White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa

by Susan Williams

 A revelatory history of how post-colonial African Independence movements were systematically undermined by one nation above the US.  In 1958 in Accra, Ghana, the Hands Off Africa conference brought together the leading figures of African independence in a public show of political strength and purpose. Led by the charismatic Kwame Nkrumah, who had just won Ghana’s independence, his determined call for Pan-Africanism was heeded by young, idealistic leaders across the continent and by African Americans seeking civil rights at home. Yet, a moment that signified a new era of African freedom simultaneously marked a new era of foreign intervention and control. In White Malice, Susan Williams unearths the covert operations pursued by the CIA from Ghana to the Congo to the UN in an effort to frustrate and deny Africa’s new generation of nationalist leaders. This dramatically upends the conventional belief that the African nations failed to establish effective, democratic states on their own accord. As the old European powers moved out, the US moved in.    Drawing on original research and recently declassified documents, and told through an engaging narrative, Williams introduces readers to idealistic African leaders and to the secret agents, ambassadors, and even presidents who deliberately worked against them, forever altering the future of a continent. 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Africa, Politics, Race, American History, Sociology

848 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 10, 2021

About the author

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Reviews

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

However fucked up you think the CIA is, they’re actually exponentially worse.

[Fatman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Assassinations, overthrowing elected governments, sowing conflict between political groups and bribing politicians, trade unionists and national representatives at the UN were some of the clandestine and coercive strategies used by the CIA to support American plans for the African continent.

Every time I think I've touched the absolute bottom of human depravity and banal (incompetent, yet infinitely harmful) evil in studying the skid marks the CIA has left on the world, another shocking expose comes out, another deluge of sickening revelations.

Proceed only if you have a fairly strong stomach. Be forewarned that no stomach is strong enough to digest this putrid hunk of depraved vileness. Shower after reading this.

Quoth a dyed-in-the-wool scumbag: "I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment."

[Zach Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a treasure trove of CIA secrets and U.S. actions in Africa, focusing specifically on Ghana's independence in 1957 to Lumumba's assassination in 1961 and Nkrumah's overthrow in 1966. Equal parts inspiring and infuriating, I was blown away with just how much has come out about what the CIA was doing in the Congo, Ghana, and elsewhere. And yet, so many details are still completely missing or redacted, so this represents the minimum level of CIA involvement, everything from surveillance and spying to arming and assassinating.

I was very interested in the All African People's Conference and seeing the diversity of opinion presented by people like Fanon and Nkrumah, and to see Nkrumah's evolution to supporting Fanonian violence (and then Nyerere, too!). There are lessons to be learned here as well as movements and leaders to learn from.

Long live Lumumba! Long live Nkrumah!

[JRT · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you had any doubt about who the “bad guys” are when it comes to geopolitics, “White Malice” should put all questions to bed. Author Susan Williams provides a real, thoroughly researched exposé of the depths of CIA interference and anti-democratic destruction in decolonial Africa. She focuses on the agency’s efforts to undermine and overthrow the democratically-elected governments of Patrice Lumumba of Congo and Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, weaving together a story of intrigue, subterfuge, and brazen violence that the writers of James Bond couldn’t imagine.

The biggest takeaway here is that the CIA spared no expense (literally) to ensure that American imperialism and global capitalism maintained a foothold in the most important and “strategic” areas of decolonizing Africa. In reading this book, it is easy to understand how and why Africa is the way it is today. Independence and decolonization never really had a chance.
“White Malice” traces America’s obsession with ensuring that decolonizing Africa did not fall under the auspices of communist Russia or China or Cuba, with the underlying subtext being that America was terrified that an independent Africa might upend the dominance of American capital and control over strategic mineral resources. It was against this backdrop that the CIA did everything under the sun to immobilize, overthrow, and even lay the groundwork for assassinating African revolutionaries.

This book makes the intersection between racism, colonialism, and capitalism clear as day. It is truly a must read.

