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zachcarter's review against another edition
5.0
This is a treasure trove of CIA secrets and U.S. actions in Africa, focusing specifically on Ghana's independence in 1957 to Lumumba's assassination in 1961 and Nkrumah's overthrow in 1966. Equal parts inspiring and infuriating, I was blown away with just how much has come out about what the CIA was doing in the Congo, Ghana, and elsewhere. And yet, so many details are still completely missing or redacted, so this represents the minimum level of CIA involvement, everything from surveillance and spying to arming and assassinating.
I was very interested in the All African People's Conference and seeing the diversity of opinion presented by people like Fanon and Nkrumah, and to see Nkrumah's evolution to supporting Fanonian violence (and then Nyerere, too!). There are lessons to be learned here as well as movements and leaders to learn from.
Long live Lumumba! Long live Nkrumah!
I was very interested in the All African People's Conference and seeing the diversity of opinion presented by people like Fanon and Nkrumah, and to see Nkrumah's evolution to supporting Fanonian violence (and then Nyerere, too!). There are lessons to be learned here as well as movements and leaders to learn from.
Long live Lumumba! Long live Nkrumah!
bigdaddystout's review
3.0
This book just isn’t really what it’s marketed to be. Three-quarters of it is about the overthrow and assassination of Lumumba, which is fine, if it didn’t purport to be about the undermining of African leaders throughout the continent. It also goes on random tangents and isn’t very linear. After Lumumba’s assassination, it is sort of all over the place. Obviously well researched and packed full of details, just wasn’t what I hoped it would be.
nappiermarcus's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.25
bndewa's review against another edition
5.0
Honestly I stumbled into the book. I was in search of a book that talked about post colonial independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and more specifically the hand that external groups and governments that had a hand in (my opinion) derailing the country... that was my hope. I anticipated for a book so dense to talk about more than the few countries it did, but I wasn't too disappointed with what I did read/listen to.
As a person who in later times suffered (as like many) for the failures of that time I genuinely came away more educated on the DRC and the parties that were involved. I kind of wished that it went a little bit more into the Mobutu reign but you can't have it all. I appreciated that the author chose to dive into the more personal stories of the leaders that were focused on because while time has changed and easy to rewrite history I think to disprove the perception brought through fear and propaganda is key in understand what those external powers really did.
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Though at first I didn't like the sort of scattergun approach.. I grew to appreciate it as it almost felt like the author was making sure I was paying attention. As a child of parents born in the middle of all that was going on I found myself tracing the many dates to where my family was, or what my parents must of been doing at whatever age they were, etc. which I enjoyed. I enjoy history and enjoyed learning more about the details of what was happening.. maybe my personal infatuation with understanding more about my home country led it but I was ready to learn more. The appreciation I have for Nkrumah and those who did what they could for the democratically elected leaders of the DRC has grown. There are always times you learn about people in high or low spaces that play a great part.. passionately defending the truth no matter what the consequence to be is admirable.
American history for as many great moments that it has created it equally and maybe has more moments where its been letdown by hunger for whatever is at its own self interest. With no proof to many scenarios but a type of gut instinct to achieve what is best for itself has left a dangerous trail for who's left after all is set and done.
It just stinks that only America gets to fight oppression, gain independence, think independently, all while governing themselves without worry of others trying to bring the pillars of democracy, justice and liberty... unless those attacks come from within.
As a person who in later times suffered (as like many) for the failures of that time I genuinely came away more educated on the DRC and the parties that were involved. I kind of wished that it went a little bit more into the Mobutu reign but you can't have it all. I appreciated that the author chose to dive into the more personal stories of the leaders that were focused on because while time has changed and easy to rewrite history I think to disprove the perception brought through fear and propaganda is key in understand what those external powers really did.
