President ‘ordered murder’ of Congo leader

By Martin Kettle in Washington, The Guardian, Thursday 10 August 2000

Forty years after the murder of the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, evidence has emerged in Washington that President Dwight Eisenhower directly ordered the CIA to eliminate him.

The evidence comes in a previously unpublished 1975 interview with the minute-taker at an August 1960 White House meeting of Eisenhower and his national security advisers on the Congo crisis.

The minute-taker, Robert Johnson, said in the interview that he vividly recalled the president turning to Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, in the full hearing of all those in attendance, and saying something to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated:

Did Ike Authorize a Murder?

By George Lardner Jr., Staff Writer, Washington Post, Tuesday 8 August 2000; Page A23

As president, Dwight Eisenhower laid down strict rules for reports on meetings of the National Security Council: no direct quotations.

A memo concerning an Aug. 18, 1960, meeting about the Congo's troublesome first premier, Patrice Lumumba, made public this week at the National Archives after years of gathering dust, suggests the wisdom of the rule—at least as far as Ike was concerned.

The official note taker at that meeting, Robert H. Johnson, vividly recalled Eisenhower turning to CIA Director Allen Dulles in the full hearing of all those in attendance and saying something to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated: