http://www.ghanaianobserver.com/comments/newsarticle.asp?id=983Confessions Of A CIA Agent. The original article is from New Africa
. Also check oout Confessions of an Economic Hitman
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251Posted on: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 | Author:
Larry Devlin was the CIA chief of station in DRCongo in 1960 when the American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorised the assassination of the Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, by lethal poisoning. Devlin was given the job to kill Lumumba, but his conscience so smote him that he kept the poisons for so long that the job was taken from him and given to someone else. In his memoirs published this month, Devlin unwittingly exposes how the imperial powers run Africa by remote control. This is one book every African must read. Osei Boateng reports. Credit: New African
Death by poison When the no-confidence- vote operation took time to bear fruit, the Americans moved up a gear to get rid of Lumumba – via poisoning him. And the order came direct from President Eisenhower. Devlin writes: `I received several messages from Director Allan Dulles advising us that policymakers [in Washington] shared our view that we should try to remove Lumumba from power. In one of them, on 26 August 1960 [Congo had been independent for only 57 days] Dulles wrote:
`In high quarters here, it is the clear-cut conclusion that if Lumumba continues to hold high office, the inevitable result will, at best, be chaos and at worst pave the way to a communist takeover of the Congo with disastrous consequences for the prestige of the UN and for the interests of the free world generally. Consequently, we concluded that his removal must be an urgent and prime objective and that under existing conditions this should be a high priority of our covert action.`
Devlin says: `I was used to surprises in the Congo that nothing prepared me for a cable from headquarters that landed on my desk on 19 September 1960. It carried the code PROP, was marked for my eyes only, stressed that I was not to discuss its contents with anyone, and was from Richard Bissell, the deputy director of plans, the officer in charge of the CIA`s clandestine operations.
The cable informed me that a senior officer, whom I would recognise, was arriving in Leopoldville around 27 September and would identify himself as `Joe from Paris`. I was instructed to see him as soon as possible after he contacted me. The mysterious Joe would explain his assignment and I was to carry out his verbal instructions.
`I later learned that PROP was a codeword for specific, highly sensitive operation that I would be directed to plan and implement. Knowledge concerning the operation was originally limited to Allan Dulles, Richard Bissell, Bronson Tweedy (chief of the African division), Glenn Fields (Tweedy`s deputy) and me.
`About a week later, I watched a man I recognised get up from a table at a café across the street as I left the embassy [in Kinshasa]. He was a senior officer, a highly respected chemist, whom I had known for some time. He walked over and we got into my car. As we drove away, he turned to me: `I`m Joe from Paris; he said. `I`ve come to give you instructions about a highly sensitive operation`.
`We sat down and he told me the story. He had come to the Congo carrying deadly poisons to assassinate Lumumba, and I was to do the job. I will never forget my reaction of total, fall-to-the-floor shock. `Jesus H. Christ`, I exploded. `Isn`t this unusual?` Who authorised this operation?, I asked.
`President Eisenhower,` Joe said. `I wasn`t there when he approved it, but Dick Bissell said that Eisenhower wanted Lumumba removed…It`s your responsibility to carry out the operation, you alone. The details are up to you, but it`s got to be clean - nothing that can be traced back to the US government.`
According to Devlin, neither of them spoke for a while. Then Joe leaned back and pulled out a small package. `Take this`, he said, handing it over. `With the stuff that`s in there, no one will ever be able to know that Lumumba was assassinated.`
Joe handed over several poisons. One was concealed in a tube of toothpaste. If Lumumba used it, he would appear to die from polio. Joe made it clear that Devlin could use other methods, anything that accomplished the objective, providing it was not traceable to the US government.
Devlin recalls: `The conversation was a nightmare. I did not approve of the operation, but I had to think quickly, and I did not tell Joe of my reservations. With more than a decade of service in the CIA, I had never heard of an operation to assassinate someone. I assumed that a decision to implement such an unorthodox operation could come from on high, and I believed Joe when he said it had actually come from the president. I also knew that if I refused the assignment, it would mean my immediate recall and replacement by a more compliant officer, in effect, the end of my career.
`My mind was racing. I realised that I could never assassinate Lumumba. It would have been murder. While I could have justified the assassination of Hitler to myself, Lumumba’s case was not the same. It would have been morally wrong….`
According to Devlin, he had seen enough of local politics to know that there were less drastic ways of removing Lumumba from power. `As far as the pursuit of our policy in the Congo, I was convinced that the Congolese would solve the Lumumba problem themselves. It was really their problem, and I saw no reason to relieve them of their burden.`
Devlin, however, continued to follow orders from Washington over the next few months and keeping the operation to himself and reporting on its progress – or rather, the lack of it-via the ultra-secret PROP channel. Fortunately for Lumumba, Devlin had only one non-American agent with potential access to Lumumba`s kitchen and living quarters. He was by far the best source on Lumumba and his immediate entourage.
But when Devlin asked the man if he could gain access to Lumumba`s living quarters, he doubted that would be possible. Devlin considered other options, and at one point he asked CIA headquarters to send a rifle with a telescopic lens, but it didn`t arrive. `My plan was to stall, to delay as long as possible in the hope that Lumumba would either fade away politically as a potential danger or that the Congolese would succeed in taking him prisoner,` Devlin recounts.
`While I dragged my feet on the assassination operation, I suspect that Bronson Tweedy, my immediate superior at headquarters, did the same. Long after we had both retired from the Agency, I discussed PROP with Tweedy. He apologised for having signed off on Bissell`s PROP cable to me, and I came away with the strong impression that he had carried on like a good soldier without believing in the assignment.
`I was authorised to spend up to $100,000 on my own authority on any operation that appeared feasible if time did not permit me to refer it first to headquarters for approval. This was a huge vote of confidence. To the best of my knowledge, no other station chief had ever been given such latitude. At the time, station chiefs were required to ask for authorisation for any operational expenditure of more than $50. I never spent anything close to the $100,000 on an operation, but it was nice to have the authority to do so if the need arose.`
And yet, Lumumba was said to be a `naïve` and `unstable` man who had `no leadership qualities`. At one point, the desire to kill him was so high in Washington that when Devlin could not do it quickly, his boss, Bronson Tweedy, sent him a message asking him to agree to the temporary assignment of a senior officer to concentrate on the operation under Devlin`s direction. According to Tweedy, Devlin`s other responsibilities were too heavy to permit the necessary focus on the operation, and that it needed somebody who would get the job done.
As Devlin puts it: `It was clear that Dick Bissell was dissatisfied with my failure to assassinate Lumumba. I sent in regular reports, but headquarters wanted action. Either I had to get the job done myself or agree to put it into the hands of someone else. I knew that I really did not have the heart for the operation and had no intention of carrying it out. I also knew that I could not do justice to all of my other work and give the PROP operation the time and effort that it required.`
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