CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN - CONGO

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06541056
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: March 16, 2022
• Document Release Date: August 5, 2016
• Case Number: F-2014-02699
• Publication Date: February 13, 1961

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13 February 1961
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CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE
BULLETIN
(b)(3)
(b)(3)
(b)(3)
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN
13 February 1961
DAILY BRIEF
Congo. Hammarskjold stated on 10 February that if
Lumumba is dead-which appears increasingly likely--the
UN must temporarily take over in the Congo. He has in
mind the placement of airports and all other transport fa-
cilities under UN control, the establishment of a protective
guard for all Congolese political personalities, and more
drastic steps to protect Belgians from reprisals by Lumum-
ba's supporters. Hammarskjold said he would justify this
action to the Security Council as a necessary emergency
measure and ask the Council for a new mandate to cover
the situation.
The uncertainty regarding Lumumba has apparently in-
terrupted at least some of the efforts which had been under
way at the UN to formulate a new Security C uncil resolution
aimed at promoting a Congolese settlement.
m 10 February that a meeting
%with representatives o e neu-
tralist African states was unable to decide what to do in view
of the news about Lumumba. The Security Council meeting
scheduled for 13 February seems certain to focus mainly on
the question of Lumumba's disappearance, with the USSR call-
ing for immediate UN action to establish the facts and for the
immediate release of Lumumba if still alive.
TO
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The Congo Situation
Although proof is still lacking, the conviction is growing
among observers in the Congo that Lumumba and his two fel-
low prisoners are already dead and that the story of their es-
cape is a fabrication developed by Tshombe's Katanga regime
in anticipation of a UN move to force the release of all polit-
ical prisoners. Leopoldville's newly designated Premier Ileo
reportedly confirmed Lumumba's death on 11 February, while
a former Congolese official is said to be claiming to have wit-
nessed the execution of the three prisoners following their
transfer. to Katanga in mid-January. A high-level Belgian of-
ficer serving with the Katanga forces is also reported to have
stated that Lumumba is dead and that he knew the identity of
the person who executed him. The Katanga government is of-
ficially still pressing a search for Lumumba, but
no Katanga official appears
really concerned over the alleged escape.
a growing belief that Lumumba will never be found.
Tshombe's regime has cast further suspicion upon itself
by indicating it would refuse to cooperate with the mission of
inquiry sent to Elisabethville by the UN Command. Tshombe
told newsmen on 12 February that the "escape" is "a strictly
internal affair and the UN has nothing to do with it."
Soviet UN �ZoHexpres
reports of Lumumba's escape and said the situation in the Congo
would become "uncontrollable" if he had indeed been killed. In
the Security Council meeting on 13 February Zorin may exploit
any discussion of Lumumba's fate as further proof of Moscow's
charge that Hammarskjold has proved himself untrustworthy and
incapa1:1c, nf di gr harcrincr thP Security an Council's mandate for the
CrIncrn
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