[Dan McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I just read "Central America's Forgotten History" I found myself comparing the books while reading this one. Both focused on the impact of the United States and the CIA during the Cold War on different regions.

While CAFH focused more on the large-scale, sections focused on major impacts on different countries, "White Malice" went into great detail about the personal side of history...too detailed for me. We follow figures such as Lumumba and Nkrumha as well as individual CIA agents working in the Congo and Ghana. It often went into too much detail about players who would only show up for a few pages, at one point describing how an asset liked cars and bought three while in the Congo - not pertinent information to the narrative. By the end I was so inundated with names and anagrams I struggled to remember who was who.

The book also jumps time quite often and would benefit from date ranges at the heading. Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash at at least three different points in the book.

Overall it was a well researched and comprehensive look at the CIA activities that toppled the governments of the Congo and Ghana, but it could have used a second go- through in editing to organize and make it read more clearly.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic examination of the subversion and devastation wrought by the US in Ghana and Congo during the 1960s. Williams has poured over a massive amount of primary sources to pull together an incredibly engaging history. Weaving together the assassination of Patrice Lumumba by Mobutu, Belgium and the CIA through the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah with stops on the likely assassination of Dag Hammerskjold and the possibility that Paul Robeson was a victim of MKUltra. As with all good books on the history of the atrocities committed by the United States in its global war on the working class, often an infuriating read. An excellent book.

[literaryelise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to rate this higher I really did, because this is important information. But this was so unbelievably dense it was nearly unreadable. Obviously nonfiction books are about facts and real things that have occurred but that doesn’t mean they don’t tell a story and weave a narrative. This felt like reading a bullet point list, except more dense. There is something to be said for a nonfiction book that tells a story well.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Williams' White Malice details how the United States sought to undermine newly independent Africa in the '50s and '60s, focusing specifically on Ghana and Congo. Under the charismatic leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana was one of the first sub-Saharan African countries to gain independence, becoming a model for the decolonization of Africa and Nkrumah, an idol to African nationalists and Black Power activists across the world. Among his most eager proteges was Patrice Lumumba, the equally-striking leader of Congolese independence movement which forced Belgium to grant his country independence in 1958. Both men sought self-determination for their countries, attempting to form a "Third Way" bloc neutral in the Cold War. In this, both men were extraordinarily naive; the United States, using CIA subversions, diplomatic pressure, corporate investment and a variety of underhanded deals with African leaders, worked overtime to destroy the prestige of both men. Congo became synecdoche for the failures of African independence, immediately descending into civil war as rebels broke away from the new government; such failure, Williams demonstrates, was guaranteed not by African incompetence but the constant meddling of Western powers, who found Congo's uranium and mineral deposits impossible to part with. The story of the CIA's campaign in that country has been well-accounted for, but it's still infuriating to read about the degree and width of American campaign against Lumumba, culminating in his murder by Belgian-backed rebel troops. Nkrumah's government, similarly trying a "Third Way" between the capitalist West and the communist bloc, soon descended into dictatorship, leaving an opening for right wing elements backed by the US to oust him in 1966. Williams is illuminating in exploring these stories, with the Americans and their allies subverting nationalism through means obvious and subtle; a particularly compelling passage describes a good-will musical tour by jazz great Louis Armstrong, which the CIA used as a "trojan horse" to increase their reach in Congo. Williams reiterates that the US wasn't above outright murder, with Eisenhower ordering Lumumba's assassination (though the Belgians beat them to it), and she re-airs circumstantial evidence that UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was killed by the CIA or its allies while trying to negotiate a truce in the Congo. While some might reject her more speculative claims, Williams' book presents an undeniable truth. It's not, despite the ongoing slurs and stereotypes, that Africa wasn't "ready" for self-government after European departure; it's that the West never gave him a chance.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good book for understanding the Cold War in general and in Africa in particular. Most of the book centers on events in the early 1960s surrounding the newly formed states of Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah and Congo under Patrice Lumumba. It cites the efforts of these two men to create a non-aligned union of African nations. This was not something the United States was willing to accept since the Congo was a source of rich uranium ore. The well documented book describes the efforts taken to isolate, then destroy these two governments and their leaders. Along with the two African leaders and a host of CIA officials and their protégés we also find out about jazz legend Louis Armstrong's visit to the Congo and meet a very young Maya Angelou.

