteland. The produc-
tion of staple crops like cotton and
rice has fallen to one-third and one-
fourth of pre-independence levels. In
the city of Leopoldville almost half
Katanga and Kasai, as well as in
Leopoldville, to think again in terms
of national unity. They were further
encouraged to think of unity because
of the threat posed by Antoine Gizen-
ga's rival government, which had been
established in Stanleyville in mid-No-
vember with Soviet-bloc support, and
because of their grave dissatisfaction
with UN policy under Dayal.
On March 6, 1961, on the prime
initiative of President Tshombe, a
conference of Congolese leaders con-
vened at Tananarive, the capital of
Madagascar, or Malagasy, as it is now
known. Only Gizenga, among the
top-ranking leaders, was absent.
The conference terminated in an
agreement-the so-called Tananarive
Agreement-proposing a loose con-
federation of states, under the presi-
dency of Mr. Kasavubu. The Tanana-
rive Agreement had unique possibili-
ties precisely because it was achieved
voluntarily, and on the basis of Con-
golese initiative. I believe that had
Tananarive was bitterly attacked
by the Afro-Asian extremists and by
the Communists. They attacked with
particular virulence Tananarive's pro-
posal to bypass or ignore the Lu-
mumbaist-darninated Parliament. But
I have reason to believe that there
were in our Department of. State those
who looked upon Tananarive with an
open mind, who felt that we should
accept it as a point of departure,
rather than reject it out of hand.
That was a period of bustling and
mysterious activity on the question
of the Congo. The Congolese Govern-
ment had publicly and repeatedly de-
manded the recall of Dayal as chief
United Nations representative. On
April 4, 1961, for example, the New
York Times reported:
Last Tuesday, Mario Cardoso, Con-
golese representative at the United
Nations, charged that a solution of
the Congo problem had been pre-
vented by what he termed the refusal
of Mr. Dayal to consult with officials
of President Kasavubu's regime.
It was no secret, either, that the
relations between Ambassador Tim-
berlake and Rajeshwar Dayal had
been embittered from the beginning.
Ambassador Timberlake is a man who
believes profoundly in the United Na-
tions, and he was one of the first to
urge that the UN be brought into the
Congo. But he felt that. the UN, in
many respects, had failed to perform
its essential functions, and that Dayal
had perverted the intent of the UN's
intervention in supporting Lumumba
and undercutting Mobutu.
The public record indicates that
Prime Minister Nehru and his foreign
policy adviser, Krishna Menon, bit-
terly resisted the demands that Dayal
be recalled. In dealing with this mat-
ter, the New York Times said in the
same article of April 4, 1961:
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
warned today that activities to oust
Rajeshwar Dayal, the Indian who
heads the United Nations mission in
the Congo, could have "some effect on
the maintenance of our- forces there."
On April 24, shortly after Prime
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Minister Xp4mu8bleFftF ta000/$Sf24vh,#AA4UMMt0RUMLRM20U&3 (19m%bled
I have quoted-and I ask that this partment officer, with a record of
sequence be carefully noted-the more than thirty years of service in
Congolese political leaders convened many countries, an Ambassador who
at Coquilhatville, for the purpose of
pursuing the discussions initiated at
Tananarive in March.
What had happened in the interim
period, I of course do not know. But
it is clear that President Kasavubu,
Foreign Minister Bomboko, and the
other Leopoldville conferees had, for
some reason, decided that the loose
confederation to which they had
agreed at Tananarive was no longer
adequate. In addition, they had de-
cided in favor of reconvening the
Lumumbaist - dominated Parliament,
which the Tananarive agreement had
proposed to bypass. President Tshom-
be was imprisoned for six weeks,
until he accepted the terms of a new
agreement, calling for a more cen-
tralized form of government and for
the reconvening of Parliament.
On May 13, President Kasavubu
announced that Parliament would be
reconvened in July. So Nehru's basic
demand had then been met.
On May 25, Rajeshwar Dayal's
resignation as UN Congo representa-
tive was announced by the UN.
In the June 5, 1961, issue News-
week's "Periscope," reporting on the
resignation of Dayal, stated that
Dayal's chief critics, United States
Ambassador Timberlake and British
Ambassador Ian Scott, would be re-
called within several weeks, as a
sequel to Nehru's acceptance of
Dayal's resignation.
