Bungle in the Jungle
CIA schemes, Washington intrigue explored in riveting new US-Congo histories
Adam Zagorin
Nov 1
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First I have to tell you a story.
On a late autumn day in 1993, I went to see legendary former CIA station chief Larry Devlin at his apartment in Washington, D.C. It would be the first and last time we would meet.
Nothing if not gracious, Devlin greeted me at the door of his comfortable place, pointed toward the living room and then vanished, only to reappear with a pair of brimming martinis, never spilling a drop as he glided toward my chair across more than 40 feet of burnished parquet.
CIA Station Chief Larry Devlin in he Congo, early 1960s (AP/SIPA)
Then in his 70s, Devlin had long since retired from the agency after famously serving in Congo, where he befriended Colonel Joseph Desiré Mobutu, later known as the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu played a crucial, behind the scenes role after independence in 1960, as the key figure in a coup that led to his appointment as Army Chief of Staff. Mobutu would often break bread at Devlin's house in the capital, where the duo would go over impending cabinet selections, or foreign policy or how the country needed to cast particular votes in line with U.S. policy at the United Nations. Mobutu later seized full presidential powers in 1965, holding sway over his mineral-rich country — the size of America east of the Mississippi — for more than 30 years….
Since my long ago visit with Devlin, a variety of declassified documents have emerged, including records of the U.S. Senate's Church Committee, and other secret materials the panel never saw. In 2010, former House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee chief of staff Steven R. Weissman wrote an important 2010 article in the journal Intelligence and National Security, in which he assembled and analyzed much of the new material, giving a more complete and accurate picture of what had actually happened in Congo during Devlin's tenure—and, to put it kindly, the lack of candor and sins of omission that suddenly jumped out in Devlin's testimony to Congress and subsequent pronouncements. This past summer Weissman also published a memoir that added more flesh on the story— more about which anon.
But first I want to talk about another new and important work on Congo in the volatile 1960s and onward, The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination, by Stuart A. Reid…..
Mobutu and Reagan at the White House (Pinterest)
But back to Steven Weissman, and his very personal retrospective, From the Congo to Capitol Hill: A Coming-of-Age Memoir. With knowledge he first acquired as a young academic teaching in the country (1969-1971) and, later, as an influential advisor to the House Subcommittee on Africa (1979-1991), Weissman is a deeply experienced Congo- watcher.
Much of the detail set forth in his earlier Intelligence and National Security article , goes unmentioned in this volume. Instead, Weissman offers some 220 pages of highly personal story-telling, beginning with how, with a recent PhD in political science, he, his wife and infant child lived in Kisangani (the former Stanleyville) where he taught at a local university.
Weissman has a good eye for scene-setting. The highlight of the first part of his story comes when student protests erupt at his university. Though not directly related to Congo's governance under Mobutu, ever-vigilant university administrators and local security elements perceived a potentially more serious threat and cracked down. Weissman, an admitted liberal and occasional advisor to some students, was unexpectedly accused of complicity in the events, eventually leading to his forced departure from the country.
Weissman concedes his own naiveté, and admits that some of his apparently innocuous actions on behalf of students allowed local authorities to seize upon and misconstrue his conduct. In his telling, as the student demonstrations became more politically sensitive, even his appeal for help to the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa fell on the deliberately deaf ears of officials who just didn't want to risk upsetting the host government. A good deal more surprising was how, years later, the mostly trivial incident popped up again as Weissman was serving as a key advisor to two successive House subcommittee chairmen, both critics of Mobutu, and U.S. assistance to his ever-more corrupt regime. At this point, Mobutu himself, and various Republican members of Congress (in some cases, Weissman says, recipients of campaign contributions from pro-Mobutu Washington lobbyists) managed to resurrect Weissman's long ago alleged transgression, targeting him with personal attacks and blame for the controversy over U.S. aid to Congo.
These and other colorful tales make up the instructive, if disconcerting second part of Weissman's book, an insider's look at the political maneuvering and sausage-making that can accompany congressional aid supposedly designed to benefit foreign lands—not just prop up an American-backed dictator, or U.S. vendors doing business in the country. Weissman offers a well-informed perspective based on decades of experience, enlivened with strong narrative, telling anecdotes and detail.
Given the moral and political complexity that lies at the heart of both Reid's and Weissman's histories, it's noteworthy that their relevance extends well beyond Lumumba, Devlin, Mobutu and even Congo itself. The events and arguments date from earlier eras, but many of the same challenges remain with us. That's why scholarship that sharply questions the public record offers not just a good read, but a timely and cautionary tale. As the spook master says in John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, "You can't be less wicked than your enemies simply because your government's policy is benevolent." Devlin might have agreed with that proposition, but today's readers may be less inclined to do so.
Adam Zagorin is a former senior correspondent for Time magazine.— for further reading see below