A Green Beret's True Story of His Jack Lawson with Sully de Fontaine

TMBWFS(’T
XIFFM
A Green Beret’s True Story of His
CLASSIFIED MISSION in The Congo
Jack Lawson
with Sully de Fontaine
HELLGATE PRESS ASHLAND, OREGON

SLAVER’S WHEEL
©2012 Jack Lawson/Sully de Fontaine
Published by Hellgate Press
(An imprint of L&R Publishing, LLC)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or used in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, taping, or information and retrieval
systems without written permission of the publisher. The views and opinions
expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent those of the publisher and/or its subsidiaries or imprints.
Hellgate Press
PO Box 3531
Ashland, OR 97520
www.hellgatepress.com
Editing: Keith A. Rogers
Cover design: L. Redding
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lawson, Jack.
Slaver's wheel : a Green Beret's true story of his classified mission
in the Congo / Jack Lawson, with Sully de Fontaine. -- 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-55571-720-9
1. Congo (Democratic Republic)--History--Civil War, 1960-1965. 2.
Political violence--Congo (Democratic Republic) 3. Fontaine, Sully
de. 4. United States. Army. Special Forces. 5. Military missions. I.
Fontaine, Sully de. II. Title.
DT658.22.L39 2012
967.51031--dc23
2012046682
Printed and bound in the United States of America
First edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

To the memory of American soldiers, unsung warriors of the continuing
fight for freedom. They are gone but not forgotten: Sergeant First Class
Stefan Mazak and Captain Albert V. “Jake the Snake” Clement, U.S.
Army Special Forces.

CONTENTS
Foreword..........ix
Preface..........xi
Introduction..........xvii
2
Behind the Wheel..........1
3
Unjust Rumor..........5
4
The Silence of Inkisi..........13
4
Flexing Muscle..........21
6
Early Congo History..........29
7
Free State Fables..........35
8
The Legend..........45
9
Lighting the Fire..........55
:
Fire Power..........63
21
New Identities..........69
22
Flying into Hell..........75
23
Bullet Holes..........81
24
Before D-Day..........87
25
After D-Day..........105
26
Aircraft Arrive..........113
27
Forward March..........133
28
On to Nioki..........139
29
Roadside Rescue..........151
2:
Overexposed..........155

31
Tense Standoff..........173
32
Jungle Monster..........181
33
Meeting Lumumba..........189
34
Witch Doctor..........197
35
Rescue Recedes..........203
36
Confined to Quarters..........209
37
Peacekeepers Arrive..........213
38
Animal Crackers..........219
39
The French Communist Robert Solvay..........223
3:
Soap Box Serenade..........235
41
Name Game..........241
42
The Man Who Would Be King..........249
43
Friend and Faux..........255
44
On to Morocco..........261
45
Trouble Brewing..........269
46
Counting on Katanga..........277
47
Company Halt..........285
48
Head Hunters..........289
49
The Beat Goes On..........295
Epilogue..........301
Appendix..........311
About the Authors..........333

“A soldier must seize every advantage to defeat his opponent.
He must strike hard and strike swiftly but under all circumstances
he must stand ready to protect the innocent and those
too weak to defend themselves.” —Martin
The late Robin Moore, author of The Green Berets and some forty
other books, had intended to write Sully de Fontaine’s story. The
torch of that duty was passed to me after Moore’s death on February
8, 2008. We hope we have forged a story that would have made
Robin Moore proud.
Our goal was to capture experiences that could never be fully
conveyed by anyone’s words to express the sights, sounds, smells
and feel of the Congo in the summer of 1960.
Failing that, we hope that this story honors the memory of these
fearless and compassionate American soldiers.
Jack Lawson
Las Vegas, Nevada

J first
Foreword
met Sully de Fontaine in 1961 in Germany when I was an
adviser to a 10th Special Forces Group exercise being run out
of the Bad Tolz headquarters in Germany. From his first salute to
his always polite and low-key conversation, I knew without a doubt
that Sully was a quiet professional and a seasoned leader.
Little did I know at the time that as a young man in his late teens
he had been through some of the same British paratrooper schools
where I had trained in England. From balloons at Ringway near
Manchester he practiced for making night jumps into the farmlands
of France, his homeland, to use his skills and knowledge of the
French underground to rescue downed American pilots.
My first encounter with Sully came a year after he had led a
Special Forces team on a covert mission in the Congo to rescue
missionaries and civilians who were at risk of being massacred by
roving bands of militants spawned during that country’s independence
revolt.
The gallant rescue by his three-man team reminded me of the
time near the end of World War II when the Office of Strategic
Services tasked me with leading a prisoner-of-war humanitarian
team to liberate Allied POWs held by the Japanese on Hainan, a
large island in the South China Sea between China and Vietnam.
Instead of trigger-happy rebels that Sully and his team tangled
with in jungle pockets of the Congo, my team faced about 10,000
arrogant Japanese soldiers who were unaware of the atomic bombs

