A Familiar Frontier: The Kennedy Administration in the Congo ...

found a precedent in the actions of Eisenhower. Accordingly, the thesis will necessarilymove back and forth chronologically to illuminate patterns. Most strikingly, the KennedyAdministration, despite a different ideological approach to the Cold War than itspredecessor, made almost exactly the same errors of judgment in assessing the threatsposed by Lumumba and the Soviet Union as the Eisenhower Administration had. This isnot to say that Kennedy and his advisers were ignorant nor that they were particularlydeceitful or mean-spirited. Throughout the Congo Crisis, the United States acted tosecure its own very limited interests in the new nation to the virtual exclusion ofconsiderations about the Congolese people, either their welfare or their wishes.Chapter One focuses on American concerns with the Lumumbist oppositiongovernment in Stanleyville and its connection with the Soviet Union. This chapteraddresses the beginning of Kennedy’s Presidency, when the situation in the Congo wasstill very unclear. Only days before Kennedy’s inauguration on January 20, 1960, PatriceLumumba had been kidnapped and surreptitiously killed. However, it would be almost amonth before the Katangese government announced his death, creating a situation inwhich the United States still planned for the contingency that Lumumba might return topower. Fears of Lumumba’s oratory gifts and a possible communist takeover of theCongo animated the decisions of this period just as they had when Eisenhower was inoffice, despite the fact that the danger posed by Lumumba and the U.S.S.R. was nowgreatly reduced. The chapter begins by providing the crucial historical context of theKennedy Administration’s outlook, detailing Lumumba’s political background and thestrong emotions he aroused in Eisenhower and his advisers.9