Who Killed Hammarskjöld?: The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa

by Susan Williams

One of the outstanding mysteries of the twentieth century, and one with huge political resonance, is the death of Dag Hammarskjold and his UN team in a plane crash in central Africa in 1961. Just minutes after midnight, his aircraft plunged into thick forest in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), abruptly ending his mission to bring peace to the Congo. Across the world, many suspected sabotage, accusing the multi-nationals and the governments of Britain, Belgium, the USA and South Africa of involvement in the disaster. These suspicions have never gone away. British High Commissioner Lord Alport was waiting at the airport when the aircraft crashed nearby. He bizarrely insisted to the airport management that Hammarskjold had flown elsewhere -- even though his aircraft was reported overhead. This postponed a search for so long that the wreckage of the plane was not found for fifteen hours. White mercenaries were at the airport that night too, including the South African pilot Jerry Puren, whose bombing of Congolese villages led, in his own words, to 'flaming huts . . . destruction and death'. These soldiers of fortune were backed by Sir Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Rhodesian Federation, who was ready to stop at nothing to maintain white rule and thought the United Nations was synonymous with the Nazis. The Rhodesian government conducted an official inquiry, which blamed pilot error. But as this book will show, it was a massive cover-up that suppressed and dismissed a mass of crucial evidence, especially that of African eye-witnesses. A subsequent UN inquiry was unable to rule out foul play - but had no access to the evidence to show how and why. Now, for the first time, this story can be told. Who Killed Hammarskjold follows the author on her intriguing and often frightening journey of research to Zambia, South Africa, the USA, Sweden, Norway, Britain, France and Belgium, where she unearthed a mass of new and hitherto secret documentary and photographic evidence.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Africa, Conspiracy Theories, Politics, Crime, International Relations

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Susan Williams has published widely on Africa, decolonisation and the global power shifts of the twentieth century. Her widely acclaimed book on the founding president of Botswana, Colour Bar (Penguin, 2006), recently became a major motion picture (A United Kingdom). Who Killed Hammarskjöld? (2011) triggered a fresh UN inquiry into the death of the secretary general. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.

Reviews

[Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As one who lived in Northern Rhodesia at the time of Hammarskjold's death I found this book fascinating. It is well researched and documented and raises many questions concerning the circumstances of the plane crash near Ndola. It also provides a sense of who Hammarskjold was and his leadership with integrity in a world that desperately needed it.

[Luca Trenta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple of weeks ago, I listened to a podcast written and hosted by Patrick Radden Keefe: Wind of Change. The podcast explores whether the famous Scorpion's anthem Wind of Change was actually written by the CIA. Over the episodes, the host uncovers an incredibly high amount of interesting and, at times, novel material. Ultimately, however, there is no smoking gun and the main characters (e.g. Scorpion's lead singer) are either shocked at the accusation or uncooperative.

Susan Williams' books is, to a certain extent, similar to Wind of Change. The book explores the long-established mystery of whether the death of Dag Hammarskjold was actually an assassination. The research for the book is impressive. Williams collects a very high amount of high quality documents from archives spread across the world. She is also able to gather interviews from a number of participants, relatives of participants, and experts. For this reason alone, the book deserves to be read.

The writing style is also incredibly appealing. It combines a historical account of events in the Congo with the investigative work carried out by Williams. Ultimately, a clear picture emerges: Hammarskjold's death was not an accident. But who was responsible? A devilish cast of suspects emerges: mercenaries, white supremacist, MI6, MI5, the CIA. Alas, by the end of the book, no smoking gun has been found. Like the case of Ludo De Witte's book on Patrice Lumumba, however, the amount and quality of research is sufficient to rekindle UN interest in the death of its second Secretary General. And yet, like Scorpion's Klaus Meine, some of the main characters (the UK and US government) feign shock and remain uncooperative.

[William Cline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Susan Williams seems to have contributed a lot of new and useful research to the matter of Hammarskjöld's death, but she hasn't found conclusive evidence proving that he was assassinated. She does a pretty good job of establishing that white Rhodesians, separatists in the Congo, and some Western governments all had the means, motive, and opportunity to attack or sabotage Hammarskjöld's plane. However, even some of the most suspicious behavior, like the Rhodesian government's apparent tampering with the crash evidence and Lord Alport's misdirection in the hours between the plane's disappearance and the official discovery of the crash site, can probably be explained by incompetence or laziness as easily as by malice.

Meanwhile, Williams barely addresses the physical evidence of the autopsies or the crash investigation except to point out their suspicious omissions and irregularities. A true rebuttal to the official crash investigations, which is what I wanted most out of this book, never materializes. (One chapter ends with a cliffhanger where she wonders aloud whether the plane fragments are still sitting in a hangar at Ndola airport waiting to be examined — which seems unlikely to me — but she never follows up on this. Annoying.)