x
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
dropped on their homeland and could not believe that there was
any thought of defeat or surrender on the part of their emperor.
The troops living on Hainan Island lived well in a very pleasant climate.
They were seldom under air attack and when one of the infrequent
attackers showed up they were frequently shot down. The
crew members who survived the crash would be paraded through
the villages then executed in public.
In squalid conditions of the Hainan prison compound, we were
shocked to find hundreds of Dutch and Australian POWs, who unlike
many of their comrades, had survived starvation but were near death
after three years of enslavement by their Japanese captors.
Like the atrocities that Sully’s team would experience fifteen
years later during their Congo rescue mission, flies rose as we approached
prison huts where the stench of death prevailed.
Saving one allied soldier from dying in a prison camp would be a
small measure of success. Saving hundreds as we did was a resounding
signal to the world that free people will prevail in an oppressed
society as long as there is a government that will support the rescuers
and give them the latitude to do their jobs.
That is why stories of these humanitarian missions by U.S. soldiers
should never be forgotten or concealed in the classified libraries of
military history.
MG John K. Singlaub (USA Ret.)
Retired Army Major General John K. Singlaub’s wartime service has included
Special Operations combat missions into Nazi occupied France and Japanese occupied
China during World War II, and similar operations into communist occupied parts
of Korea during the Korean War and later into communist occupied parts of South
East Asia during the Vietnam War.

M arry
Preface
Devlin, Central Intelligence Agency station chief of the
Congo during the Lumumba period, wrote the book Chief of
Station, Congo. The book mentioned no involvement of the U.S.
Army Special Forces rescue operation prior to the United Nations’
peacekeeping operations in the Congo. In my view, the book strays
from the real causes of the unrest and problems in the Congo.
I have always had the utmost praise and admiration for Larry
Devlin as the CIA station chief during the first years after Congo
Independence. I took a personal liking to him. He was a first-class
intelligence chief and after he got up to speed with the situation in
the Congo he dealt decisively and swiftly with issues confronting
the United States and the free world.
But Devlin made the classic mistake of relying on the American
version of African history. He also doubted that Patrice Lumumba
was a communist, a statement I find hard to believe considering the
conversations I had with Lumumba. I believe from these conversations
that the relationship Lumumba had with the Soviets was created
far before the Congo’s independence.
For the most part, newer generations do not understand the perilous
world that existed in the desperate struggle between democracy
and communism before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. They
lack the concept of the word “communism,” which underscores the
intensity of the fight and dangers of that period. The menace of
this ideology was that “communism destroys the spirit and individ-

xii
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
ualism of man,” according to one refugee who was born and raised
in a communist state.
The madness that these communist worker paradise states created
in people drove them to risk their lives escaping to the West. Men,
women and children were shot dead while trying to scale the Berlin
Wall to reach the freedom of West Berlin. In their desperation they
risked being killed or imprisoned crossing mine-laden barbed wire
borders of Eastern Bloc countries. It was mute testimony to the
world that they would rather die than live under communism.
Communism was out to dominate the world. It was an especially
dangerous threat in countries composed of tribes. Tribal Africa has
a population that has ingrained in the majority rule by tribal elder
dictatorial decree. Consequently, post-colonial tribal Africa was naturally
more ready to adapt to communism or dictatorship before
democracy could grow and bear fruit in future generations.
Some of the Congo’s history has been written by historians who
have not lived in or set foot in the Congo, so their accounts stand to
be flawed. I lived in Africa longer than most modern day authors of
books about the events of that continent. Only by living among the
African population can you develop a perspective that is rounded
by the senses and logical evaluations from experience.
There are naturally contradicting viewpoints even when based
on accurate research. However, many accounts of Patrice Lumumba
and the events of the Congo have been created from and built on
other false information with some purposefully driven by ideological
agenda and some by accident. Regardless of motivation, the saying
goes, “When the story becomes a legend, print the legend.” Patrice
Lumumba has become a legend.
Mostly because of the American civil rights movement, American
history on Africa is biased and is driven to a large degree by “political
correctness” or what has been described in some instances as “tyranny
with politeness.” There are few parallels between the struggle by
blacks for civil rights in the United States and the black struggle for

Preface
xiii
civil rights and majority rule in Africa. The dynamics of each struggle
varied greatly.
To get the proper perspective on African history, you must go to
the archives of the British, Dutch, Belgian, French, Spanish, Germans
and Portuguese for accurate information. These were the colonial
powers that had colonized Africa and have the most accurate documentation
of its past. We could rely on indigenous African written
history, but there is none from most of the past, other than the
stories passed down through generations.
As an instructor of history and geography at the Unconventional
Warfare School, I have read African history books in English,
French, German and the translations of history books from Portuguese
and Spanish.
African history from the American viewpoint is that Africa and
the black Africans were abused and robbed by the colonial powers,
which has truth. But European historical archives will also reveal
that the colonial powers played a large part in the education and
development of Africa and its people.
The loss of life and chaos in the Belgian Congo in the years after
independence up to present day is the direct result of ignorant, misguided
and manipulated outside influences forcing independence
on the Congo before the Belgians could prepare the Congolese to
run the country.
There is also a pattern of action by Lumumba, his liberal sympathizers
and communists that becomes apparent. It points in the direction
of premature independence and the immediate anarchy following
it serving a purpose.
It is not in doubt that progressive attitudes are needed to force
change in the world. Without them the world would still be in the
clutches of the feudal system and the horror of slavery would still
exist. However, all common sense was thrown to the wind when the
emotions and passion of the liberal world, subtly and deceitfully
stoked by a communist agenda, prematurely forced the Belgians to

