The Escape of Lumumba (PJW)

"The Escape of Lumumba" is an excerpt from the 1974 British documentary Justice, Peace, Work.

The Escape
"The final days of the Wayne administration were chaotic. Not just for the CIA, but for all American military departments and intelligence agencies: we knew Byrd was going to make enormous cuts and downsizes. No one was sure where though, so everyone was trying to perform at their best, show that their work was absolutely required and couldn't endure any budget cuts. Our station in the Congo was no different; American presence in the Congo was needed to protect the resources there necessary for Wayne's bomber programs; with him gone, we had no guarantee of our program's future.

Our opportunity to impress came in late November. Wayne wanted his last few months in office to be memorable, and had given orders to the CIA. Those orders were delivered to me by an agent who called himself "Joe from Paris". I can't reveal his true identity, but let's just say he actually has a high-ranking position within the current administration. Joe told me these orders came straight from the top: the assassination of Lumumba.

Lumumba was the Congo's Prime Minister, only things weren't going so hot for him. Katanga, with all its resources, had seceded; knowing how vital that region was the economy, Lumumba sought foreign support to bring it back into the fold. Of course, the United States and Belgium, along with a few other European powers with vested interest in the region, backed Katanga. So, with no other option, Lumumba had turned red and asked the Soviets for aid.

I'm not trying to take the blame off myself - I was in charge of the CIA station down, they were all under my command, and I got the punishment in '63 - but the agents were too quick to act. They didn't want to get the axe from the budget cuts.

We worked closely with Colonel Mobutu. We agreed that we would work with his forces to capture Lumumba and secure Mobutu's position as leader of the Congo. And, of course, we had to act before the UN got in the way. The United Nations was walking a very fine line in the Congo. Mobutu's coup was set for September 11, and we knew once it got underway the UN would immediately move to protect Lumumba. So we actually moved before Mobutu launched the coup.

It was a mess...absolute mess. The agents failed to capture Lumumba, who fled out a back window and into the jungle where he was rescued by his own agents and alerted the capital of the coup. With Mobutu struggling, we had to move to Leopoldville [Kinshasa], rather than chase the Prime Minister. The coup had succeeded by the end of the day, but by then, Lumumba had gone off our radars and into parts unknown...