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

damage to his reputation among Africans. This seeming contradiction is best explainedby Kennedy’s predecessor; Africa had frequently been ignored by Eisenhower, and thepromise of a change under Kennedy was enough to excuse some early indecision in hisPresidency.Indeed, on most of the important issues faced by the United States in the CongoCrisis, the course charted by Kennedy and his State Department owed a great deal toEisenhower’s policies of the previous year. The similarities go beyond the shared fear ofLumumba and exaggerated concern about Soviet intentions in the Congo or the mutualhesitance to place African concerns above European ones. Both Eisenhower and Kennedydetermined that American interests would be best-served by choosing a Congolese PrimeMinister based on U.S. criteria. While Eisenhower had refused tolerate Lumumba andinsisted on his replacement, by any means including murder, Kennedy was almost asdissatisfied with any of the potential leaders to be found in the Congo’s numerousfactions. Kennedy’s Administration instead spent months of effort to prop up CyrilleAdoula, plucking him from relative obscurity even though the several factions alreadyhad established leaders, of which Adoula was not one.Lumumba’s death had meant the destruction, at least for the foreseeable future, ofa unitary national party in the Congo. Tshombe was still ensconced in Katanga,Lumumba’s successor Antoine Gizenga had control of the country around Stanleyville,and the Kasavubu-Mobutu government remained in power in Leopoldville, recognized bythe U.N. as the legitimate government of the Congo. Another province, South Kasai, hadalso declared independence under Albert Kalonji, but it lacked the political or militarystrength of the three main groups. The Kennedy Administration’s first goal was to45