The Turning Point
What happened then? In early
June, without any explanation `other
than the questionable explanation
that he needed a rest, Ambassador
Timberlake was recalled. His recall,
in my opinion, marked the turning
point in our Congo policy. It marked
a victory for officials and advisers in
the Department of State who attach
transcendent importance in the con-
duct of our foreign policy to the task
to pleasing Nehru. Since Nehru be-
lieves in coalition governments with
pro-Communist elements in Laos, the
Congo, and other points, these ad-
visers apparently also believe in the
viability of such governments.
The recall of Timberlake raises
many questions,
was worshipped by his staff and who
commanded the admiration and affec-
tion of every American correspond-
ent in the Congo, an Ambassador
who had not hesitated to stand up to
the UN representative when he felt
that this representative was violating
the intent of the UN or failing to
carry out his intent. After spending
eleven months in the Congo, he had
mastered the incredible intricacies of
its politics, and had reached the point
of maximum utility. And yet, for
some mysterious reason it was de-
cided to recall this Ambassador with-
out any explanation-and to recall
him so hurriedly that no replacement
was available to take over at the point
of his recall. Ambassador Gullion,
who replaced Ambassador Timber-
lake, did not arrive in the Congo
until early September, three months
after Timberlake's departure.
Ambassador Timberlake's uncere-
monious recall was all the more per-
plexing because it coincided with one
of the most critical periods in the his-
tory of the Congo. At the Coquilhat-
ville Conference it had been decided
that the Congolese Parliament would
be reconvened at the University of
Louvanium in Leopoldville toward
the end of July. To this Parliament,
with its heavily Lumumbaist majority,
was to be entrusted the task of elect-
ing the future government of the
Congo.
There was a serious danger that
the Louvanium Conference might re-
sult in the election of a government
headed by Gizenga or some other pro-
Communist. It was obviously in our
interests to use our influence-with
propriety, but nevertheless with
energy-to help assure the election
of a middle-of-the-road government.
But, during this entire critical period
our Embassy remained without an
Ambassador.
The State Department is a complex
organization, and I do not pretend to
know who in the Department was
responsible for Ambassador Timber-
lake's recall. But from the sequence
of events, it would almost appear
that whoever were responsible were
so determined to get Ambassador
Timberlake out of the country before
the Louvanium Conference that they
over the prospect
leaving the Embassy without an Am-
bassador.
As my final observation on the
Timberlake matter. I find it disturb-
ing that this senior and respected
officer, upon his recall from the Con-
go, was assigned to an obscure posi-
tion as State Department representa-
tive to the Air University at Maxwell
Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala.
Perhaps it was all a matter of coin-
cidence. Perhaps it was also a matter
of coincidence that Mr. Jerome La-
vallee, the UN advisor in the State
Department's Office of Central Afri-
can Affairs, who had originally been
assigned the task of maintaining
friendly relations with the Katanga
representative in this country, was
transferred to the Commerce Depart-
ment.
Perhaps it is also a matter of coin-
cidence that within the past few days,
Mr. Lewis Hoffacker, the American
Consul in Elisabethville, has been
transferred to another post. Mr. Hof-
facker had performed the incredible
diplomatic feat of maintaining a
friendly relationship with Tshombe,
while faithfully representing a State
Department policy which Tshombe
felt opposed him at every point. In-
deed, at the present time, Hoffacker
is probably the only member of the
American Foreign Service who com-
mands Tshombe's personal respect
and for whom he has feelings of
friendship.
I am constrained to ask whether
this is the reason why this outstand-
ing consular officer, after less than
ten months in Elisabethville, has been
transferred to another post?
As I see it, the positions of the in-
terested parties in the period preced-
ing the Louvanium Conference, were
approximately as follows:
The Soviets were aiming for a Mos-
cow-oriented government under Gi-
zenga as Prime Minister, as their first
choice. As a second choice, they were
willing to consider a coalition in
which the pro-Soviet and neutralist
elements were properly represented.
Nehru and the Afro-Asian extrem-
ists were aiming for an Adoula-Gi-
zenga coalition-and they might even
have been willing to go along with a
Gizenga-Adoula coalition, that is, a
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coalition will'i'Gi"zenga iri the num`ber`= '"1(7r.f'enri ambofo, "President o" the 11~Ir truelens agreed to go, and he
one spot, had such a thing come into
being. The one variant all the Afro-
Asian extremists would have found
completely unacceptable was a mod-
erate pro-Western coalition centered
around the personalities of Adoula
and Tshombe.
Coalition Combinations
The UN representatives, whose
position and philosophy require that
they attempt to satisfy all sides--the
Communist bloc, the Afro-Asians,
and the West-favored the creation
of an across-the-board coalition con-
taining pro-Communist elements,
neutralists, moderates, conservatives,
and some pro-Western elements. In
short, they favored an Adoula-Gi-
zenga coalition, and in this sense their
policy ran parallel to that of Nehru
and the Afro-Asian extremists.
