Dan Snow's History Hit - Assassination and Coverups in The Cold War Congo

Episode Date: August 23, 2020

I was joined by an award-winning investigative journalist, Ravi Somaiya, to discuss the mysterious death in 1961 of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. Although Dag Hammarskjöld was called ‘the greatest statesman of our century’ by John F. Kennedy, his plane was shot down as he flew over The Congo. He was found dead with an Ace of Spades placed on the body. Ravi took me into the depths of this event and the remarkable consequences across the globe. Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hits. We've got some 20th century history on the podcast today. We've got the award-winning investigative journalist Ravi Sumaya on the podcast and he has just done a great job of looking into the death in 1961, the mysterious death of the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. He was this enormously impressive statesman. He was killed when he was trying to go and intervene, bring some peace and stability to the benighted people of the Congo, a place abundant in its natural advantages, massive, beautiful, huge pool of energetic people, but just blighted by its history, by the genocide it suffered at the hands of the Belgians, by the meddling of superpowers after its independence in the 1960s.

At the site of astonishing violence, the bloodiest war fought since the Second World War fought on planet Earth, has been raging in the Congo on and off for the last 30 years. Ravi has identified one episode in that sad history, which tells you a lot, I think, about the state of the Congo and the state of the world in the 1960s and in the Cold War. We actually got a new documentary on African history on our History Hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. We've actually got a new documentary on African history on our History Hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. We've got Luke Papera, and he has written and presented Africa, the Unknown History of Humankind. It's doing really well on the service at the moment, so please go and check that out. You can use the code POD1, P-O-D-1. You get a month for free,

and you get your second month for just one pound, euro, or dollar. So please head over there. Once you've listened to this podcast, check out our Africa history, our new Africa history documentary, and then check out some of the other history documentaries we've got on there. World's Best History Channel, everyone. Enjoy. In the meantime, here's Ravi Samaya. Enjoy. Ravi, great to have you on the podcast, man. Lovely to meet you too, Dan. This is exciting stuff, isn't it? Historical sleuthing. Why did you set out on this adventure? I just happened across this story. I was working at the New York Times.

I was working nights and it sounds very exciting because you're in the middle of a big, busy metropolis, but it's incredibly boring. So you end up reading lots of stuff. And I stumbled across this story and I couldn't get out of my head. So I just started making calls and sending emails. And before I knew it, I was waking up in the middle of the night thinking about flight paths and white supremacists and Cold War spies and thwarted idealists and all sorts of things. Thwarted idealists. Yeah, there's always plenty of those around. Now, tell me, who was this man? JFK described him as the greatest statesman of our century. Tell me about him.

Well, I think he's one of the unique characters of the last century. And one of the reasons I was really drawn to this story is if you look around the world now, you don't find many leaders who speak five languages, you know, compose poetry, are accomplished photographers, you know, deft diplomats, economists. He was kind of a man of letters. He was friends with John Steinbeck and Barbara Hepworth and, you know, lots of the literary and artistic characters of the last

century. And so in a sense, he's the quintessential idealist, but he also could operate in this very, very cutthroat world. You know, he was fine going toe to toe with Khrushchev and Kennedy himself and Harold Macmillan and operators like that. And what drew me to this particular story is he stood up for a principle in the middle of a moment when essentially everyone was just expedient. of a moment when essentially everyone was just expedient. So the Congo in 1959 began to kind of throw off the shackles of its colonial past. Its black citizens rose up and said, we want to rule ourselves. We'd like democracy. At which point Britain and America thought, well, it's going to go to Russia and Russia thought it's going to go to Britain and America.