------------------------------------------------
Though at first I didn't like the sort of scattergun approach.. I grew to appreciate it as it almost felt like the author was making sure I was paying attention. As a child of parents born in the middle of all that was going on I found myself tracing the many dates to where my family was, or what my parents must of been doing at whatever age they were, etc. which I enjoyed. I enjoy history and enjoyed learning more about the details of what was happening.. maybe my personal infatuation with understanding more about my home country led it but I was ready to learn more. The appreciation I have for Nkrumah and those who did what they could for the democratically elected leaders of the DRC has grown. There are always times you learn about people in high or low spaces that play a great part.. passionately defending the truth no matter what the consequence to be is admirable.
American history for as many great moments that it has created it equally and maybe has more moments where its been letdown by hunger for whatever is at its own self interest. With no proof to many scenarios but a type of gut instinct to achieve what is best for itself has left a dangerous trail for who's left after all is set and done.
It just stinks that only America gets to fight oppression, gain independence, think independently, all while governing themselves without worry of others trying to bring the pillars of democracy, justice and liberty... unless those attacks come from within.
jerrylwei's review against another edition
3.0
A valuable but seriously flawed read. The book only focuses on Ghana and DRC, and very incompletely. Other African countries are not covered at all, making the title of the book and the marketing around it misleading (*there is a short subplot about Angola that is more enticing than informative and really nothing about South Africa as mentioned in the book description).
Furthermore, Susan Williams really focuses on the CIA and CIA-affiliated actors and initiatives within Ghana and Congo. You don't get a complete historical narrative regarding the internal politics or struggles in Nkrumah's Ghana or 1960s Congo.
Williams writes in a scattered way, with plots and characters being introduced or returned to at inexplicable times, making the narrative and, more importantly, the larger message hard to follow. The overall feeling is being snowballed with facts and names. At times, Williams is good at clearly stating her conjecture for what is it. She is also good at pointing out distortions of or gaps in the historical record. At other points, however, she makes declarative statements without providing evidence. I'm generally inclined to believe her narrative but her occasional failure to provide support makes the book read like a polemic.
The closing chapters are the best part of the book. Williams succinctly lays out what historians have learned in recent years about the CIA in Congo, as well as remaining gaps in the record and things we may never know. I can only hope future writers will be able to tell a more comprehensive history of US intervention in Ghana and Congo that properly situates Ghanaian and Congolese politics as an explanatory factor.
Furthermore, Susan Williams really focuses on the CIA and CIA-affiliated actors and initiatives within Ghana and Congo. You don't get a complete historical narrative regarding the internal politics or struggles in Nkrumah's Ghana or 1960s Congo.
Williams writes in a scattered way, with plots and characters being introduced or returned to at inexplicable times, making the narrative and, more importantly, the larger message hard to follow. The overall feeling is being snowballed with facts and names. At times, Williams is good at clearly stating her conjecture for what is it. She is also good at pointing out distortions of or gaps in the historical record. At other points, however, she makes declarative statements without providing evidence. I'm generally inclined to believe her narrative but her occasional failure to provide support makes the book read like a polemic.
The closing chapters are the best part of the book. Williams succinctly lays out what historians have learned in recent years about the CIA in Congo, as well as remaining gaps in the record and things we may never know. I can only hope future writers will be able to tell a more comprehensive history of US intervention in Ghana and Congo that properly situates Ghanaian and Congolese politics as an explanatory factor.
socraticgadfly's review against another edition
5.0
A fascinating, and highly irritating with its content, book on the CIA's meddling in early 1960s Africa, focused on the first year of Congo's independence, and also including Ghana, whose president, Kwame Nkrumah, was a strong supporter of Congo's independence, and, of more challenge to the CIA, a leader of Pan-Africanism and of the non-aligned movement.
(Note: Semi-spoilers ahead but, because I'm not giving too many details, I'm not hiding them.)
Williams, who wrote a major book several years ago "reopening" the case that UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld was murdered (more on that in a minute) focuses on the CIA's animus against Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of Congo. She presents clear details of how the Agency wanted him "gone" and how that came ultimately from Eisenhower himself. Even before Joseph-Desire Mobutu, the eventual Congolese dictator for more than 30 years from the mid-1960s, had Lumumba murdered, the US was looking at various possible assassination modes on its own. And, she indicates that CIA freelance agents likely were involved with luring Lumumba out of his Leopoldville statehouse in an attempt to escape, helped Mobutu track him down, and after he was captured, knew that Mobutu was going to transfer him to Katanga for his presumed eventual death.
