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

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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
forestall the worrying for the time being. American focus had already shifted, after all, tothe question of what was to be done with the bothersome Moise Tshombe in Katanga.66
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TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroduction 1Chap
Page 6 and 7:
adical and his party had won a plur
Page 8 and 9:
Kennedy intended it to apply to for
Page 10 and 11:
in terms of American interest or to
Page 12 and 13:
found a precedent in the actions of
Page 14 and 15:
willingness to tolerate him because
Page 16 and 17:
advisers were paying much attention
Page 18 and 19: A year later, responding to the pre
Page 20 and 21: On July 11, a few events dramatical
Page 22 and 23: Gizenga was a committed Marxist, mo
Page 24 and 25: Bandung Conference to offer a third
Page 26 and 27: the U.S.S.R. in the Congo: “For t
Page 28 and 29: Indeed, Lumumba was a wild card, an
Page 30 and 31: position from which they conspicuou
Page 32 and 33: Lumumba’s erratic personal added
Page 34 and 35: the President, especially in writte
Page 36 and 37: took to the airwaves to dismiss Pri
Page 38 and 39: to outside world that Lumumba was b
Page 40 and 41: embassies of the U.S.S.R. and Czech
Page 42 and 43: ather than take a ministerial post
Page 44 and 45: Chapter Two:LEOPOLDVILLEEvents in t
Page 46 and 47: assessment is valid, but it had lit
Page 48 and 49: damage to his reputation among Afri
Page 50 and 51: U.S. Ambassador Clare Timberlake su
Page 52 and 53: would not respond any better to a n
Page 54 and 55: about a greater degree of Congolese
Page 56 and 57: will place yet another strain on NA
Page 58 and 59: Once again, however, State Departme
Page 60 and 61: overstepped their influence by tryi
Page 62 and 63: ecommends that we permit the presen
Page 64 and 65: States would only accept the best o
Page 66 and 67: government was “as good as we cou
Page 70 and 71: Chapter Three:ELISABETHVILLEThe Con
Page 72 and 73: stability in Katanga, and in neighb
Page 74 and 75: eminder of the low priority that Ei
Page 76 and 77: gentle and realistic tack with the
Page 78 and 79: without too much damage in Europe.
Page 80 and 81: also warned the State Department ab
Page 82 and 83: military action from turning into a
Page 84 and 85: The events of August 1960 impressed
Page 86 and 87: pointed out he had taken major risk
Page 88 and 89: announced to the press that “this
Page 90 and 91: evidence for such an outcome. On th
Page 92 and 93: after the cease-fire, leading to th
Page 94 and 95: especially by Union Miniére, which
Page 96 and 97: ConclusionEvents in the Congo turne
Page 98 and 99: Congo crisis began well before Amer
Page 100 and 101: BibliographyHoskyns, Catherine. The
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