Ravi Somaiya - Operation Morthor

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First published as The Golden Thread in the United States of America
by Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing 2020
First published as Operation Morthor in Great Britain by Viking 2020

Copyright Ravi Somaiya, 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover Mary Evans Picture Library and AKG-images

ISBN: 978-0-241-97503-9

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For Caroline

And for my parents, Raj and Hershi

Cyrille Adoulaprime minister of the Congo, 196164.

Beukelsa Belgian pilot who says he flew as a mercenary for Katangese forces.

Larry Devlinthe Central Intelligence Agencys Leopoldville chief of station, 196067.

Colonel Ren Faulquesa French soldier who led Katangese rebel forces.

Dag Hammarskjldthe second secretary-general of the United Nations, 195361.

George Ivan Smitha UN press representative and close friend of Hammarskjld.

Harold Julienan American soldier, acting head of security for the United Nations Operation in the Congo.

Joseph Kasavubuthe first democratically elected prime minister of the Congo.

Claude de Kemoulariaa French former assistant to Hammarskjld and diplomat turned adviser and executive.

John F. Kennedypresident of the United States of America, 196163.

Nikita Khrushchevleader of the Soviet Union, 195364.

King Leopold IIa Belgian royal who colonized, then brutalized, the Congo.

Patrice Lumumbathe first democratically elected president of the Congo.

Harold Macmillanprime minister of the United Kingdom, 195763.

Joseph Dsir Mobutuhead of the Congolese army who eventually seized power and installed himself as a dictator.

Godefroid Munongointerior minister of Katanga, in close contact with Katangas Belgian advisers.

Conor Cruise OBrienan Irish diplomat, politician, and writer who was Hammarskjlds representative in Katanga.

Mohamed Chande Othmana Tanzanian jurist appointed in 2015 by the United Nations to reexamine the Hammarskjld case.

Daphne Park (later Baroness Park of Monmouth)the British Secret Intelligence Services head of station in Leopoldville, 195961.

QJWINa safecracker named Jose Mankel employed by the CIA for assassination recruitment and related activities in Leopoldville.

Bengt Rsia Swedish diplomat and investigator.

Charles Southalla US naval pilot seconded to the National Security Agency.

Jean-Franois Thiriarta Belgian optometrist and a fascist ideologue and recruiter.

Harry S Trumanpresident of the United States of America, 194553.

Mose Tshombea Katangese businessman appointed leader of the breakaway state.

Bo Virvinga Swedish pilot and investigator.

Roy Welenskythe last prime minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

Susan Williamsa British academic, author, and investigator.

WIROGUEa forger and former bank robber turned CIA agent in Leopoldville. Real name either David Tzitzichivili or David de Panasket.

All narrative is a kind of benevolent lie. In telling a story so its intelligible, an author must, of necessity, leave some things out and focus on others. I have certainly done so here, and I apologize in advance to anyone who feels that their role in the story of Dag Hammarskjlds life and death has been omitted or underplayed.

In an effort to mitigate that, I have worked to place things in context and to credit those who have worked so assiduously before me to unearth original materials. I have used dialogue only where it was precisely recalled and noted by the participants themselves. All descriptions are drawn from the recollections or accounts of those present or from contemporaneous photographs and video.

This is a story with so many twists, and so many duplicitous characters, that unraveling it drove me nearly to madness. But as with all enduring puzzles, it has at its heart a simple question: What happened to Hammarskjlds plane in the skies over what is now Zambia in the few minutes between its last contact with the control tower and its fatal crash landing?

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,

The future futureless, before the morning watch

When time stops and time is never ending

T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages, Four Quartets

On the morning of Tuesday, September 19, 1961, Harry S Truman woke before the sun was up. He made himself breakfast, lost in thought, then bathed and dressed in a dapper gray suit, a dark-blue tie, and a gray felt hat.

He picked up his cane, pulled the door shut quietly behind him, and set out through his hometown, now home again, Independence, Missouri, on the outskirts of Kansas City.

Truman, moving slowly against the rising morning light, was seventy-seven. He had been out of the Oval Office for eight years, and had grown into the role of former president. Living quietly with his wife on a modest pension, in the peaceful Victorian home their daughter had been born in thirty-five years earlier, suited him.

He had visited the White House again several times in recent months, at the invitation of its new incumbent, John F. Kennedy. He was gratified to have been taken into his confidence.

But he visibly preferred his freedom to the constraints of high office. The eyes behind his thick glasses, amused and sharp, had come alive since his retirement. A Midwestern tendency toward bluntness had been elevated to a principle.

That morning, as he took his usual turn around the towns peaceful square, past the red-brick courthouse topped with a white clock tower, and toward Bundschus department store, he looked unusually grave.