xiv
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
surrender the Congo to its unprepared people. That liberal mindset
is directly responsible for the death and destruction that would continue
for decades and into the new millennium.
The pattern of events during the first months of independence
was part of a carefully engineered plan to use the United Nations to
consolidate Lumumba’s hold on the Congo. When this failed, Lumumba
was forced to hastily bring in his mentors, the Soviet Union.
He intended to do so from the beginning as soon as he had gained
control of the Congo.
Most accounts of the events and turmoil in Africa also ignore
tribal antagonism as a major cause of conflict. In the days immediately
after independence, conflict in the Congo was more the result
of tribal antagonisms than the West’s attempt to undermine Lumumba.
However, this radically changed as Lumumba’s motives became
more apparent and the Soviet Union began to send military
equipment and advisors to the Congo.
Lumumba would have probably become a tyrannical leader much
like other communist dictators such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana
or Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Starvation, genocide, terrorism and unrest in Africa became major
concerns of the United States. The U.S. Army created a regional
military command in 2008 that deals solely with Africa. Initially,
four-star General William “Kip” Ward, a career infantry officer, led
the Africa Command at its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
The command was created to assist in training the militaries of
African nations and rendering humanitarian aid to those countries.
The American effort was well received by its host countries and
is a counter balance to similar missions of Russia and China. As
General Ward put it: “The U.S. mission is not to militarize or establish
an American military presence in Africa. It is not to create a
monopoly for America on the resources of Africa, but to help those
countries become self reliant in their affairs and to ensure the minerals
and resources of Africa are free, open and available to the

Preface
entire world on a competitive basis for the betterment of the African
people.”
One of my motives for writing about this operation is that U.S.
Army Special Forces Sergeant First Class Stefan Mazak, who saved
my life and the lives of missionaries, was never publicly recognized
for his feat of endurance. He hiked ten kilometers through almost
impenetrable jungle to my standoff with rebels. His bravery and
valor in confronting and killing many of the rebels forced them to
disperse allowing us, and the missionaries, to escape by plane. Stefan
Mazak was responsible for saving the lives of thirteen people that
day.
In October 1960, a private ceremony was held at the Tenth Special
Forces Headquarters in Bad Tolz, Germany. Hosted by their commander,
Colonel Michael Paulick, Captain Clement, Sergeant Mazak
and I were awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Because of
the classified operation, the Army’s decision to award First Sergeant
Mazak the Army Distinguished Service Cross was revoked. The
reason was the State Department feared publicity would reveal too
much information about the rescue operation. Later, however, he
was posthumously awarded the Silver Star Medal, the third highest
valor award, for his service in Vietnam in 1968.
The Army Distinguished Service Cross, next to the Medal of
Honor, is the second highest military decoration that can be awarded
to a member of the Army. It is awarded for extreme gallantry and
risk of life in actual combat with an armed enemy force. United
States authorities decided there would be no mention of Special
Forces soldiers involved in combat with Congolese soldiers that
could come back to haunt the United States government.
As a first lieutenant, I, however, became the first Army lieutenant
to receive the Legion of Merit for bravery and service in the Congo.
Colonel Paulick stated to all attending the ceremony, “There is to
be absolutely no mention of this ceremony or the awards, especially
to the press.”
xv

xvi
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
If this had not been a classified operation, we both would have
been awarded the Purple Heart and Stefan Mazak would probably
have received the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery.
Sergeant First Class Stefan Mazak was killed on April 18, 1968
while on a covert operation with the Fifth Special Forces Group in
Vietnam.
Sully de Fontaine
Las Vegas, Nevada

U he
Introduction
truth can be twisted, cut, bent and warped. But like an absolute
law of science it still remains the truth. What purpose
does history serve if it is not truthful? Since the truth of Patrice Lumumba
and the Congo is not what has been written in most accounts,
I enlisted the help of Jack Lawson to write a memoir on the genesis of
American military involvement in the Congo.
Lumumba’s meteoric rise and sudden fall is one in which he is
portrayed as the black-nationalist victim of ruthless Western powers
and colonial financial interests in the Congo. The popular impression
is that Lumumba was crushed like the ember representing the fire
of freedom for black Africans. The fashionable belief is that he was
driven out of desperation to turn to communist nations for help.
My experience differed with that version.
When I traveled with Patrice Lumumba, and was there to secretly
guard his life, I had many personal conversations with him. This
was during the early days of the newly independent Belgian Congo.
As an ambitious communist, he had scaled the country’s topsyturvy
political ladder before he was chosen prime minister of the
Republic of the Congo.
In keeping with the plan, I had fooled him into thinking I was a
communist, like him, not from Africa but from a family tied to
France’s chemical industry. Our conversations, always spoken in
French, ranged from politicians and ideology to trivial talk. He
never failed to come across as macho and self-centered. But I didn’t
care because he trusted me.

xviii
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
At six feet tall I was lucky to have been an inch taller than him or
I’m sure he would have tried to talk down to me.
I posed as French communist Robert Solvay while on a trip with
him to Rabat, Morocco. That’s when the infamous “Congo Toothpaste
Assassination Plot” to kill him with poisonous toothpaste was
supposed to have occurred.
I found it quite humorous because the man never brushed his
teeth. He didn’t even own a toothbrush.
On this trip to Rabat, he was seeking an alliance with the crown
prince of Morocco. I had the room next to him in the hotel.
That morning, Lumumba knocked on my door. I answered with
a toothbrush in my mouth, and opened the door to see him standing
there. I bid him good morning and invited him in.
“Are you ready to go, Robert?” he asked.
“Just one moment, Prime Minister, I have to finish brushing my
teeth.”
Lumumba walked inside.
I went into the bathroom and through the open door I could see
him behind me, staring in the mirror. He laughed, bearing his
perfect, pearly white teeth.
“I do not brush my teeth, Robert, and my teeth are perfect! Look,”
he bragged.
“Well, Prime Minister, you are a fortunate person,” I replied with
a smile.
Sully de Fontaine

