He alighted upon M’ba’s young directeur de cabinet Albert Bongo whom he thought could be groomed appropriately. Bongo was summoned to Paris for a kind of tutorial with de Gaulle to test if he was up to the job.78 When M’ba died, the transition took place smoothly. For better or worse – usually worse – Bongo ruled Gabon for the next forty years (and his son still rules today).
