In short, the CIA did everything possible to ensure Lumumba’s death. In the process they formed an alliance with Joseph Mobutu, who became a loyal ally of the United States and one of history’s most repellent dictators. For three decades Mobutu ruthlessly governed his renamed country, Zaire, casually murdering political opponents and amassing a personal fortune in one of the world’s poorest nations. This too is a legacy of the Age of Eisenhower.
