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

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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.