Word: kasavubu
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State Department strategists have reluctantly concluded that President Joseph Kasavubu is too ineffectual to rally his nation behind him. The earnest Colonel (now Major General) Joseph Mobutu, on whom the U.S. once pinned its hopes, has turned out to be erratic, unreliable, and one of the weakest strongmen who ever stumbled into power. Wild-eyed Patrice Lumumba, though clubbed by his foes and languishing in jail, disconcertingly continued to command wide loyalty, not only among the Congolese, but also among other African leaders as well. Since Lumumba refused to disappear politically, U.S. strategists concluded that he could no longer...
...contributing any more bombs, planes or pilots to Tshombe. But the real danger was Soviet Russia. Was Nikita Khrushchev sufficiently eager for warmer relations with the U.S. to agree to keep hands off in the Congo? Russia's first big grab had been halted last September. But, though Kasavubu and Mobutu had ordered the Russians out, the Russians have gone on clandestinely helping pro-Lumumba forces...
Though temporarily humiliating, the abduction was actually a testament to Lumumba's burgeoning strength. Congolese President Joseph Kasavubu took alarm when he visited Lumumba in Camp Hardy, only 86 miles from Leopoldville, where he was technically incarcerated by order of Colonel Joseph Mobutu. Kasavubu found Lumumba with the run of the camp and energetically subverting the loyalty of the troops guarding him. For a few hours, no one was certain whether it was Lumumba or Kasavubu who was the prisoner. When order was restored, Kasavubu decided that it was time to move Lumumba to a safer place. He opened...
Scooping up President Joseph Kasavubu himself, Mobutu charged down to Camp Hardy to quell the brewing revolt. What happened is wrapped in the inevitable confusion that surrounds every Congo crisis. One report had it that Mobutu was arrested temporarily by his own troops and that Lumumba was freed. But when it was all over, Patrice Lumumba still sat in jail. With his loyal supporters taking over more and more of the country, how long he would remain there was an open question...
Back in Léopoldville, President Joseph Kasavubu sat down grimly with visiting U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, who flew in from Manhattan to urge the regime to reconvene Parliament and give imprisoned Patrice Lumumba a fair trial. As they talked, rowdy groups of pro-Lumumba and pro-Kasavubu men shouted at and slugged one another outside U.N. headquarters. It was hardly a favorable atmosphere for promises of peace, but the stolid President grandly announced he would give it another try-with a round-table conference of all Congolese leaders on Jan. 25. Lumumba's own variety of roundup...