And it became kind of a proxy war for the whole world. And Hammock Old kind of had the courage and the deftness to say, no, I think these people need to rule themselves. And that's kind of where the story begins. It's also a time when the UN seemed to matter so much. You know, it was like it was briefly we had a kind of global parliament, didn't we? And, and, and Khrushchev and Kennedy, in particular, the US and Soviet, they paid a lot of attention what was happening on the floor of that General Assembly in New York. Yeah, I mean, I think that's because we're still not too far from the end of World War Two. And when I looked into the founding of the UN, now I think we look at it, and we sort of see it as kind of a, you know, kind of a footnote, sort of a thing that happens along the side of world UN. Now I think we look at it and we sort of see it as kind of a, you know, kind of a footnote,

sort of a thing that happens along the side of world affairs. But after World War II, when those countries got together and founded it, they didn't want another war. They didn't want another global conflict. They wanted to have, as you say, a global parliament, a place to figure out these difficulties. And so Hammock World and the UN found itself right at the centre of many of these issues. I'm not sure if you asked Kennedy or Khrushchev at the time whether they would have been full of respect and joy about having to dance around the UN, but they certainly had much more impact than it does now. But I think that's in part a credit to Hamerfeld himself. So you think it's actually his leadership that it wasn't just the international order,

he was such a profoundly important global statesperson? Well, I think it was both. I think that there was much more respect in the air for the UN, there was much less of a will to have another war. And he was a really idealistic leader who was very capable of kind of deftly weaving between all these interests and making himself matter, I guess, yes. And so tell me how he met his end. So on September 17th, 1961, he was flying from the capital of the Congo, which was then called Leopoldville and is now called Kinshasa. He was flying to a summit which he hoped would end the civil war in the Congo

after the Congolese rose up and said, we'd like democracy. The army mutinied quite violently. And many of the white European residents of the Congo traveled south to the most wealthy province called Katanga. It's where the mining companies had set up shop. It was where a lot of the world's copper came from, diamonds, uranium. And that province promptly seceded and formed its own government. So the country was at civil war. And Hammerfeld was flying to try and reunite the Congo. He wanted it to be one nation under a democratically elected leader. And just before he was due to land,

just before midnight on September 18th, his plane crashed. It disappeared. And it wasn't found for 15 hours after that. And, you know, shortly afterward, the Federation of Rhodesia and the Arsalan, which was the sort of British Associated Government tasked with investigating the crash, ruled an accident. And everyone wanted to kind of tie a neat bow on it and say, how sad this great man has died. But a bunch of other people thought

there had been some foul play. And I certainly found some evidence of that. Now, I know you don't want to give away all the goodies in this interview, buddy. So that's fine. But what can you tell us? I mean, what evidence of foul play? And then, as ever, it's not just the crime, it's the cover-up. Precisely. To me, it was a kind of a blend of Agatha Christie and Game of Thrones, this story. There are four or five distinct suspects. When the Katangis seceded, they protected themselves with tens of thousands of white supremacist mercenaries. There were a lot of white supremacists floating around after World War II.

And many of them became mercenaries. And many of them went to Katanga to fight that war. And so that's one set of suspects. Britain and America, as you might know, were implicated in the murder of the democratically elected Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. In a particularly nasty way. Yeah, he was sort of beaten to death. And, you know, bits of his body were kept as mementos. And the Belgian government was deeply involved. And, you know, the CIA was deeply involved. And MI6, one of the characters in my book, an MI6 spy named Daphne Park, at one point in her life sort of admitted that they had helped kill the Mumba.

So that's another set of suspects. admitted that they had helped kill the Mumba. So that's another set of suspects. And Russia had a, you know, kind of a phalanx of spies and others pouring into the Congo, and they were funding many of these leaders. So that's another set of suspects. And then you have this nation known as the Federation of Rhodesia and the Aslan, which was very hostile to the UN and to Hammerfeld, and to a reunited Congo. So you have another set of suspects. And while all that's going on, you have this kind of great game. You have this rich nation, which the world is seeking to divide among itself. So at the point that he took off, he was in a lot more danger than he thought. And witnesses to the crash, which of course was supposed to be an accident, they saw another plane in the sky.

