149. Dispatch From the Station in the Congo to the Central Intelligence Agency1
[dispatch number not declassified]
SUBJECT
- [cryptonym not declassified] Letter for July
1. This is my first monthly letter since assuming charge of the Leopoldville Station from [former COS] on 1 June 1963. These first two months have been characterized by a lull in the normally crisis-ridden Congo political scene. In fact, people are beginning to ask themselves whether Prime Minister Adoula is not more astute than they had supposed, since, despite his much talked-about indecisiveness, his lack of skill in meeting the electorate, and his seeming pedestrian gait in general, he has, as he slyly points out himself, remained in office, he has weathered the parliamentary storms, and he has even increased his international stature on the African scene, mainly by his handling of the Angolan problem.
2. Operationally, the period has been one of reassessment of goals in the light of the end of the Katanga secession. Whatever the final decision may turn out to be on the extent to which we are to “give the country back to the Belgians”, the Station is satisfied that KUBARK [Page 212] must as a minimum continue to give strong support to the Army and to the Security Services, as the best guarantee against a takeover either by the Communists or by the more unreconstructed Belgian conservatives, neither of which eventuality would be in the interest of ODYOKE.
[Omitted here is unrelated information.]
- Source: Central Intelligence Agency Files, Job 82–00450R, DDO/AF–AF/DIV Historical Files, Box 6, Folder 6, Leopoldville, 3 Feb 54–Dec 65, [cryptonym not declassified]. Secret; Rybat; [cryptonym not declassified].↩