TMBWFS(’T
XIFFM
A Green Beret’s True Story of His
CLASSIFIED MISSION in The Congo
Jack Lawson
with Sully de Fontaine

u the
2
Behind the Wheel
decaying remnants of a wheel off a fourteenth century
Portuguese oxcart stands in the middle of Inkisi, a tiny
African village on the banks of one of the hundreds of Congo River
tributaries.
This wheel is set in a hardened mud brick pedestal much like a
monument. Like most monuments it represents a special incident
in the lives of people of the Congo’s western region. It represents
victory and freedom in a battle the ancestors of the people of Inkisi
fought centuries ago with Portuguese slave traders.
Left to the imagination are the grief, tears, anguish and blood
shed by those people centuries ago when the incident took place
that led to the capture of this wheel. For centuries, this event was
not recorded through writings or books. Nor are there inscriptions
or plaques on the pedestal of this wheel describing this great victory
in their history, a battle for their freedom. Had they lost this battle,
their defeat would have forever changed their existence and that of
their children and their children’s children. They would have been
slaves for generations.
But this battle was recorded just the same for centuries in the
only way they knew how to pass on their history on. It was a story

2
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
told countless times as they danced around Slaver’s Wheel ceremoniously
to remind their children of their ancestor’s defeat of tyranny
in that battle won centuries ago. The ceremony conveyed to all in
the tribe their pride, bravery and determination that they would be
no one’s slave, that they would be free people.
Through this celebration the story was passed down from generation
to generation. This wheel was the centerpiece of the village
and around it were places where bonfires lit the night thousands of
times while they danced.
As the story was told for generations, the wheel is from the oxcart
of Portuguese slavers. These vicious and brutal slave hunters had
surprised and raided this African village to harvest their one and
only crop: native Africans to be sold to the highest bidder. On that
fateful day, wives would lose husbands and children, husbands would
lose wives and children, children would lose parents and most children
would be slaughtered or left to die on their own as had happened
countless times in other villages raided by slavers and rival
tribes for centuries.
The Portuguese and an allied rival African tribe had surrounded
and raided this village in the early morning hours. The story goes on
that the slavers were leading hundreds of the village’s captive people
to the coast, the Portuguese riding on top of their possessions in two
ox carts. It was a seemingly endless line of people chained to each
other to be loaded on waiting ships. Just another lucrative cargo of
nameless black Africans bound for slave auctions in the West Indies.
Many of the warriors of the village they had just raided had been
on a hunting party and returned to see the devastation and annihilation
of their village. They were soon angrily pursuing the Portuguese
slavers and their line of slow moving, walking misery. The Portuguese
came under increasingly sporadic and vicious attacks by these warriors
over the coming days. Attacks would materialize from seemingly
nowhere. The jungle would suddenly erupt along both sides of their
trail with deadly strikes on the slavers and their African helpers.

Behind the Wheel
Many slavers were killed or seriously wounded. Within a week
their nerves were frayed and they were afraid of stopping for sleep
for fear of being overrun and killed. Most of their allies, the rival
African tribesmen, had abandoned the Portuguese. Now without
sleep for days, the Portuguese feared for their lives.
They abandoned all the slaves from Inkisi hoping this would end
the devastating attacks. But the warriors from Inkisi continued to
pursue the Portuguese, their ranks now swollen with their freed and
angry comrades. The remainder of the Portuguese with their few
slaves from other villages finally reached the coast and immediately
began to load their ship. While hoisting one of the carts onto the
ship, suddenly one of the wheels fell off. In fear of being wiped out,
the Portuguese quickly raised sails and set out for sea, leaving the
wheel behind.
This slaver’s wheel was taken by the tribe and set in the center of
the tribal village of Inkisi in the area that eventually became the
Belgian Congo. They danced around it for centuries in a ritual that
represented the last loss of their people to Portuguese slavers. The
Portuguese had suffered so many casualties on this expedition that
they never again ventured into this part of the Congo to capture
slaves.
Slaver’s Wheel sits in mute testimony to the end of slavery for
this tribe, centuries before the British outlawed the business in 1807
and finally made the business punishable by death in 1833. The
Belgians and other countries soon followed suit, except Portugal
and the young country of the United States. Slaver’s Wheel represented
to this tribe that they would never submit to slavery. To them
this wheel represented their freedom.
3

4
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm

J heard
3
Unjust Rumor
you were involved with the assassination of Patrice Lumumba
in the Congo.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before
I could check my impulse to speak.
They were directed to the stocky man with graying hair and telltale
limp with whom I had just shaken hands and who’d taken the chair next
to me at the dining table. He had been given many cover names and
identifications over the years, but his real name was Sully de Fontaine.
In spite of his neatly tailored dark gray pinstripe suit, his military
bearing betrayed him amid the gamblers and business people haunting
the chic Center Stage Café in Las Vegas that day in September of
2000. This aging man looked as fit as an eighteen year old just out of
Fort Benning Airborne School, the legendary training post in Georgia
that he had conquered decades earlier. He may as well have been in his
Army uniform, with his full-bird colonel’s insignia and his many
medals, the hardware that comes with years of discipline of military
life that had forever branded him with this revealing air.
My question was raw and out of place. But Sully didn’t waiver, he
continued calmly unfolding his cloth napkin and preparing for the
meal that would soon be in front of him as if the question hadn’t been
asked.