They saw an explosion. They saw what they thought were bullets or bangs or flashes. And there were 16 people aboard the plane. 15 of them died on impact, including Hammerhold. One survived into the next day. He was severely injured. But he reported an explosion aboard the plane. And he had, you know, he described a scene that was not consistent with an accident. So you have a lot of evidence that points at perhaps foul play. And various people wanted him dead. What evidence have you now, what can you tell us before everyone goes to read your book? What evidence can you tell us

about the cover-up? I think it's maybe a peculiarly British way of approaching these things, but there's sort of a tradition of a public inquiry with a preordained conclusion, I think. And that's sort of what happened here. There was sort of a notion that it would be best for everyone and the least possible fuss if it was ruled an accident. So, you know, there was an investigation in panel. There was a pretty thorough forensic examination, but any evidence that ran against the notion that it was an accident was sort of dismissed. And so it kind of was tied up. They had a court hearing. There were four very fancy QCs asking questions. There were many African witnesses who

were dismissed. It was said they couldn't possibly have seen another plane in the sky. They didn't know what they were talking about. They'd got confused. There was sort of a colonialist attitude toward it. And then a number of Hammerfeld's friends and people who were involved in the investigation

decided there was something afoot and they gathered all the evidence. They sort of gathered their own pile of evidence and they looked into it and found there was much more to it than initially met the eye. And they were met with a lot of hostility over the years. A lot of governments who sort of ostensibly were saying, we want to help you figure out what happened here. We're at the same time classifying materials. I mean, one of the things I heard was that the Swedish government had some soldiers there for the United Nations. They had been cannibalized during the course of the conflict. That was obviously very awkward and unpleasant. They didn't tell anyone at the time, and they don't want to open their files now or in previous years because it's simply too embarrassing.

You have the British government trying to cover up key witnesses, trying to prevent them talking to investigators from other nations. At one point in the 90s, an operative for the American National Security Agency, which is a bit like Britain's GCHQ, it gathers signals intelligence, so it intercepts communications, essentially, said he had overheard some chatter on the evening of September 17, 1961, that suggested to him that Hammercord's plane had been shut down. But when he approached the American government, the FBI immediately destroyed all records it had connected with Hammercord. Of course, you can't say for sure why any of these things happened, but they do start to form a pattern when you look into it. It really does say something about the importance of this. I mean, most people today sadly couldn't mention, probably don't know the name of the US UN Secretary General. It does say something quite

remarkable about this man that he was regarded as somebody worth getting rid of, possibly at the highest levels of British American society, government? Absolutely. And it's hard to overstate just how incendiary a move it was to do the principal thing in the Congo. You know, everyone felt like it would be the end of the world. The Brits and the Americans felt that if Russia got hold of the Congo, they'd have a strategic asset and frankly, access to uranium, which was the end of the world. And the Russians felt the same way about the Brits and the white supremacists and the mining companies that ran Katanga felt like it was the end of their way of life. You know, so the emotions were very, very high indeed. price that he paid in terms of, you know, putting a target on his back for doing the principal thing and saying, well, these people, they want democracy, they've run an election, they've

elected a leader and that leader has to lead and the only chance for peace and prosperity in this nation is that way. That was a really difficult incendiary thing to do. And I mean, sadly, if you look at the history of the Congo, he probably was right. How high do you think this conspiracy went in government circles? There are memos from both the CIA and MI6 in that moment, which spoke of committing murder in the cause. They didn't specifically say Hammock world, but they were absolutely willing to kill people to in order for their plan to proceed as as they had in mind and during the course of investigating I found that the Rhodesian government which was it was an independent government but it was very

closely linked with the British government and very closely linked, particularly with the Foreign Office. It had a very hostile policy toward Hammock World. And in fact, its soldiers were given instructions to shoot planes landing at that particular moment. And we know they had spies, some linked with MI5, who were deeply involved in the investigation into the death of Hammock World with the aim of protecting whatever had happened. We should finish the story. What happened to Katanga's independence? So it kind of drifts to an end eventually, but in an extremely chaotic fashion. After Hammerfold died, it sort of felt to me like everyone slightly shrugged and wanted to draw a line under the thing. And they kind of made an imperfect piece. And the history of the Congo is open to anyone who has access to

Wikipedia, and it doesn't make for pleasant reading. And my personal view is that this conflict lies at the root of many of the problems we see there today. So what was the main impact of his death, do you think? So what was the main impact of his death, do you think? You realize what a wonderful notion it was, what a wonderful notion it was for all these countries to get together and say, we don't want a war. We want a better way of doing this. We want to rise up to the higher parts of ourselves and be kinder to each other. And I think to some extent we lost that when we lost Hammock. And there's a certain kind of world leader that we haven't seen much since. I mean, Kennedy was dead a couple of years after Hammock was.