In a couple places she relies on the testimony of Harold Julien, Hammarksjöld's bodyguard and the sole survivor (for a few days) of the crash. Julien's statements, on their face, support the notion that the plane was shot down or bombed, but Williams spends virtually no time establishing his physical and mental state, the nature of his injuries, or why he eventually died, all of which are crucial to understanding the credibility of his testimony.

It seems that Who Killed Hammarskjöld? isn't meant to be a definitive history that stands on its own, but rather a compilation of historical research that should be compared and contrasted with the official Rhodesian, United Nations, and Swedish inquiries. A reader who comes along expecting a comprehensive treatment of the subject will be disappointed.

The most interesting evidence Williams presents, in my opinion, is the cockpit radio transmission allegedly picked up by the U.S. National Security Agency in Cyprus right at the time when Hammarskjöld's plane went down. In the transmission, an unidentified pilot claims to have shot someone down; this, combined with the testimony of black villagers around Ndola, points pretty strongly towards a deliberate assassination or a hijacking gone wrong. This transmission, however, was picked up in Cyprus as a re-transmission, meaning a transcription made by another listening post, and was conveyed to Williams by one of the Cyprus NSA staffers from memory (or maybe his personal notes) decades after the fact. Neither that staffer nor Williams succeeded in getting hold of the original recording or transcript, assuming it exists.

There and in other places, Williams's research efforts hit a wall of government secrecy. Crucial primary material that would help explain many of the suspicious events are either missing or classified. Further progress in understanding how and why Hammarskjöld died will probably have to wait for those documents to be declassified due to age or whistleblowing.

For all that, the subject matter is interesting enough that I didn't fail to enjoy reading Who Killed Hammarskjöld?; it just wasn't nearly as good as I hoped.

[Andrew Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tragic story of the air disaster near the Ndola airport in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia). The General Secretary of UN Dag Hammerskjold flew to Ndola to meet the Katangian president Moise Tshombe. Hammerskjold attempted to negotiate directly with Tshombe, hoping to convince him to rejoin the Congo. Unfortunately, the plane crashed near Ndola with 16 people on board. The subsequent inquiry led by the Rhodesian commission interviewed a number of witnesses. Most of the black witnesses were considered unreliable and the commission concluded that the plane had crashed due to the pilot's error. The later investigation by the UN concluded with an open verdict.

Based on the detailed study and interviews conducted by the author one is led to conclude that with the significant degree of probability the General Secretary's plane met with foul play by either the Belgian or French OAS mercenaries working for the Katangan government.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dag was a bit of a prick with Anthony Eden over Suez
like Pearson

............

odder things

Brian Urquhart's biography of Hammarskjöld addressed what Israel Shenker described in his The New York Times review as "the oft-discussed question of Hammaskjöld's sexuality".

Urquhart reports that Trygve Lie spread rumours of Hammarskjöld's homosexuality but, having interviewed Hammarskjöld's close friends, Urquhart concludes that "no one who knew him well or worked closely with him thought he was a homosexual".

Shenker infers from Urquhart's work "that Hammarskjöld was an example, not unique in contemporary politics, of an asexual, somewhat narcissistic individual" and quoted private papers where Hammarskjöld had written that "the Secretary General of the UN should have an iron constitution and should not be married".

those odd pesky Protestant mystics

.........

The day after the crash, former U.S. President Harry Truman commented that Hammarskjöld "was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said 'when they killed him'."

.........

U.S. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century".

In the third world, however, his legacy is extremely controversial, given his erratic performance in the Congo crisis, with consequences to this day.

Still not quite sure what Kennedy saw in the guy

he improved morale in the UN, and that's pretty much it
unless you think the other stuff helped

[Pete daPixie · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Who Killed Hammarskjold?-The U.N., The Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa.' Susan Williams is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her brilliant investigative study was first published in the U.K. in 2011 and has been updated in 2016.
So, who killed Hammarskjold? Hammars who? Is it a Viking saga?
Dag Hammarskjold was the United Nations Secretary General whose mission for peace in the Congo was ended when his aircraft was shot out of the sky on 18th September 1961 while on approach to landing at Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. Killed along with Hammarskjold were nine other members of the U.N. delegation and six air crew. Official investigations at the time were satisfied it was an accident, the result of pilot error. In the morgue, Hammarskjold was observed to have 'a round hole in his forehead that was possibly consistent with a bullet hole'. Bullets were also found in the bodies of two members of the U.N. party on board the DC-6B aircraft.
Probing into this murder mystery decades after events has produced a startling amount of investigative work on the part of this author that has resulted in renewed commissions of inquiry at the U.N. by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, which hasn't gone down too well with certain intelligence agencies in the United States and Great Britain, who seem to see it as a threat to their national security.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

The death of Dag Hammerskjold is a fascinating mystery. He is my favourite UN Secretary General (something my fiancé and I bonded over on an early date), and represents a vision of the UN and international diplomacy that now seems lost. This recounting of the context of his death, and an exploration of the various theories surrounding how it happened, is fascinating. The first part of this book tells the history of the UN in the Congo as a Cold War spy thriller, ending in the Ndola disaster. It’s dynamic, pacy, filled with loud characters and ‘big powers’. It’s a crazy piece of history I didn’t know well. I think the weakest section comes when Williams delves into the official inquests and investigations, all of which seem flawed and confused, and there are a lot of names and details that the author presents and then discounts, muddying the waters. Then the final third, unpacking the intersection between mercenaries and white supremacist interests in Southern Africa, teeters between compelling and ludicrous, and left me very unsure what to believe. Williams is largely open minded and moves from theory to theory, but holds centrally the idea that Hammerskjold’s death was no accident, and that something fishy happened. While I was left baffled as to who/what/why, I think she convinced me at least that her central theory must be true. Fascinating, if a little confusing and cluttered at points, but definitely a topic for further reading.

