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

In order to understand Patrice Lumumba’s actions as Prime Minister, one mustremember the myriad problems that faced the Congo as soon as it became an independentnation with him as its first leader. Lumumba believed that the interests of the Congo werebest served by a single nation, uniting the various tribes and regions, and he felt verystrongly that the Belgians that had victimized the country for so long must not be a partof that set-up, perhaps an unrealistic goal considering the depth of Belgian interests inKatanga. Unfortunately, Lumumba did not have the political or military power to realizethis dream on his own, and his vision did not match up with that of the U.S. or U.S.S.R.The very existence of the Congo was threatened by the secession of Katanga less thantwo weeks into Lumumba’s term, at which point he went to extraordinary measures toprotect a unified and independent Congo, measures that included appealing to both sidesof the Cold War power divide for assistance.It is hard to know whether Lumumba would have preferred capitalism orcommunism, only that he was willing to accept either in exchange for the military aid thatwould allow him to recapture Katanga or to face the long list of threats to his power thatwould come afterwards. Lumumba was impatient and impetuous, quickly cycling backand forth between possible sponsors, isolating himself from so many potential allies. Hedid not understand the stakes of the Cold War for the U.S. or the U.N. or the SovietUnion well enough to recognize that neither side would give him what he needed rightaway, and that his vacillations were undermining his goals. Lumumba was not devoted tocommunism in the way that many U.S. officials under both Eisenhower and Kennedysuspected he was, yet his ill-considered threats and single-minded devotion to his owngoals made him an undesirable foreign leader just the same.24