6
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
My statement had created a frozen silence from the rest of those
at the table. It was an unnerving stillness. The silence was as empty
and pure as the white tablecloth in front of us. All at the table sat
motionless, staring at Sully with curiosity, wondering if he’d answer
my question and simultaneously wondering what this was all about.
Watching how this man would react to my unintentional verbal
ambush as he prepared to eat his meal with the manner of his European
upbringing and that of an officer and gentleman.
My friend, the late author Robin Moore of Special Forces fame,
was sitting to my left and I could feel his eyes penetrate me. Even
Robin, known for his boldness, was uncomfortable with what I’d
just said, but I’d heard the rumor. I’d met this man for the first time
only a few minutes earlier, but Sully had such an inviting air about
him that seemed to beckon, “Talk to me. Ask me what you want.”
Maybe I felt I had common ground with Sully because of my experiences
in Africa. That would make this a conversation of one
soldier to another. Whatever the reason for my impulsiveness, I had
blurted out the words and they couldn’t be retracted. Regardless, I
kicked myself for speaking out so suddenly and tactlessly.
“Sully here led the Special Forces Team in the Congo in 1960
right after independence and Patrice Lumumba becoming prime
minister.” That’s what Robin Moore said to the others, finally breaking
the frozen silence at the table in an attempt to bridge the obvious
gap between my question and somewhat establish Sully’s identity
to the uninformed at our table.
I knew little about Sully other than what Robin had briefly told
me. The limp was from a leg severely broken on a parachute jump
that caused him to live for years with one leg slightly shorter than
the other. It was not properly set and Sully wouldn’t reveal where it
had happened, leaving me to imagine some clandestine operation
he’d rather not discuss.
Sully was a former British Special Operations Executive operative
who transferred to the Office of Strategic Services and was one of a

Unjust Rumor
group of wildcat U.S. Army officers who helped pioneer the Special
Forces in the 1950s. This was the new military unit intended for
unconventional warfare for the future unconventional world. It
would be immortalized through Robin’s book about Vietnam made
into the movie, The Green Berets, starring John Wayne.
I learned much more about Sully, but the more I learned the more
questions came to mind. He was like some sophisticated Chinese puzzle,
the more parts you moved on it, the more complicated it became.
Long ago, I had read accounts of the American involvement in
the Congo in the 1960s. It was the time and place of legends and
excitement. It was the birthplace of the Congo mercenary and the
famous five, six and ten commandos led by Englishman “Mad” Mike
Hoare, Frenchman Bob Denard and Belgian Congo plantation
owner Jean “Blackjack” Schramme. It was a place akin to the American
Wild West era, only this was Africa and in its anarchy and
lawlessness reputations and fortunes were made by anyone with the
courage, nerve and enough guns to back them up.
Most of these men were fighting against communist imperialism
and saving whites from rape and murder at the hands of the Congolese.
The mercenaries would be in or out of favor with governments
involved as the flip-flopping jumble of alliances and interests changed
over the next five years much like the rapidly changing Congo
weather. Most mercenaries were considered heroes to Westerners.
But their defiance of what they thought was wrong and their alleged
unruliness caused the world powers and particularly the United Nations
to outlaw the use of mercenaries forever.
It was the time of transformation of these colonies to emerging
independent nations governed by the majority. For the most part,
the majority consisted of uneducated black Africans who were born
into tribes that ruled the people of their areas by dictatorial decree.
Consequently, they had absolutely no concept of just and democratic
elections and rule of the people by a constitution and laws with the
checks and balances of elected representatives and a judiciary.
7

8
Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
They were thrust totally unprepared into the twentieth century.
The result was that East and West ideologies would compete for
their favor and chaos would rule for decades. The Congo became a
vast staging ground for the struggle between the West and the
Soviet Union.
It was also the time and place of the alleged American involvement
in Patrice Lumumba’s downfall and death. Lumumba was a name I
would well know later in my life. First-hand accounts of the Rhodesian
Security Forces capturing terrorist belongings in Zambia during
camp raids proved that Zimbabwe African Nationalist Liberation
Army (ZANLA) terrorists, or Rhodesian terrorists supported by
the Russians and operating out of Zambia, had been trained by
Russians in the Soviet Union.
A high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer who defected to the
West during the Cold War stated that Patrice Lumumba’s People’s
Friendship University was a front used by the KGB—Russian state
police and intelligence services—for training communist terrorists
from all over the world.
Rhodesians had discovered some curious items inside terrorists’
backpacks. These included an Aeroflot—Soviet airlines— flight menu,
military training notebooks and a group graduation photograph.
That photo contained an international mix of students including
two ZANLA terrorists standing between primitive cannons at a Russian
training facility. Whether or not this photo was taken at Lumumba’s
People’s Friendship University, the Russians had nevertheless named a
university after him. Why was this man so revered by the Russians?
I remember thinking as the saying goes that “One man’s terrorist is
another man’s freedom fighter.” I just never reasoned that communism
was any form of freedom for mankind. Initially, I suppose it was better
than the suppression of some dictatorships until the real brick-andmortar
of communism set in, building their so-called ‘perfect society’
that destroys the spirit of man by demanding blind obedience and
killing free thought. It is an ideology that crushes any thinking other

