CIA’s Covert Operations in the Congo, 1960–1968:
Insights from Newly Declassified Documents
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-58-no-3/pdfs-vol-58-no-3/Robarge-FRUS%20and%20the%20US%20in%20Congo-1960-68-12Sep2014.pdf
From 1960 to 1968, CIA conducted
a series of fast-paced, multifaceted
covert action (CA) operations in the
newly independent Republic of the
Congo (the Democratic Republic
of the Congo today) to stabilize the
government and minimize communist
influence in a strategically vital, resource-rich
location in central Africa.
The overall program—the largest in
the CIA’s history up until then—comprised
activities dealing with regime
change, political action, propaganda,
air and marine operations, and arms
interdiction, as well as support to a
spectacular hostage rescue mission.
By the time the operations ended,
CIA had spent nearly $12 million
(over $80 million today) in accomplishing
the Eisenhower, Kennedy,
and Johnson administrations’ objective
of establishing a pro-Western
leadership in the Congo. President Joseph
Mobutu, who became permanent
head of state in 1965 after serving
in that capacity de facto at various
times, was a reliable and staunchly
anticommunist ally of Washington’s
until his overthrow in 1997.
Some elements of the program,
particularly the notorious assassination
plot against Prime Minister
Patrice Lumumba that was extensively
recounted in 1975 in one of
the Church Committee’s reports,
have been described in open sources.