[Ryan Hannay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of interesting history on Africa, the UN, and colonialism leading up to 1961. And I give the author a lot of credit for bringing in experts and re-examining the crash from every possible angle all these years later. But nothing in here really proved anything new, and it still seems just as likely that the plane crashed due to human/mechanical error as any deliberate attack. The book gets really bogged down in the middlle exploring all these rabbit holes that go nowhere.

Still, I'm left with an impression that Africa and the world lost a really good man in Dag Hammarskjöld.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Add Dag Hammarskjold to the list of those leaders killed in the 1960s who might have made a difference in our world. Williams presents this as a well-researched and reported mystery story. She leaves the reader with the conclusion that Hammarskjold's and more than a dozen others' deaths in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia in 1961 were a case of murder. It is clear that the white supremacists - which includes the British government with complicity from the United States - and their puppets in Katanga and Rhodesia hated Hammarskjold and had every motive and opportunity to kill him.

[Elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

They killed an Archangel

If you don't read any other book for your lifetime, you should read this one. It's that important in understanding why we still have not achieved World Peace.
Orderly and concise, this book about a real life "mystery" may not have even come about without the Freedom of Information Act. This is why, as a free Western society, we can't let our governments limit access to knowledge.

[Harry Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good, well research & written book. There’s parts where the author appears to place a lot (too much) weight on some sources but overall v good.

There’s no ‘smoking gun’ to give a definite answer to the book’s title, but the author does a very good job at piecing together - and shedding new light - on the existing evidence base. All of which points to the fact that the plane crash which killed Hammarskjöld was no ‘pilot error’.

[Lorne Cheeseman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A follow on to a previous book by Susan Williams and this one was much better. This author is a bit dry and academic so unless you have an interest in this story it is not for the casual reader. I do appreciate the heavily researched content but it could use a bit more exciting prose.

[Dylan Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too much Egge, not enough Dag.

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling and astonishing.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressively determined study into the strange and sinister circumstances surrounding the death of a former United Nations Secretary-General in central Africa, during the period of decolonization.

The questions raised examine why Dag Hammarskjold was reportedly recovered outside of his downed aircraft with bullet wounds and a playing card placed on him, and why the only surviving member of his party, whom his doctor believed was recovering, died unaccountably.

Why did the response on the ground to the crash, just miles from Ndola airstrip, begin only in daylight? Why weren't transcripts of conversations with pilots from the air traffic control tower accurately documented that night? Why, too, weren't the testimonies of local black people identifying unusual police movements on the ground and explosions in the sky accounted for in colonial reports? (A sinister suppression of the truth, or incompetence owing to colonial racism?) And why, at the approximate time of the crash, did an NSA listening post in the Mediterranean pick up chatter from a French-speaking fighter pilot, describing firing across the bow of such a plane as Hammarskjold was travelling in?

Susan Williams tells a phenomenal story about Dag Hammarskjold and the Congo, wrapped in layers of intrigue, which culminates in the construction of a powerful case which has subsequently led to the re-opening of a UN investigation into the Secretary-General's death. William's glass eventually finds its focus on the powerful and secretive advocates for white supremacy who fought dirty wars to limit the movement of decolonization.

Unfortunately, persistent cultures of secrecy inhibit the release of documents from the former colonial powers, rendering investigation dependent on the political will of these countries. The potential of the received story of both the death of Hammarskjold and of decolonization in central and southern Africa to have been corrupted - by invidious agents, lawyers and governments - is therefore vast.

As a consequence Britain's role in the world over the past century remains mysterious by design, given that archives testifying to its actions in the Congo, Northern Rhodesia and South Africa within a few generations' living memory remain concealed. This book more than any other makes me want to dive into those archives.

[SusanJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book through Interlibrary Loan, and started it - I hope to finish it someday, but right now it's too much detail and I'm not able to concentrate on it - I've requested a copy through my half.com wishlist - maybe when it comes - I really want to know more about UN history, especially the early years... suggestions welcome, as always!

[Matt Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serious and thoughtful investigation, brilliantly evokes the post-colonial period in central Africa. Can draw no conclusions on the main question but certainly shows who might have, plus who might have the evidence

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than convinced me that this was no mere accident.

[Paul Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting look at early peacekeeping in the Congo.