On Hammarskjöld, Williams has good evidence that the so-called Katangan Air Force, almost certainly pilot Jan van Rissenghem, shot Hammarskjöld's UN plane down in Katanga six months after Lumumba's murder. But, that's not all. The "scramblers" for encrypting UN transmissions, not only from his plane, but from UN cables and wireless transmissions to and from UN headquarters, all had a "backdoor" on them, deliberately created for the CIA in conjunction with West German intelligence, already in the early 1950s. The Swiss company who made them was handsomely rewarded. Side note: Already at this time, Israel, while still waiting for more West German Holocaust blood money, was partnering with West German intelligence as well, including on this. So, too was "neutral" Sweden, Hammarskjöld's home.
Williams from there looks at CIA's increasingly harsh eye on Nkrumah, including backing the 1966 coup against him.
We also get a look at CIA front organizations like the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
Sidebars: The loathsomeness of American involvement against Lumumba, or at a minimum, ill will toward him, or Nkrumah, or an independent Congo, at the top levels includes not just Eisenhower, but in his administration, Dick Nixon, Douglas Dillon and others, and then, John Kennedy and his UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson among vaunted liberals. And, outside of electoral politics, names not generally seen in the past as CIA "cutouts" or whatever, like Jackie Kennedy Onassis' last squire, Maurice Tempelsman, make appearances.
(Note: Semi-spoilers ahead but, because I'm not giving too many details, I'm not hiding them.)
Williams, who wrote a major book several years ago "reopening" the case that UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld was murdered (more on that in a minute) focuses on the CIA's animus against Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of Congo. She presents clear details of how the Agency wanted him "gone" and how that came ultimately from Eisenhower himself. Even before Joseph-Desire Mobutu, the eventual Congolese dictator for more than 30 years from the mid-1960s, had Lumumba murdered, the US was looking at various possible assassination modes on its own. And, she indicates that CIA freelance agents likely were involved with luring Lumumba out of his Leopoldville statehouse in an attempt to escape, helped Mobutu track him down, and after he was captured, knew that Mobutu was going to transfer him to Katanga for his presumed eventual death.
On Hammarskjöld, Williams has good evidence that the so-called Katangan Air Force, almost certainly pilot Jan van Rissenghem, shot Hammarskjöld's UN plane down in Katanga six months after Lumumba's murder. But, that's not all. The "scramblers" for encrypting UN transmissions, not only from his plane, but from UN cables and wireless transmissions to and from UN headquarters, all had a "backdoor" on them, deliberately created for the CIA in conjunction with West German intelligence, already in the early 1950s. The Swiss company who made them was handsomely rewarded. Side note: Already at this time, Israel, while still waiting for more West German Holocaust blood money, was partnering with West German intelligence as well, including on this. So, too was "neutral" Sweden, Hammarskjöld's home.
Williams from there looks at CIA's increasingly harsh eye on Nkrumah, including backing the 1966 coup against him.
We also get a look at CIA front organizations like the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
Sidebars: The loathsomeness of American involvement against Lumumba, or at a minimum, ill will toward him, or Nkrumah, or an independent Congo, at the top levels includes not just Eisenhower, but in his administration, Dick Nixon, Douglas Dillon and others, and then, John Kennedy and his UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson among vaunted liberals. And, outside of electoral politics, names not generally seen in the past as CIA "cutouts" or whatever, like Jackie Kennedy Onassis' last squire, Maurice Tempelsman, make appearances.
carlys987's review against another edition
informative
sad
slow-paced
This was painfully dense. I almost wish the author had chosen to focus on one specific country (like the Congo) to just pare down on some of the names.
That being said, it was super informative, and I feel like it’s given me new perspectives on what information we’re typically shown about Africa.
That being said, it was super informative, and I feel like it’s given me new perspectives on what information we’re typically shown about Africa.
masterormargarita's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5