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

he wants Katanga to stay in Congo and is ready participate in working out newconstitution,” a position which had likely been inspired by Adoula’s stated commitmentto returning Katanga to the Congo. 58Little time had passed before American officials began to express concern thattheir hand-picked Prime Minister was leaning too far to the left. The concerns ofKennedy officials were not dissimilar to those raised by the Eisenhower Administrationabout Lumumba only a year earlier, but they are even more indefensible in the immediateaftermath of a concerted effort to back Adoula to the exclusion of more logicalpossibilities. Indeed, the very independence and nonalignment that had made Adoula anattractive candidate in the first place was now seen as a potential warning-sign. Philip M.Klutznick, a prominent businessman and future Secretary of Commerce, visitedLeopoldville from August 6 to 11, leaving the country just over a week after the Adoulagovernment was born. Already, he said he was “haunted by the strange feeling that theAdoula government may turn out to be…something extremely leftish or worse.” Henoted that he spoke to other diplomats who “for somewhat different reasons expect aradical turn to the left.” It is a curious response, even more so after Klutznick praisedAdoula as “the most impressive of all native Congolese we met. He is obviously sincere;impressively thoughtful; apparently mature.” 59 Klutznick acknowledges that his feelingis nothing more than a hunch, and it is apparent that he falls into the large group ofanalysts who remain unimpressed with the Congolese, after they have shown littleevidence of being able to organize an effective government. Rusk asked Williams tocheck in on the newly-installed Adoula, and Williams came away impressed, enough to58 Telegram from Canup to State Department, FRUS, 1961-1963, 20:18159 Memo from Philip M. Klutznick to Kennedy, National Security Files, Box 27a, Folder: Congo General5/61-9/6165