I mean, you have little little moments of wonderful leadership since then. But on the international stage, right in the centre of geopolitics, I don't think we've had a character like him since. I mean, what's it like working as an investigative journalist? It sounds so glamorous and exciting. I mean, basically, you're describing why history matters. These things, even though they happened a long time ago, there is resistance to your investigation still, isn't there? Yeah. I mean, I actually didn't realise how much passions run high on this matter. And so I would pick up the phone and I would call someone and they would be really angry with me for calling.

I called this former Rhodesian, I think he was an air chief marshal. I forget his rank now. And he was furious that I would be digging this up. You certainly don't get much help from governments. I mean, I see being an investigative journalist as figuring out, I mean, usually you know what happened. I see it as figuring out why it happened and what those people thought they were doing. And I think that's really instructive. I think particularly at a very fraught moment like the one that we're in now, looking back at a fraught moment like the one in the early 1960s is very instructive. You see the same tendencies you see. You see in this particular moment, you see people who feel that they have to get their way. They have to have their voice heard or the world is going to end.

You see people feeling like they have to do pretty brutal and unpleasant things for the sake of survival. So, I mean, I won't pretend it's all sitting around in cafes with holes cut in newspapers waiting for sources. It's a lot of digging through documents, a lot of making frustrating phone calls. It's much less cloak and dagger than I would have hoped when I was a child thinking I might do this. But it is incredibly fun because you get those moments where you've been sat in a library for three hours, you know, your mouth is dry, you kind of want to leave, you'll think, you think I'll flip over two more pages. And you do.

And you find some fabulous piece of information. You find something that casts a new light on a mystery. And, you know, for a minute, the world makes sense. Is there anything more to discover on this story? There's definitely more to discover. I think I'm sure you've had this with some stories, too. You just feel like some stories are never quite done. You can never quite know enough. I could always learn new things I could always find new

understanding I'm sure I'll be boring people at parties about it when I'm 80. All right well you won't be boring anyone I'm sure of that um thank you very much indeed for for joining us and I think you'll have you'll have encouraged everyone to go out and read about this fort themselves I mean just apart from anything else the story story of the history of the Congo in this period is so fascinating. And given that it leads on to what is today has been the bloodiest, we think it's now the bloodiest conflict since the Second World War, is it the rolling civil war in the Congo? Yeah, I mean, that poor nation hasn't had a chance. One of the things that I looked into was the history of Belgian colonialism, which I'm sure you've heard about. It was particularly brutal. Between 8 and 10 million Congolese died of exhaustion, murder, sickness,

during what was probably a 20-year peak of the Belgian rule. And I just don't think the Congo ever recovered from that to some extent. And I think Hamakol was smart enough to realize this country had to right itself pretty quickly in order to get over the kind of the wounds of its history. And I just don't think it ever has. If you start looking into its history, it's conflict after conflict, coup after coup, dictator after dictator. And I think that we can sometimes take a somewhat superior attitude from here. We can say, oh, well, they just never figured out how to rule themselves. But I think with that much hurt and that much pain and that much trauma and its history,

it's very difficult. I mean, what was instructive to me, especially in this moment, was to look at how we can call them grievances, but how kind of historical pain it echoes into the present. And I think many of us wish it wouldn't and wish it would go away, but we have to address it. And that, to me, is the lesson of the Congress. Well, thank you so much. The book is called? It's called Operation Morthor, and it's available at all good booksellers, and I'm sure some bad ones. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me.

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thanks