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Title details for The Lumumba Plot by Stuart A. Reid - Available

The Lumumba Plot

by Stuart A. Reid
Michael Boatman
Audiobook
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The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A spellbinding work of history that reads like a Cold War spy thriller—about the U.S.-sanctioned plot to assassinate the democratically elected leader of the newly independent Congo
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Economist, Financial Times
“This is one of the best books I have read in years . . . gripping, full of colorful characters, and strange plot twists.” —Fareed Zakaria, CNN host
It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist  Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.” Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization’s biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help—an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go.
Within a year, everything would unravel. The CIA plot to murder Lumumba would fizzle out, but he would be deposed in a CIA-backed coup, transferred to enemy territory in a CIA-approved operation, and shot dead by Congolese assassins. Hammarskjöld, too, would die, in a mysterious plane crash en route to negotiate a cease-fire with the Congo’s rebellious southeast. And a young, ambitious military officer named Joseph Mobutu, who had once sworn fealty to Lumumba, would seize power with U.S. help and misrule the country for more than three decades. For the Congolese people, the events of 1960–61 represented the opening chapter of a long horror story. For the U.S. government, however, they provided a playbook for future interventions.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Books on Tape Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780593788219
  • File size: 525882 KB
  • Release date: October 17, 2023
  • Duration: 18:15:35

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780593788219
  • File size: 525948 KB
  • Release date: October 17, 2023
  • Duration: 18:22:26
  • Number of parts: 17

Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

History Politics Nonfiction

Languages

English

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A spellbinding work of history that reads like a Cold War spy thriller—about the U.S.-sanctioned plot to assassinate the democratically elected leader of the newly independent Congo
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Economist, Financial Times
“This is one of the best books I have read in years . . . gripping, full of colorful characters, and strange plot twists.” —Fareed Zakaria, CNN host
It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist  Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.” Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization’s biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help—an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go.
Within a year, everything would unravel. The CIA plot to murder Lumumba would fizzle out, but he would be deposed in a CIA-backed coup, transferred to enemy territory in a CIA-approved operation, and shot dead by Congolese assassins. Hammarskjöld, too, would die, in a mysterious plane crash en route to negotiate a cease-fire with the Congo’s rebellious southeast. And a young, ambitious military officer named Joseph Mobutu, who had once sworn fealty to Lumumba, would seize power with U.S. help and misrule the country for more than three decades. For the Congolese people, the events of 1960–61 represented the opening chapter of a long horror story. For the U.S. government, however, they provided a playbook for future interventions.
Expand title description text
History Politics Nonfiction
  • Details

    Publisher:
    Books on Tape
    Edition:
    Unabridged

    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    ISBN: 9780593788219
    File size: 525882 KB
    Release date: October 17, 2023
    Duration: 18:15:35

    MP3 audiobook
    ISBN: 9780593788219
    File size: 525948 KB
    Release date: October 17, 2023
    Duration: 18:22:26
    Number of parts: 17

  • Creators
  • Formats
    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    MP3 audiobook
  • Languages
    English
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