The position of the State Depart-
ment was somewhat more compli-
cated. An Adoula-Gizenga coalition
was acceptable to it, although I know
there were members of the Depart-
ment who had grave reservations
about the viability of such a coali-
tion. On the other hand, a govern-
ment with Gizenga in the No. 1 posi-
tion was completely unacceptable; if
it appeared that the only choice was
between a Gizenga government and
an Adoula-Tshombe coalition, then
despite the sensitivities of the Nehru
bloc, the preference
the Department was
latter variant.
of everyone in
clearly for the
At this point, we come to another
part of the untold story of the Congo.
The fact is that, for several days'
time, when there appeared to be a
serious possibility that Gizenga would
emerge the victor at the Louvanium
Conference, the State Department
seemed to be veering in the direction
of an Adoula-Tshombe government.
It made strenuous efforts to persuade
President Tshombe to send his par-
liamentarians to Louvanium and it
even asked Mr. Michel Struelens, di-
rector of the Katanga Information
Service in New York, to leave for the
Congo on several hours' notice in an
effort to effect an agreement with
President Tshombe.
On July 28, 1961, Mr. Struelens vis-
ited the Department of State in the
company of Jean-Marie Pwetto, Vice
President of the Katanga Parliament,
Konakat Party, and Mr. Thomas left that afternoon by Air France.
Tshombe, brother of the President.
He and his party were received by
Mr. Vance, director of the Central
African desk, and Mr. Jerome La-
vallee, United Nations adviser to the
Office of Central African Affairs, who
told them that it was extremely im-
portant to have the Katanga parlia-
mentarians go to Leopoldville in order
to prevent a Gizenga majority.
Mr. Vance suggested that Struelens
together with his three Katangan visi-
tors, try to work out the text of an
agreement between the Department
of State and President Tshombe that
would make possible the immediate
dispatch of Katanga parliamentarians
to Leopoldville.
The text of an agreement was
worked out and sent upstairs to a
higher office, where it received ap-
proval. Whereupon, using Mr. La-
vallee's telephone, Mr. Struelens dic-
tated the proposed agreement to his
secretary in New York for imme-
diate transmission to President
Tshombe via telex.
On the morning of July 31, Mr.
Struelens received a call from Mr.
Lavallee. Mr. Lavallee told him that
the State Department had not yet re-
ceived a reply to the telex of July
28, and that time was running out.
He asked Mr. Struelens whether he
could leave that afternoon for the
Congo in an effort to persuade Presi-
dent Tshombe to accept the agree-
ment and to dispatch his parliamen-
tarians to the Louvanium'Conference.
Stopping at Brazzaville, capital of the
former French Congo, Mr. Struelens
had a meeting with Mr. Wilton W.
Blancke, the American Ambassador,
and with Mr. Robert Eisenberg,
deputy director of the Office of Cen-
tral African Affairs, who happened
to be in Brazzaville at the time. That
afternoon, Mr. Struelens left Brazza-
ville in the company of Mr. Eisenberg
and flew directly to Elisabethville, the
capital of Katanga. On August 3,
President Tshombe accepted the pro-
posed agreement without reservation.
But that afternoon the radio brought
the news that the Louvanium Confer-
ence had elected a government with
Cyrille Adoula as Prime Minister and
Antoine Gizenga as Vice Premier.
President Tshombe has since
charged that this coalition was a
product of a desperate effort by the
UN to head off the prospect of an
Adoula-Tshombe coalition. I believe
there is something to this charge,
since the UN Secretariat could not
help but be sensitive to the fact that
an Adoula-Tshombe coalition would
have been bitterly opposed not only
by the Communist nations, but by
Nehru and Sukarno and other Afro-
Asian leaders.
When Mr. Struelens returned to
the United States, he was thanked by
the State Department for the job he
had done. According to Mr. Strue-
lens, however, the State Department
officials now took the stand that
Tshombe would have to bow to the
accomplished fact of the Adoula-Gi-
zenga government, and that if he did
not bow, force would have to be used
against him.
It would appear that the State De-
partment performed this drastic
about-turn because it felt that it no
longer needed Tshombe to offset the
threat of a Gizenga takeover in Leo-
poldville. An Adoula-Gizenga coali-
tion was acceptable to us. It was high-
ly acceptable to Nehu and the Afro-
Asians. It was highly acceptable to
Moscow. Everyone was happy.
