On August 18, 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower met with his national security council to discuss the situation in the Congo and proclaimed that the U.S. had to “get rid of this guy.”5 The CIA hatched a plot to assassinate Lumumba using toothpaste poisoned with cobra venom; they settled instead on a plan to recruit Lumumba’s friend and the head of the army, Joseph Mobutu, to overthrow him.