Unjust Rumor
than that of the Marxist-communist doctrine where everyone is supposedly
equal, except those in power. I concluded that communism is
just another form of dictatorship.
Whatever my thoughts on this ideology, Patrice Lumumba was a
martyr and revered amongst communists, even though his fame
lasted a shorter duration than that of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Still,
his fame is what legends are made of and universities are apparently
named after.
The United States government and especially its Central Intelligence
Agency became involved in the Congo when the 1960s revolutions
were in progress. Reeling from Castro turning Cuba into a communist
bastion on America’s doorstep, the West was not going to let Lumumba’s
dream of a communist state become a reality in the heart of
Africa, especially after he openly embraced the Russians and they returned
that embrace with the beginning of massive shipments of aid,
advisors and weapons. To the CIA, where the Congo went, so goes
Africa; and where Africa went, so goes the world.
The CIA considered the Congo as the key to Africa. Its agents did
a splendid job of sorting through the mess in the Congo. Their task
could be compared to baking again an already ruined cake and making
it somewhat palatable. No doubt, payments were made and manipulation
took place. But because of the Free World’s “good guy” status, the
CIA seemed to be held accountable to criticism for these shadowy
tactics while the Soviets, using the same devices, were not.
Sully credits the CIA with saving the Congo. Without the CIA exerting
their substantial influence, the Republic of the Congo, if not all
of Africa, would have gone communist. The Congo was truly representative
of the domino theory. Countries that fell into communism
would quickly affect an adjoining country, like dominos toppling the
one next to it, and the Congo was teetering towards the fall.
If communism were to be established in the Congo, the rest of the
continent would eventually follow suit. The huge Belgian Congo
shared borders with many African countries that were also ripe for
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Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
revolution. The Congo is about one-fourth the size of the United
States. It is the third largest country by area and is the richest mineral
bearing land of that size on the African continent.
The Congo’s rich deposits of, diamonds, gold, copper and uranium
would go to the other side in the Cold War, creating a deficit on the
economic war’s balance sheet for the West and a huge credit on that of
the East.
Nuclear weapon production numbers and costs for East and West
alone were at stake during the Cold War. For more than twenty years
the United States had known that the Congo held the best source of
uranium for atomic bombs. Albert Einstein, the genius physicist, had
made that point clear in a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in
August 1939.
He wrote Roosevelt, saying, “It may become possible to set up a nuclear
chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts
of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be
generated.”
“This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of
bombs and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely
powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed,” Einstein informed
FDR.
“A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port,
might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding
territory.”
But Einstein zeroed in on the role of the Congo.
“The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate
quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia,
while the most important source of uranium is Belgian
Congo.”
As such, much was at stake if communism held its grip on the
Congo. It was evident in 1960 that it would take many more years to
economically defeat that mindset. Since the Congo bordered eight
countries that were prone to turning communist, it was obvious that
another nine could be affected if communism prevailed.

Unjust Rumor
Within a decade, half of Africa’s countries could have been under
the control of the Soviet Union. Guerilla infiltration and rebel camps
for liberation wars fought would have sprung up all along borders
as communism spread.
The muscle of American and Belgian determination and resolve
began to flex through the classified mission of Sully and his Special
Forces team that worked behind the scenes to evacuate whites from
mass extermination in the Congo. Then, indirectly through the CIA
and that trio of Congo mercenaries—Englishman “Mad” Mike
Hoare, Frenchman Bob Denard and Jean “Blackjack” Schramme—
Lumumba and later his associates would not succeed in bringing
the Soviet Union into control of the Congo.
Sully knew all the key players in what started out as a rescue mission
at the urging of Ambassador Tim Timberlake.
****
Silence had set back in at the table after Robin spoke. The looks
of all sitting there were still focused on Sully. He sipped water from
a delicate crystal glass to the right of his plate and set it down. He
spoke slowly and carefully with a telltale accent that could be traced
back to his roots in France.
The once-secret operation that had been unclassified for almost
forty years was not the reason he spoke slowly and precisely. It was
his nature to be humble, quiet and reserved. He would answer my
question and the thousands more I had that day and over the next
years in a manner that was almost a reluctant revelation of his past.
What this unassuming man would tell me was a story of which
legends are made, a story of a leader and his men whose exploits
were little known to the world, one with factions that did not want
to hear the truth. The secrecy was necessary to keep the liberals, socialists
and communists of communist countries and their sympathizers
within the Western powers from yelling, “foul play,” over the
United States’ involvement in Africa and labeling what started as a
humanitarian mission as imperialist American meddling.
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Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
This humanitarian mission quickly turned into a struggle laced
with the intrigue and brutality of a power play by the East against
the West. Sully hoped this Cold War fight would tip the balance of
power to the Western world to defeat communism. When it was
declassified on July 20, 1963, his Congo operation was obscured by
the publicity of the Vietnam War, a war that years later would
severely affect the American psyche.
America was in its golden days. The Drifters were singing “Save
the Last Dance for Me”; gasoline was thirty-one cents a gallon;
Burt Lancaster won an Academy Award for his title role in the
movie, “Elmer Gantry”; a loaf of bread cost twenty cents; mailing a
letter was four cents; Elvis Presley’s classic song, “Are You Lonesome
Tonight,” was playing on the radio; and Moise Tshombe had declared
independence from the Congo for the Katanga Province.
Most Americans started that Monday morning, July 11, 1960,
like any other day. They ate breakfast, took their children to school,
drove to work, did their jobs and had supper together in the peace
and quiet of their homes. Many watched James Arness play Matt
Dillon in “Gunsmoke” and saw Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone”
on television. They viewed worldwide events through the eyes of
the mass media as portrayed in newspapers, magazines, on radio
and TV.
For Sully and his men, their coming days in the Congo would be
far from the comfortable security of an American family room.