I have studied the damage of the United States policy in South and Central America relative to the cold war for a many years. I have not read as much about Africa. I have to say that the detail provided in this book clearly describes the lengths to which the CIA was willing to go to win the cold war at all costs in Africa and the price paid by those who stood in the way. My general assumption is that things I have read about Central and South America, as bad as they might have appeared to me, were probably worse.

I highly recommend this book if you want an unvarnished look at the savagery of the Cold War. It is a political book, not a soldier's memoir.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed and engrossing look at CIA involvement in Africa—mainly the Congo and Ghana—throughout the 50s and early 60s.

Okay, so I had no idea that a UN Secretary General (Dag Hammarskjöld) had ever been assassinated, much less that the US was behind it (*bomBAStic side eye* allegedly), but Williams brings the receipts.

While the entire book was thoroughly documented, it does get fairly repetitive at times.

[KB · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to White Malice. You have JFK right on the cover, it's 1960s Africa, you know there's going to be an assassination (probably at least one), and reading about the CIA is usually as exciting as it is horrifying. I knew this was going to be good. Unfortunately, it was not.

I think the main issue is that there is just way too much information jammed into this book. There are too many people, and too many side events. You'll be reading paragraphs about an individual, only to realize that that information contributes literally nothing. Or maybe that person never shows up in the book again. Likewise, there are so many tangential events and side stories that don't need to be included. It makes White Malice feel convoluted. The cover review says it "Overflows with fascinating information..." and one of the back reviews calls it "A revelatory, meticulous book." Overflowing with information and meticulous indeed! I don't mean that in a good way.

Even the title isn't completely accurate: the book is heavily focused on Ghana and the Congo, mostly on the Congo. Other countries are mentioned here and there, and there's a bit of focus on Angola towards the end, but this book is really about the Congo and Patrice Lumumba at its core. And I'm not sure why they went with that JFK picture on the cover when he's barely in the book. It also doesn't flow completely chronologically, which didn't help matters. We're back and forth in time, and sometimes info gets repeated. As others have noted, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld dies and comes back to life several times. The story of Louis Armstrong meeting a woman who looked like his mother is told two separate times. Those are just two instances.

But is White Malice interesting? Yes. I did learn a lot, as this is a topic I'm quite unfamiliar with. It's amazing that the US can't just leave other countries alone. They seemed to interpret everything as Soviet-leaning; African neutrality in their eyes meant actively being against the US. But I think the book really needed to be pared down for it to make an impact. It's one of those books that feels like the author wanted to fit in every piece of info they uncovered while researching. If this were a book I got from the library I would've given up on it and returned it. As I bought it, I felt I had to finish it. Definitely not a read I enjoyed, unfortunately.

[Whitman Cler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very well documented, despite the obstacle of the CIA’s secrecy. I learned so much about the overthrow of Lumumba and Nkrumah. The pacing was quick, with cliffhangers at the end of chapters. I wish Williams had spent less of the book focusing on the individuals in government and the CIA, and included a section about how the CIA’s interference had severe repercussions for the African people.

[Sof · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was full of details that make the nature of US involvement in Africa irrefutable and all the more stomach turning. It has all the tension, plot, and intrigue of a spy/dystopian novel in the form of a feat of investigative journalism. Logistically I don’t think this book could have been longer but I would LOVE a follow up on the continuing legacy of neocolonialism in Africa.

[Ibrahim Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The CIA fcking sucks. This book does not.

[David Cordero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Satan ain’t got shit on the CIA.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh my word… I bought this book 2.5 years ago (I think?) and started re reading last year when I got back from Germany for my last coop. This book was more of a mountain to climb and finish for the sake of finishing.

