The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination

by Stuart A. Reid

For Socrates, it was hemlock, the alkaloid-filled herb the Greek philosopher was forced to drink as a death sentence for impiety. For the empress Xu Pingjun of the Han dynasty, it was aconite, a deadly buttercup given to her by a suborned physician. For the Roman emperor Claudius, it was an intoxicating compound infused into mushrooms that were served to him by his eunuch waiter. For Dmitry Shemyaka, the Grand Duke of Moscow, it was arsenic with which a rival had adulterated his chicken dinner. As long as powerful people have walked the earth, their enemies have had occasion to kill them with poison. The CIA’s poisoning plots were the logical extension of the covert action programs it had been developing since its postwar founding. With American power at a new high, the temptation to quietly tip events in foreign countries to the United States’ advantage—sometimes by helping overthrow democratically elected leaders it deemed bothersome—proved irresistible.