4
The Silence of Inkisi
T ully de Fontaine’s words to “Jake One,” the Army pilot, could
barely be heard over the engine noise and propeller wash that
blasted through the cockpit of the bush plane, a single-propeller de
Havilland Beaver.
“Take off right now, captain! Get high enough to be out of small
arms range. You know the routine,” de Fontaine—known as “Robert”
for the mission—told the captain.
“Don’t come back for me or evacuees unless I tell you to land.
Not for any reason. Got it?”
“Got it. Good hunting, Robert,” the pilot shouted back. He gave
Sully a thumbs-up for good luck as Sully closed the door.
The pilot put full throttle to the aircraft, and the plane stirred a
giant dust cloud as it rolled down the dirt road away from the
village. Sully turned away and had to hold his hat to keep it from
blowing off as he started walking down the road toward the village
of Inkisi. Sully looked back to watch in disbelief as the pilot barely
cleared the tree line. He was still amazed at the skill of this pilot
landing and taking off from places that most stunt pilots wouldn’t
even attempt.

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Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
Entering the village, Sully began systematically searching for survivors.
An eerie silence filled this once-bustling village in the remote
Belgian Congo jungle.
Only the drone of the Beaver broke the silence as the fixed-wing
plane rapidly gained altitude. The pilot and Sully had seen the
bodies littering the streets and the smoldering buildings on their
flyover before they landed.
It was high noon and the heat, humidity and smell were almost
unbearable. But Sully pressed on. He searched building-by-building
and room-by-room. His British safari suit turned a shade darker
from the torrents of sweat pouring off him. It gave this lanky man a
look much different than that of John Huston in the movie, “White
Hunter, Black Heart.” But this was not a movie set where a change
of clothes and a cool glass of water were part of the routine. It was
the reality of Africa in the summer of 1960, a summer of terror that
had spread like a windblown grass fire.
Sully was neither the White Hunter nor a man with a black
heart. The tremendous thirst that gnawed at him every second was
by his years of training an almost nonexistent thought in his mind.
Also pushed aside was the urge to vomit from the overwhelming
smell of the decomposing dead that would have made most people
throw up.
The perspiration spread further, darkening more of his beige
safari suit as he cautiously searched the village. His sweat was not
just from the heat and his exertion, but from the ever-present subconscious
fear he felt of a confrontation with the rebels who had recently
ravaged this village. He knew he would be vastly outnumbered
and would be on his own in an ambush.
There would be no one to come to his aid if this happened. He
could only do his best to escape. His submachine gun, a pistol and
two grenades gave him some comfort. In the back of his mind, he
knew if he were captured that his death would not be quick and it
would be painful beyond comprehension.

Silence in Inkisi
Neither capture nor surrender was an option. He pushed both to
the recesses of his mind, as the years of special operations training
had taught him.
Sully led this desperate classified mission at the request of Clare
“Tim” Timberlake, who became the first U.S. ambassador to the
Democratic Republic of Congo on July 5, 1960. The Belgians had
asked for emergency help to extricate and save foreigners from
certain death at the hands of roving bands of rebels in remote areas
of the Congo. They were Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba’s rebels
who were intent on killing all foreigners and rival tribal members in
the newly independent Belgian Congo. Anyone could be their victim
and the only qualification was to be white, European, or not of a
tribe that supported the new prime minister.
Sully had issued orders for his men to openly carry weapons at
their discretion if they were alone on a rescue mission, even though
the initial plan was to appear unarmed when entering village so as
to provoke rebels.
In his medical backpack adorned with a large red cross that usually
gave him safe passage with the rebels, were his radio, medical supplies
and magazine pouches. He was traveling light, but it was unbearably
hot, and his backpack seemed to weigh three times its weight of
twenty-five pounds.
Each time he searched a building, he prepared to fire his nine-millimeter
submachine gun that he carried with a sling over his shoulder.
A putrid odor hung in the humid air. The dismembered corpses
of scores of Africans and a few white missionaries, farmers and
businessmen lay where they had been killed. Their bodies and pieces
were covered with thousands of flies and ants. They had been viciously
hacked by rebels intent on killing their victims in the most
primitive and horrendous fashion, with semi-sharp machetes. They
preferred this to using ammunition from their weapons.
Hundreds of bodies filled the streets. There were more in the
buildings that Sully searched. As the engine noise from the departing
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Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
de Havilland Beaver faded to a distant purr, another noise—the
chorus of thousands of flies buzzing around the corpses—became
an almost overwhelming sound. It didn’t take long for something
dead in the Congo to attract flies and ants from miles around. They
covered white and black African dead alike for a feast that was of
biological equality.
By the looks of the smoldering buildings and the decomposition
and bloating of the bodies, Sully calculated the slaughter had taken
place about two days ago. However, Frenchy, his radioman, had
made contact with whites from this village early this morning. The
missionaries from Sona-Bata were insistent that there were still
whites alive somewhere in Inkisi or one of the surrounding villages.
Sully didn’t think the main group of rebels was in the village, but
this seasoned, thirty-three-year-old U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant
would not trust to chance that they had all left. The rebels
were on drugs or drunk the majority of the time and Sully’s suspicion
that a few hung-over stragglers may still be here kept him on edge.
In the missionary church and attached living quarters he found a
dead Catholic priest and three sisters. The sisters lay stripped naked,
dead on the floor by the altar, where they had been repeatedly raped
and then gruesomely killed. The priest had been savagely beaten
before being hacked open, his intestines pulled from his abdomen.
Flies and ants covered him and the rest of the dead.
Sully yanked off the curtains and covered the bodies. It seemed
an almost pointless gesture among all the carnage, but he felt it was
decency of some sort for these departed souls at least until they
could be properly buried. In the priest’s quarters he found a radio
set that had been smashed to pieces. It was the only one he’d found
in the village.
The few native Africans he came upon in the huts and buildings
were cowering in any place they could hide that would give them
some sense of security from the terror they knew could revisit them
at any moment. When Sully appeared, they cried and begged him