I was really interested in the content and wanted to learn more about political interference in Africa but I expected a different book than what I read. The focus was largely on the Congo and Ghana. It was filled to the brim with amazing journalistic research and findings and piecing together of declassified documents from the CIA and supporting sources over the years but I would sometimes use this book to fall asleep lol.

Wayyyyy too convoluted with details and jumping back and forth across timelines and major events. I’m glad I’m done so I never have to worry about reading this again. I can start the new year without the weight of their beast on my “too read” shelf 😂

Thank you for the insight and info but good riddance

[Declan Carmody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished this mammoth. Absolutely phenomenal read about the CIAs involvement in the independence movement in Africa in the late 50s/early 60s. Really well researched and written, never got boring to me, super super informative. Loved it

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, and highly irritating with its content, book on the CIA's meddling in early 1960s Africa, focused on the first year of Congo's independence, and also including Ghana, whose president, Kwame Nkrumah, was a strong supporter of Congo's independence, and, of more challenge to the CIA, a leader of Pan-Africanism and of the non-aligned movement.

(Note: Semi-spoilers ahead but, because I'm not giving too many details, I'm not hiding them.)

Williams, who wrote a major book several years ago "reopening" the case that UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld was murdered (more on that in a minute) focuses on the CIA's animus against Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of Congo. She presents clear details of how the Agency wanted him "gone" and how that came ultimately from Eisenhower himself. Even before Joseph-Desire Mobutu, the eventual Congolese dictator for more than 30 years from the mid-1960s, had Lumumba murdered, the US was looking at various possible assassination modes on its own. And, she indicates that CIA freelance agents likely were involved with luring Lumumba out of his Leopoldville statehouse in an attempt to escape, helped Mobutu track him down, and after he was captured, knew that Mobutu was going to transfer him to Katanga for his presumed eventual death.

On Hammarskjöld, Williams has good evidence that the so-called Katangan Air Force, almost certainly pilot Jan van Rissenghem, shot Hammarskjöld's UN plane down in Katanga six months after Lumumba's murder. But, that's not all. The "scramblers" for encrypting UN transmissions, not only from his plane, but from UN cables and wireless transmissions to and from UN headquarters, all had a "backdoor" on them, deliberately created for the CIA in conjunction with West German intelligence, already in the early 1950s. The Swiss company who made them was handsomely rewarded. Side note: Already at this time, Israel, while still waiting for more West German Holocaust blood money, was partnering with West German intelligence as well, including on this. So, too was "neutral" Sweden, Hammarskjöld's home.

Williams from there looks at CIA's increasingly harsh eye on Nkrumah, including backing the 1966 coup against him.

We also get a look at CIA front organizations like the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

Sidebars: The loathsomeness of American involvement against Lumumba, or at a minimum, ill will toward him, or Nkrumah, or an independent Congo, at the top levels includes not just Eisenhower, but in his administration, Dick Nixon, Douglas Dillon and others, and then, John Kennedy and his UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson among vaunted liberals. And, outside of electoral politics, names not generally seen in the past as CIA "cutouts" or whatever, like Jackie Kennedy Onassis' last squire, Maurice Tempelsman, make appearances.

[Gabriel Sheeley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of Africa following WWII. While the US never pursued a colonial empire in the same model as Britain or Belgium the underlying motivation behind their actions around the globe are the same: access to resources and suppression of opposition.

One cannot even begin to understand the present day challenges which Africa faces without understanding more deeply western intervention in African politics, beyond slavery. African countries are as capable of self governance and thriving as any other country in the world, which is why the US and other western countries have been so invested in preventing them from doing that very thing, thus maintaining free and cheap access to Africa's vast natural resources.

[Mike Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. It should really be called White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Congo and Ghana, because other countries aren't really covered at all. Instead, it goes into excruciating detail of Patrice Lumumba's assassination, which while it shows how badly behaved the CIA has been toward a specific African country, does not give the broad overview of the CIA in Africa more generally. I got nearly 2/3s of the way through the book and the author still has not managed to get to the part where Lumumba is actually assassinated!

[Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very dense, difficult book, but a rewarding one.

"Are we the baddies?"

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. If you are curious what the US government is capable of, this is quite a primer.

[Keenan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Africa's independence movements never quite achieved what many aspirational leaders like Nkrumah, Touré, and Lumumba envisioned from the 1950s onward. There's the usual racist or geodeterministic theories about why the continent today favours dictators over democracies, but this book reveals that much of the groundwork of modern day Africa rests with meddling from external powers, most notably the CIA, which can be directly linked to the overthrow or assassination of many early democratic leaders and the sponsorship of the strongmen who took over. The book zeroes in on Ghana and the Congo as these countries received a lot of international attention and therefore were the focus of the 1975 Church Committee when uncovering CIA practices. The author makes a strong case that the CIA based on revealed documents alone (she refers as well to many memoirs of ex-agents but they all toe the line) had it's finger in the pie at every stage of the Congo's dismantling and was no slouch in Ghana either. To top it off there's a good chance they were involved in killing the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold so yippee for them. Thorough book that makes the most of the surface level information available.

[David S]

Really appreciated how much Williams addressed the strengths and weaknesses of her sources (lots of redacted archival documents and likely untrustworthy personal testimonies of former CIA agents). It adds a lot of credibility to her conclusions in a way that some of the other CIA histories neglect to include.

Anyway, this was an unbelievably thorough accounting of the CIA's part in assassinating Lumumba and their attempts to manipulate so many new decolonized African states. The scope, scale, and meticulousness of the operations by all the western forces involved here were truly evil. Williams pretty effortlessly blends the narratives of the Pan-African movement leaders and western intrusion into these matters without every giving up the agency of the former. Occasionally her timeline shifts around in a way to make a new argument that felt a bit disorienting but I got the hang of what she was doing eventually. Great read for anyone who liked 'Soundtrack to a Coup D'etat'.

[Alex Sarna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a big, dense book but it is very well written. The amount of players involved in 1950-1960s African politics is a lot, but the author does a good job of helping you remember important moments and events that link them all together. 

Decided to read this after I read The Poisonwood Bible last year. That book is still my favorite book, and this adds real stories and documentation to go with the themes and emotions there. I highly recommend reading this book or The Poisonwood Bible, depending on preference for nonfiction or fiction, but either way I think understanding the impact the Western world has had on the natural development of foreign governments is important to the future. I don't remember learning, nor do I think I was taught, anything about past the European colonization and western enslavement of Africa. Everything after that seemingly felt ignored until the end of aprtheid in South Africa. Certainly any US involvement wasn't included, even though we were doing this alongside other CIA operations all over the globe. Colonialism is still relevant and will continue to be until self determination is the default.

[Connor Peppard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This honestly might need a reread for me to fully understand it. White Malice is a behemoth of information with an astoundingly impressive wealth and variety of sources. It’s definitely a difficult read due to the sheer amount of historical context given and the lack of a continuous narrative (with the exception of pages ~300-400) but its worth it. A lot of the things I learned from this book aren’t easily found on the internet either, especially in relation to the CIA operations like YQPROP. Overall an invaluable experience that i cant recommend enough, especially for those of you interested in intelligence (psmitty)

[Stella Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Must read for anyone interested in the Congo, Africa, decolonisation etc. the evil of the CIA and US does not surprise me at this point but it is still devastating to read about.

[Sophie Lipset · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the most well researched book I’ve ever read. It was also incredibly upsetting but a necessary read.

[lew:)]

DNF


Setting this aside for now, the audiobook is THAT bad #saidwhatisaid

Will return to later when I can get my hands on a physical copy cause the book is super informative and well-done, I just can’t with the audiobook narrator.

[Roia McHugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking in its scope and detail. An incredible and informative read. It was brilliant to also get the senses of who Lamumba and Nkrumah were outside of their political actions. Now do Thomas Sankara please!