There is still a tendency in official
circles to defend the Louvanium Con-
ference as a great triumph for Amer-
ican policy. It was no such thing. On
the contrary, if it was a triumph for
anyone, it was a triumph for Nehru
and Krishna Menon and the anti-
Western neutralists. And the Com-
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monist press for the period indicates How the September action came tat the military action of the UN in
that the Communists at least regarded
it as a step in the right direction.
It was not a triumph for the Free
World when Adoula and Gizenga
traveled together to the Belgrade
Conference and voted for all of the
malicious anti-Western resolutions
adopted by the conference.
It was not a victory for the Free
World when, just before the Septem-
ber action in Katanga, the Adoula
government appointed Egide Bochely-
Davidson, one of the most notorious
pro-Communists in the Congo, as Ad-
ministrator for Katanga. Let me state
at this point, that while there are
some politicans in the Congo about
whose political views doubt exists,
I have yet to meet a single person
who will challenge the statement that
Bochely-Davidson is one of the most
confirmed and dangerous leftists in
the Congo. Had the September mili-
tary action succeeded in overthrow-
ing, the government of President
Tshombe, and had Bochely-Davidson,
backed by UN bayonets, been in-
stalled in power as Administrator for
Katanga, the great mineral wealth of
Katanga might today be a Soviet
asset.
The September Action
Now we come to another untold
portion of the Congo story-the true
story of the September military ac-
tion. The United Nations and the
Department of State at the time de-
fended the military action against the
Government of Katanga in Septem-
ber as a matter of principle, neces-
sity, and conformity with the UN
resolution of February 21, 1961,
which called for the removal of mer-
cenaries and foreign advisers from
Katanga. But there is now conclusive
evidence that the September action
was not ordered by UN headquarters
and was, in fact, repudiated by Dag
Hammarskjold.
The so-called September action was
preceded on the early morning of
August 28 by a surprise action di-
rected against the five hundred white
officers and NCO's then openly serv-
ing with the Katangese armed forces.
As a result of this operation, which
was officially known as "Operation
Decapitation," the majority of the
non-Katangese military personnel
was apprehended and deported.
about has been described with amaz-
ing frankness by Dr. Conor Cruise
O'Brien, at the time chief UN rep-
resentative in Katanga, in two articles
written for the London Sunday-Ob-
server in December 1961, subsequent
to his separation from the UN. I
would like to quote several para-
graphs from Dr. O'Brien's account:
On September 10, Mr. Mahmoud
Khiari and Mr. Vladimir Fabry ar-
rived in Elisabethville with instruc-
tions for General Raja, commander of
UN forces in Katanga, and for myself.
Mr. Khiari, a Tunisian, was nominally
head of the UN civilian operations in
the Congo, but Dr. Linner had en-
trusted, or relinquished, to him great
authority in the political field in which
he had shown enormous ability. He
was mainly responsible for the suc-
cessful meeting of the Congolese
Parliament, for the Adoula-Gizenga
rapprochement, and for the emergence
of a well-balanced Central Govern-
ment.
Mr. Khiari gave us our instructions
in the drawing room of Les Roches,
my residence in Elisabethville. Those
present at the main meeting at which
the instructions were given included,
as well as General Raja and myself,
and Mr. Khiari and Mr. Fabry, Col.
Jonas Waern, the Swedish officer com-
manding South Katanga; Col. Bjorn
Egge, the Norwegian intelligence of-
ficer; and my deputy, Michel Tom-
belaine.
The instructions were as follows:
to take over the post office, the radio
studio and the transmitter; to raid the
Surete and Ministry of Information
offices; to arrest any European official
found there, and seize their files; and
to arrest Godefroid Munongo, the Min-
ister of the Interior; Jean-Baptiste
Kibwe, Vice President and Minister of
Finance, and Evariste Kimba, so-
called Foreign Minister. Tshombe also
was to be arrested, if absolutely
necessary. Mr. Fabry, who was then
legal adviser to the ONUC at Leo-
poldville, and who was to die in the
crash at Ndola, produced from his
briefcase mandats d'amener-roughly
equivalent to warrants for arrest-for
Tshombe, Munongo, and the others.
These warrants bore the seal of the
Central Government.
When I went to Leopoldville, sev-
eral weeks after the close of hostili-
ties, I found to my bewilderment that
neither General McKeown nor Mr.
Linner knew of the instructions I had
received. In New York I found that
neither Dr. Bunche nor General
Rikhye-the military adviser-knew
about them either. Dr. Bunche be-
lieves that Mr. Hammarskjold did not
know about them at all.
Katanga in September 1961 was the
product of neither principle nor
necessity; it was the product, rather,
of incredible recklessness or irrespon-
sibility or worse.
The September roar inflamed pas-
sions on every side and probably
made the December action inevitable.
Having fought this action to a
standstill, and having achieved an
agreement which was widely inter-
preted as a victory over the UN, the
government of Katanga was probably
less disposed to compromise than it
had been previously. And the voices
of the outright secessionists became
louder.
Clamor in the UN
The UN forces in Katanga, having
been humiliated in the first round of
battle, itched for a second go, to re-
establish their prestige and authority.
The Leopoldville government and
the Nehru-Nkrumah faction in the
UN, having seen the UN forces de-
part from Hammarskjold's assurance
that they would not be used to settle
internal conflicts, began to clamor
for more military action against Ka-
tanga.
In the Congo, more than one Amer-
ican commentator has made the ob-
servation that the United States was
footing the bill for the operation but
that UN policy, in effect, was being
determined by Nehru. To be more
precise, it was being determined by
Nehru's guiding genius in the field
of foreign affairs, Mr. Krishna Menon,
who has, in my opinion, justly come
to be regarded as the personification
of crypto- Communism.
Certainly Nehru has enjoyed tre-
mendous leverage in the Congo situa-
tion by virtue of the fact that India
has supplied the bulk of the troops
for the operation.
The Security Council resolution of
November 24, which, if indirectly,
led to the December fighting, had
originally been opposed by Ambassa-
dor Stevenson because it was directed
exclusively against Katanga and said
nothing about the problem of Gizenga
and Stanleyville or of secessionism
elsewhere in the Congo. Ambassador
Stevenson, indeed, endeavored to
amend the resolution so that it would
be directed equally against all seces-
sionist activity in the Congo. But
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when this amendment was vetoed by
the Soviets, Ambassador Stevenson,
after asking for a recess, returned to
the Security Council and voted for
the original Afro-Asian resolution
which he had previously described as
unsatisfactory. According to press ac-
counts, he explained his actions with
the words that he could not send
Bomboko home empty-handed.
This, incidentally, is a prime exam-
ple of what I meant when I spoke of
submitting passively to the will of
the Afro-Asian bloc in the UN rather
than fighting militantly for our own
position.
The December fighting did not pro-
duce as many casualties as the mili-
tary action of September. But there
was far more destruction in terms of
physical damage to private property,
to hospitals and other public institu-
tions, and to industrial and business
establishments. The damage in Elisa-
bethville was particularly heavy. On-
the-spot observers agreed that the
UN forces had in several cases shelled
and strafed clearly marked hospitals
and had been guilty of atrocities
against individual residents, both
white and Congolese.
In the protracted argument as to
who was responsible for the Decem-
ber action, we lost sight of funda-
mentals and concerned ourselves with
the effects rather than with causes.
The fighting of last December erupted
in part because of provocative actions
by both sides, in part because of the
Security Council resolution of No-
vember 24. But the single most im-
portant contributing factor was the
presence in Katanga of a UN army of
eight thousand men. This force was
doing nothing to maintain public or-
der. It was obviously in Katanga for
purposes of political pressure.
Such a situation is bound to pro-
duce tensions and incidents. The one
sure way to avoid incidents and to
avoid further bloodshed would be to
eliminate the source of the tensions;
to reduce the UN units in Katanga to
the point where they no longer can
be regarded as an army of occupation.
The December action resulted in
the Kitona Agreement of December
21 in which President Tshombe ac-
cepted the application of the so-called
Zoi fondamentale of May 1960; recog-
nized President Kasavubu as chief
of state; recognized the indivisibie
unity of the Republic of the Congo;
recognized the authority of the Cen-
tral Government over all of the Re-
public; and agreed to place the Ka-
tanga gendarmerie under the author-
ity of the President of the Republic.
Speaking about the Kitona Agree-
ment at the time, I warned that if this
agreement were interpreted as a
document of unconditional surrender,
intended to lead, step by step, to the
total destruction of those who had
signed under duress, then the conse-
quences would be disastrous.
I said that such an unconditional
surrender could only be enforced if
we were prepared to keep a UN army
of occupation in Katanga for a period
of decades. Since this is clearly im-
possible, we had no alternative, as
I saw it, but to take Kitona as a start-
ing point, and, using all our powers
of suasion with both sides, strive for
a formula for the unification of the
Congo that reflected a genuine mutu-
ality of interests.