Silence in Inkisi
for their lives, speaking their native Lingala language. The lucky
few, who had escaped through the cordon of rebels that had surrounded
the village before attacking, were hiding deep in the surrounding
jungle.
He could do little to comfort the ones he discovered in the buildings
other than to say in French and Lingala, “Don’t be afraid, I am
your friend. People are on their way to help you.”
He knew, though, it would be weeks before order would be restored.
He hoped his words would provide some sense of relief and
lessen the anguish and terror they had suffered. But he knew those
were empty words just the same.
Much of the village had been set on fire and the remnants of the
structures were still smoldering, set ablaze by the rebels as they left.
Entering mud huts, the church, shops and small stores stripped of
their goods, the scene was always the same: Dead bodies littered
the grounds and merchandise was strewn everywhere among the
carnage. After searching the entire village for rebels and the whites
he had come for, he knew he was alone with only the few Africans
he’d discovered in hiding.
He’d been searching now for almost an hour and moved to the
center of the village when he saw it. To the side of the main street
was the Portuguese slaver’s oxcart wheel. He walked slowly toward
it. As odd looking and as out of place as the wheel was, he remembered
it from a story he had read a few years earlier while teaching
classes on African history and geography to Special Forces troops
at the Unconventional Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
It was the Slaver’s Wheel.
For a moment Sully was in awe of the history at which he stared.
The sight of the wheel gave him goose bumps and a cold chill
despite the heat in this jungle village. There it stood, the monument
to the victors of that battle for freedom generations ago.
The thought suddenly struck him that the village founders would
weep again if they could see their offspring now around the Slaver’s
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Tmbwfs’’’’’’’’’ (t!Xiffm
Wheel, not dancing in celebration but their bodies in pieces surrounding
it in grotesque lifeless poses, lying where they were brutally
killed in the village streets.
Breaking from a trance, Sully laid his submachine gun on the
pedestal of the Slaver’s Wheel. He cupped his mouth with both
hands to amplify his voice as he yelled in all directions alternately in
English and French, “I am French-Canadian and here to evacuate
you. Show yourselves!”
After another fifteen minutes of his pleas going unanswered, he
radioed Jake One to land the Beaver and pick him up. Frenchy had
been given the wrong village name or those who had radioed for
help had their radio destroyed, had fled or had been killed.
Within a few minutes, the Beaver landed. As they took off, Sully
radioed Frenchy.
“Robert Four, this is Robert One, come in.”
“Go ahead, Robert One.”
“Just left Inkisi and found no one there. Radio them again to
confirm their location.”
“Roger that. I’ll call you back.”
“Jake, circle around at tree top level moving out from the center
of the village. Maybe we can spot them from the air.” Sully told the
pilot.
“Got it, Robert.” Jake One answered over the headset and for the
next twenty minutes they flew in an increasing spiral trying to spot
the refugees from the air.
Soon, Frenchy radioed Sully back.
“Robert One, come in.”
“Go ahead Robert Four,” Sully answered.
“I can’t raise them on the radio. They definitely told me Inkisi,
Robert.”
“Roger. Call me if you hear from them again.”
“Roger that,” Frenchy said as he signed off.
“Jake, head back to Brazzaville.”

Silence in Inkisi
“Gotcha. Turning to a Brazzaville heading now, Robert.”
As the plane banked to turn on its new heading for Brazzaville in
the neighboring French Congo, Sully had a clear view of the village.
He looked intently one final time for movement. Just hoping that
he could spot whoever had radioed them. He saw nothing. But the
thought of that Slaver’s Wheel suddenly flashed through his mind.
What had started for Sully as a classified humanitarian rescue
mission would change the course of history in the largest country in
Africa and help decide the Cold War, decades before it would have
come to a conclusion.
19