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

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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.