What was called for, in short, was
a supreme effort at conciliation, by
the United States, by the other West-
ern powers, and by the United Na-
tions. But during the period in ques-
tion there has not been a single con-
crete manifestation of friendliness
toward Tshombe by higher officials
in the Department of State. Instead,
Tshombe has been the target of abuse
and threats and ridicule, and of ac-
tions he could only interpret as un-
friendly. Our relations with Tshombe
over the past year seemed to be gov-
erned by an unwritten rule that no
ranking American official was to visit
him or have personal contact with
him.
Ambassador Gullion whose prime
task in the Congo is to effect a re-
conciliation of Tshombe with Adoula,
has to this day never visited Elisa-
bethville. His personal relations with
President Tshombe are indeed so em-
bittered, that I fear he lacks the per-
sonal leverage essential to a serious
effort at conciliation. Assistant Secre-
tary of State G. Mennen Williams,
during the course of his two trips to
the Congo, visited minor cities, such
as Stanleyville and Coquilhatville-
but he studiously avoided Elisabeth-
ville.
Attitude Toward Tshombe
When President Tshombe, on three
separate occasions applied for a visa
to visit the United States, he was on
each occasion refused. The aloofness
of the State Department to Tshombe
by itself would be bad enough. But
the. situation has been further aggra-
vated by repeated threats of UN mili-
tary action against Katanga, and by
U Thant's historic contribution to
diplomacy in the Congo when he re-
cently described the Katanga leaders
as "clowns."
I say in all frankness that I have
considered several of President
Tshombe's remarks about the State
Department and U.S. capitalism most
regrettable. But who can blame
Tshombe if he has sometimes lost his
temper and said rash things? I would
point out that Prime Minister Adoula
has said rash things with far less
provocation or no provocation at all.
I would point out that Prime Minis-
ter Adoula voted for a lot of rash
anti-Western statements at the Bel-
grade Conference, and that he made
the wild charge that Western imper-
ialists were somehow responsible for
the death of Hammarskjold. I can-
not accept a standard of judgment
which forgives Adoula all his rash
statements and rash actions, but holds
Tshombe fully accountable, in per-
petuity, for every intemperate state-
ment he has made in moments of
stress, and with considerable provoca-
tion. We are dealing with human be-
ings, not with robots, and not with
clowns.
During the first few months, the
Adoula government, apparently
speaking with our encouragement,
insisted on nothing less than an abso-
lute adherence to the Zoi fondamen-
tale, as prescribed by the first clause
of the Kitona ' Agreement. When
Tshombe came to Leopoldville for his
first round of discussions with Prime
Minister Adoula in March of this year,
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one of Adoula's spokesmen told the I would not be prepared to say that perfect government. But you are not
press: everyone around Tshombe desires going to get a better government in
"If Tshombe is prepared to accept unity. But from a day and a half of any newly independent African coun-
the loi fondamentale, there is nothing conversations with Tshombe, I am try for many years to come, and you
to, discuss. If -he is not prepared to convinced that he is wise enough to may get far worse."
accept it, there is nothing to discuss." realize that if the rest of the Congo
The loi f ondamentale was drafted ever went under, and if the Kremlin
by the Belgian Government as a pro- established operation bases in Leo-
visional constitution for the Congo, poldville and Stanleyville, an inde-
to, remain in effect only until the pendent Katanga could not long sur-
Congolese Parliament had had an op- vive. He is wise enough and moderate
portunity to adopt a constitution of enough in his views to realize that,
its own. In this interim period it pro- ultimately, the fate of Katanga is
vided for a highly centralized form bound up inextricably with the fate
of government. of the Congo.
However, I know of no one who To a far greater degree than is
today believes in the possibility of a commonly realized, I believe that the
highly centralized government, at present impasse is due to the inept-
least in the early stages, for a sprawl- ness and corruption of the Leopold-
ing, heterogeneous, loosely knit coun- ville government and its complete
try such as the Congo. Centralization failure, even with the massive assist-
is something the Congo will have to ance it is receiving from the United
grow into. States, from Belgium, and from the
This, essentially, was the position UN, to establish economic order.
taken by the UN Congo Conciliation The scale of economic, fiscal, and
Commission in its report of March political chaos in the northern Congo
21, 1961, which specifically rejected is almost incredible, even by African
the loi fondamentale as unsuitable for standards. The railroads are not run-
the Congo. And I believe the wisdom ning in most of the Congo, two-thirds
of this position is recognized by the of the nation's trucks are reported
State Department, by our allies, and idle for lack of spare parts, and many
by a great majority of the political of the roads have become impassable.
leaders in the Congo. Exports have fallen off 75 per cent
Beyond the pointless insistence on from pre-independence levels.
the loi fondamentale, the attitude of The outrageous demands of the
Prime Minister Adoula and of the political parties which compose the
Leopoldville authorities during the Leopoldville government have forced
first round of negotiations left much Prime Minister Adoula to maintain a
to be desired. vastly inflated civil service. Between
Impasse
I have received the impression that
in the second round of negotiations
which terminated on June 21, Prime
Minister Adoula and his colleagues
were more moderate and less insist-
ent on the so-called loi fondamentale.
