‘The Lumumba Plot’ with Stuart Reid
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 October 2023
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“Stories of armies, governments, agencies, and institutions have a way of obscuring the humans behind them,” writes Stuart Reid, an executive editor of Foreign Affairs in his new book, “The Lumumba Plot.” Indeed, his protagonist, Patrice Lumumba, lays claim to one of history’s most contested legacies. In January 1961, just months after taking office as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lumumba was killed in an assassination plot that remained shrouded in mystery for years. As his daughter Juliana once said, “He passed by like a meteor.”
Amid this mystery and contestation, Stuart sets himself to the task of finding the real Lumumba. As Stuart writes, “This book seeks to exhume Lumumba, to scrape away the mounds of lies, mythology, and conspiracy that have accumulated around him over the decades.”
Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Stuart to discuss his new book. They talked about the charismatic Congolese leader of course and the other colorful and consequential characters that fill Stuart’s pages, the CIA’s complicity in Lumumba’s assassination, and the neocolonial and Cold War attitudes that led U.S. leaders to view such a tragic foreign policy misstep as an unimpeachable success. They also discussed what lessons “The Lumumba Plot” has for policymakers today.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the law |
| 0:07.0 | fair podcast become a material supporter of law fair at patreon.com slash law |
| 0:14.0 | fair. That's patreon.com slash law fair. Also check out law fair's other podcast |
| 0:21.0 | offerings, rational security, chatter, law fair no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | There's direct US responsibility for the events that led to Lumumba's death. The CIA |
| 0:39.0 | was financing anti-Lumumba protests in the street. It was encouraging the |
| 0:47.0 | president of Congo to get rid of Lumumba. It was very much acting to topple this |
| 0:53.0 | man. Why were they so scared of him? He had made the ultimately foolish decision to |
| 1:00.0 | reach out to the Soviets for help and in the Cold War context this was deemed |
| 1:04.0 | utterly unacceptable and Congo would be a domino that would fall and turn all of |
| 1:09.0 | Central Africa red and that was the fear. |
| 1:12.0 | I'm Tyler McBrion, managing editor of law fair and this is the law fair podcast |
| 1:17.0 | October 18th 2023. Stories of armies, governments, agencies and institutions |
| 1:23.0 | have a way of obscuring the humans behind them, right Stuart Reed, an executive editor |
| 1:27.0 | of Foreign Affairs in his new book The Lumumba plot. Indeed his protagonist, Patrice |
| 1:32.0 | Lumumba, lays claim to one of history's most contested legacies. In January 1961, |
| 1:37.0 | just months after taking office as the first prime minister of the Democratic |
| 1:41.0 | Republic of the Congo, Lumumba was killed in an assassination plot that remained shrouded |
| 1:45.0 | in mystery for years. As his daughter Juliana once said, he passed by like a |
| 1:49.0 | meteor. Amid this mystery and contestation, Stuart sets himself to the task of |
| 1:53.0 | finding the real Lumumba. As Stuart writes, this book seeks to exume |
| 1:57.0 | Lumumba to scrape away the mounds of lies, mythology and conspiracy that have |
... |
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