White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa

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Williams' book focuses in particular on the last few years of the 1950s and first half of the 1960s, examining the attempts of the CIA to manipulate the politics and frustrate the liberation movements in Ghana and Congo. Williams' narrative--some of it new primarily in the level of detail and layers of evidence she brings to the discussion--is an indictment of U.S. policy, but also captures the spirit of decolonization and the liberation movements associated with it. We also get a picture of the wider struggle for independence across Africa particularly in the Portuguese colonies. Once again the dirty paws of the CIA are all over this. Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi from Angola are identified as CIA “assets.”

The second half of The White Pill is mainly about the last few decades of politics in Great Britain and America. I’m not quite sure what the theme is here, but it appears to be a big cheer for libertarian-conservative politics. Yay, Maggie Thatcher! (Cursed in the press a few years earlier as Milk Snatcher, when as Education Secretary she axed free milk at school for 11-year-olds.) Go, Ronald Reagan! Malice seems to like Thatcher more, and disapproves of the American invasion of Grenada in 1983. Grenada was a member of the British Commonwealth, but America clearly had a more vested interest there even if (as I vaguely recall) the Americans were mainly medical students who couldn’t get into a med school at home. 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. RECENT reports from Niger demonstrate that political events in Africa are still significantly influenced by the efforts of former colonial powers and the US to control vital resources, in particular uranium, which remains crucial to the generation of electricity and the nuclear weapons industry. Dr Williams has continued, since the publication of Who Killed Hammarskjöld?, to serve as a historical advisor on a variety of fronts relating to its themes. The book argues the case for a new inquiry into the plane crash that killed UN SG Dag Hammarskjold. It triggered led in 2012 to the independent Hammarskjöld Commission, chaired by Sir Steven Sedley, to which Dr Williams provided historical expertise. On the recommendation of the Commission’s report in 2013, in December 2014 a Resolution was adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly, authorising the Secretary General to appoint a UN Panel of Experts to examine the evidence; the Head of the Panel was Chande Othman, Chief Justice of Tanzania. In June 2015 Justice Othman submitted his report to UN SG Ban Ki Moon, who stated that ‘further inquiry or investigation would be necessary to finally establish the facts’. Following the adoption of a further Resolution by the UNGA in December 2016, Justice Othman was selected in 2017 by Secretary General António Guterres as Eminent Person with the mandate to review potential new information, assess its probative value, and determine the scope that any further investigation should take. The Judge has submitted threefurther reports to the SG; his report of 2022can be found here: http://www.hammarskjoldinquiry.info/pdf/ham_327_Eminent_Persons_report_250822.pdf. On 30 December 2022, Sweden -- together with 140 co-sponsor nations -- led the UN General Assembly to adopt without a vote a resolution that ensured the continuation of the inquiry under the leadership of JudgeOthman.Review of White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa by Susan Williams (PublicAffaris, 2021)

A colloquium co-organised with Mandy Banton (ICwS) and David Wardrop (UNA Westminster). Speakers included Dr Kenneth Kaunda, First President of Zambia (by video). The Round Table was chaired by Lord (Paul) Boateng, a member of the Rifkind Committee on the future of the ICwS. What can I say? A truly marvelous book that delivers on the title. Everyone knows about the CIA especially vis a vis subversive activities in non-Western nations, but what Williams does here is great scholarship that uncovers the depth of American intrigue and machinations that led to the grisly assassination of the first democratically elected prime minister of Congo DR, Patrice Lumumba as well as the overthrow of Ghanaian 1st president, Kwame Nkrumah. Who Killed Hammarskjold? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa, 2nd edn with an additional chapter co-authored with Henning Melber and David Wardrop The revelations imbue the narrative with a conspiratorial air that can go too far. If the CIA sees a Red under every bed, then Williams sees the manipulative hand of the CIA in every glove. Published by PublicAffairs (USA); this is the American edition of Spies in the Congo: The Race for the Ore That Built the Atomic BombAs a post script I also think it is maybe a little odd to have a review of the book written by professor Nzongila-Ntalaja whose work and observations are most extensively quoted therein. She’s in pretty good shape . . . for a chain smoker with one lung,” Andy told me. Then, a year or two later, I happened to bring up that Ayn Rand visit, and Andy just roared with laughter. It turned out to be just a big fat shaggy-dog story that he had almost forgotten about. What actually happened that day was that Andy and friend did indeed buzz Rand’s apartment, and she did indeed answer, but in an angry tone. “Who are you?” So they gave their names, maybe their college. AR was having none of it. “ Yes, but who are you?” The People’s King: The True Story of the Abdication, Allen Lane, 2003. ISBN 978-0-71399-573-2 – on the abdication of Edward VIII

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. There’s also some good stuff about MK-ultra, and the post-WW2 politics of Uranium, which centered around the Shinkolobwe mine in the Katanga province of the Congo. A large bespectacled lady, usually with cigarette ash on her ample bosom,” Williams says her “frumpy” appearance hid a malicious force. Years later, Park explained her modus operandi to a television documentary: “You set people discreetly against one another . . . They destroy each other, we don’t destroy them.” We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment. Indigenous Healing and Medicinal Practices in Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak in Tanzania: Interview with Dr Simon Mutebi

The Hammarskjöld book had a huge impact. It prompted Lord Lea of Crondall to lead an enabling committee that in 2012 set up the Hammarskjöld Commission tasked to assess new evidence pertinent to the plane crash. That panel’s report led former UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon to invite Mohamed Chande Othman, the former chief justice of Tanzania, to conduct a full inquiry into the incident. Congo’s uranium was many times richer than the US’s other sources. Although no longer reliant on Congo’s supplies, the US was determined to prevent the Soviet Union obtaining them. The book provides evidence that the assassination of Lumumba was authorised by President Eisenhower and, although it took place the day before his inauguration, it is likely Kennedy had been briefed on this and did not object. Following several failed assassination attempts of its own the CIA supported a plot to kidnap Lumumba and hand him over to his enemies and to his inevitable death. Described as the classic statement on the postcolonial condition, this is a compelling read and is supported by a wealth of detail. Nkrumah believed that neocolonialism is “the worst form of imperialism”, on the grounds that those who practise it exercise “power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress”.