I have also received the impression,
from a distance, that on certain points
President Tshombe's position seems
to have hardened. All accounts are
agreed that a kind of impasse seemed
to have developed between the two
leaders.
It is in the interests of Katanga,
it is in the interests of the Congo as
a. whole, and it is in the interests of
the entire Free World that a way be
found to break the present impasse.
I believe that it can be broken, be-
cause I believe that Tshombe and
them, the Congolese army and the
civil service eat up 80 per cent of the
annual budget. There have also been
a whole series of rifts and crises
within the government. But within
recent weeks, Prime Minister Adoula
has taken energetic steps to improve
the situation and his government is
now made up of 28 instead of 44
members.
In relating all these facts, I do not
mean to imply that all is disorder in
the Leopoldville Congo, while all is
order and integrity in Katanga. The
Katanga Government, like every new
government, anywhere in the world-
and I am afraid that these phenomena
are not altogether confined to new
governments-has its quota of inept-
ness and corruption. But as the schol-
arly Methodist missionary, the Rev-
erend James
last year:
Brouwer wrote to me
Reciprocal Tolerance
Knowing the facts I have here listed
about Adoula, I still consider him one
of the best of the available political
elements in the Congo, and I favor
supporting him and collaborating
with him. I do not think it is too
much to ask reciprocal tolerance
toward Tshombe's side from Adoula's
supporters in the State Department.
There is no easy way out in the
Congo-and there may be no way
out at all. But I feel that the history
I have recorded here points to certain
things that should not be done and
indicates certain courses of action
which may still be open to us.
We must not permit ourselves, out
of impatience. and frustration, to be
maneuvered into another military ac-
tion against Katanga. This we must
avoid at all costs, because there is no
course that could more certainly de-
stroy the Congo.
I am convinced that there is no one
in our State Department whose inten-
tions vis-d-vis Tshombe parallel those
of the Soviets. They do not wish to
see Tshombe destroyed; at the worst,
our own partisans of war in Katanga
simply wish to cut Tshombe down a
notch or two. The game they are play-
ing, however, is an exceedingly risky
one, because military actions, once
they are initiated, cannot be con-
trolled with precision. If they initiate
another action, they may find that
it goes much further than they have
intended; they may find it winding
up with Tshombe dead or supplanted
by Katangese extremists. And if
Tshombe were ever eliminated from
the scene, I can assure you that we
will find no substitute leader of com-
parable wisdom and moderation and
understanding of world affairs.
We must choose between two alter-
natives: force and conciliation.
If we choose force, then let us have
no illusions about the dangers or the
cost. At the worst, the use of force
to crush Katanga may very well de-
stroy the Congo. At the best, it will
require maintaining a UN army in
Katanga for many years to come.
If wP nrp not rPr arPrd fn maintain
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a UN army of occupation in Katanga
for the next decade or more, then we
must turn toward conciliation as the
only realistic alternative. There is no
third alternative. Since I reject the
policy of force as dangerous and fu-
tile, I believe that the UN operation
in the Congo must be completely re-
oriented. We must abandon the
disastrous negative diplomacy that
has characterized our recent relations
with Tshombe; and, while pressing
our point of view, we must offer him
our hand in friendship.
I believe that if we all concentrate
our efforts and our assistance pro-
grams on the re-establishment of
order in the Leopoldville Congo rather
than on the military subjugation of
Katanga, we will in the long run best
be serving the ultimate cause of the
unity of the Congo.
There are too many soldiers in the
Congo-too many UN soldiers, too
many soldiers of the National Con-
golese Army, too many Katangese
soldiers. If we are to make concilia-
tion and economic rehabilitation our
chief objectives, it is essential that
all three forces be substantially re-
duced.
I would point out that the eight-
thousand-man UN army of occupa-
tion in Katanga
alone is costing
almost $70 million
a year - a figure,
incidentally, dou-
ble the $40 million
revenue which the
Katanga Govern-
ment receives
from the Union
Miniere's opera-
tion. I believe that
the UN forces in
Katanga should be
cut back to one-
half of their present size, in re-
turn for comparable reductions in
strength by the National Congolese
Army and the Katanga armed forces.
In this first phase, the UN forces
withdrawn from Katanga should be
kept on a standby basis in the north-
ern Congo while the least disciplined
units of the National Congolese Army
are in the process of being disarmed
and disbanded.
In the second phase, when the task
of disarming and disbanding these
units has been completed and when a
measure of order has been restored,
CPYRGHT
0009-8
I believe the UN forces should be
drastically reduced in size with a
view to a rapid phasing out of the en-
tire United Nations military opera-
tion in the Congo.
As the military operation in the
Congo is reduced in size, I would pro-
pose that, in concert with our NATO
allies, we work out a program of
economic assistance and development
covering the whole of the Congo and
designed, among other things, to pro-
mote a tighter economic integration
of its sprawling territory which has
become so necessary.
But, above all, in seeking a success-
ful consummation of the Adoula-
Tshombe negotiations, we must seek
to substitute friendship for force as
the essential instrument of suasion.
Who can blame Tshombe when he
says:
"I cannot negotiate with a Ghurka
knife on one side of my throat and a
Malayan knife on the other."
The Congo also has many-sided
implications for the conduct of our
foreign policy. Here, within a single
capsule, you can find three major
phenomena that have plagued our
foreign policy in recent years. First,
there is the tendency to rely exces-
sively on the UN. Second, there is the
excessive deference to that fallen idol
of liberalism, Jawaharlal Nehru, and
his neutralist companions. Third,
there is the tendency to believe that
the conflict with Communism can be
frozen, or that Communism can most
effectively be resisted by setting up
coalition governments with the Com-
munists. It is not surprising that these
three phenomena should coexist with-
in the single capsule of the Congo,
because these phenomena are or-
ganically interrelated; indeed, they
constitute a kind of trinity of the
philosophy of conciliation with the
Communist world.
The Congo is of the greatest
strategic significance to the Free
World. Its position in the heart of
Africa, and at the center of the band
of political vulnerability to which I
have preciously referred, makes it the
key to the control of Africa. And if
the Free World were to lose Africa,
on top of its already very serious
losses in Europe and Asia, the bal-
ance would be so heavily tipped
against us that our very survival ,~
would be called into question,
(Continued from p. 134)
sist nt, a former newspaper man wlZo
had untiringly tried to overcome
offs ial military and diplomatic e-
lue nee toward anti-Communist, ac-
tin O'Donnell got his blue slit the
mo ing after Clay left.
B rliners could choose ?betwen two
exp anations for Gen. Clay's 1depar-
tur . One version indicated he wished
to eturn to his job as preident of
Co inental Can. The others explana-
tion given was that he felt" he could
sere Berlin better in tlis country
tha in Berlin itself. Mo;t Berliners
wit whom I spoke were extremely
sce ical about either a1 eged reason.
Wh' e they did not know in detail the
?ru rations with which their hero had
had to put up while'` in their city,
the sensed that he ;jiad been badly
frus rated. And they3 concluded that
the oughness by whch he--and they
-h d won the Battlie of the Blockade
ove Communism has out of fashion
in p esent-day W hington. Knowing
the ommunists a they do from un-
hap y experience, they fear that this
new line will prg"yoke new advances
fro the East Which the West will
not esist becauFxe to do so would be
"too trivial" or 3'too provocative." No
won er they t4k of surrender by the
"sal mi techn' ue."
Wen Berl ers warn Americans
agai st this curse, they are likely
to hear, first,=that they themselves are
suff ring from "Berlin claustropho-
bia" -that hey see the world only in
he effect' n of their relatively mi-
nor ocal roblem; and second, that
res4 dent , ennedy's calling back of
the ese es proved how serious his
ass ants of firmness in Berlin were.
e' st ndard answer to that is that
they h e seen little evidence of any
dete nation to use these troops, and
en r1 Clay's mission serves them as
the case in point.
Y (t the confidence of Berliners in
the West is a prerequisite of their
abil` y to remain firm themselves. It
vas Berlin morale as much as Allied
irc aft which defeated the blockade.
In t e end, this morale may prove
nor decisive against new Soviet
ov s than the deployment of in-
nt y divisions. But it will take more
a public relations stunts to keep
his morale high in the shadow of
he all,
144 NATIONAL REVIEW
Approved For Release 2000/05/24: CIA-RDP75-00149R000200330009-8