32. Memorandum by the Deputy Representative-Designate to the United Nations Security Council (Yost)1
THE STAKES IN THE CONGO
It seems doubtful that the primary objective of the Soviet Union in the Congo at this time is actually to establish a Communist regime in all or part of its territory. While the Soviets would naturally seize any favorable opportunities to pave the way for this ultimate eventuality, they must know (1) that there is little physical possibility of providing their stooges with sufficient arms to achieve this objective at this time; (2) that if their intervention became large, the US could and would block it; (3) that a large Soviet intervention would frighten even their African allies, who in their own self-interest do not wish to see Africa communized. [Page 69] In any case, they are well aware that isolated they are helpless in Africa; only in association with African states are they formidable.
It is more probably the Soviet intention at this time to exploit the passions and anti-colonial sensibilities aroused in Africa by the Congo crisis and the death of Lumumba to further much broader and more serious objectives: (1) to strengthen their relative position and influence vis-a-vis the West in Africa as a whole, first among the nationalist Casablanca states, second among states with at present more moderate governments such as Nigeria, Tunisia and the Sudan and eventually even in the French Community States and the British territories; (2) to weaken materially African support for the UN in order either to “reform” or otherwise to destroy the usefulness of that organization.
If this assessment is correct, it will not be to the advantage of the US to take measures which, even though they might eliminate the immediate Communist threat in Orientale and Kivu, would be likely fatally to alienate a substantial number of African nations from the West and from the UN. A military conquest of the Orientale and Kivu by Mobutu, even if it is feasible and did not provoke military counteraction by the Casablanca states, would certainly result in the breakdown of the UN effort in the Congo through the withdrawal of all the Afro-Asian forces there and would contribute very substantially toward furthering the broad Soviet objectives mentioned above.
Were there no other way of preventing the establishment of a major Communist bridgehead in the Congo, we might have no alternative but to facilitate Mobutu’s offensive. However, we are offered at the moment an opportunity to check all foreign intervention, including Communist and Casablanca, through strengthened UN action endorsed and enforced by Afro-Asian moderates, such as India, Nigeria and Tunisia, and even by some of the Casablanca states. The price is that this action be applied to our friends as well as to the Communists. This is an opportunity which, of course, involves risks but which, if rejected, may set flowing an anti-Western, anti-UN, pro-Soviet current in Africa which cannot be reversed for many years if at all.
Africa is much more emotional and unsophisticated than Europe and Asia and the game must be played there in a different way, as the Soviets have realized. It would ill serve the US and the West to save the Congo temporarily from Communism at the cost of vastly strengthening the Soviet position in much of the rest of Africa.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 770G.00/2–1761. Secret. Sent to Rusk with a covering memorandum from Penfield endorsing Yost’s views. An attached note from the Secretary’s Special Assistant Charles E. Bohlen to Wallner commenting on Yost’s memorandum stated that the issue was not the establishment of a Communist regime in the Congo but the establishment of a Soviet-oriented regime in Stanleyville which might spread to the rest of the country. He concluded: “If, by holding Mobutu [from a military offensive in Orientale], we can prevent foreign intervention and the resulting consolidation of Gizenga’s position, I would entirely agree, and I certainly support reinforced U.N. action in the Congo.”↩