189. Editorial Note
On August 25, the Special Group, a National Security Council subcommittee responsible for planning covert operations, met to discuss plans for an anti-Lumumba campaign in the Congo. For extracts from the minutes of the meeting and testimony by the participants before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975, see Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Interim Report, pages 60–61. A telegram from Director of Central Intelligence Allen W. Dulles to the Léopoldville Station Officer the next day, as quoted on page 15 of the Interim Report, reads in part as follows:
“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 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 conclude 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. (CIA Cable, Dulles to Station Officer, 8/26/60)”