Dar es Salaam. In August 1960, as Congo simmered in post-independence instability, a secret cable marked ‘Top Secret’ from Langley, Virginia, landed at the CIA station in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa).
The message was terse and deadly: “We conclude that his removal must be an urgent and prime objective.” The “his” referred to Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected Prime Minister.
