Book Review: White Malice
I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to judge a book by its cover. However, when I saw the cover for this book, I knew I needed to read it immediately, and it didn’t disappoint!
Susan Williams’ latest book, White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa, is a triumphant, well-researched contribution to the historical record of post-colonial Africa. The book focuses on the rise and tragic fall of Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba, the first leaders of independent Ghana and the Congo, respectively. Because of their left-wing, Soviet-leaning politics during the Cold War, they were easy targets by the U.S. government. The CIA did a lot of covert and not so covert activities on the African continent to protect its access to natural resources in Shinkolobwe’s uranium, which was central to the value of the Congo to the U.S. through the 1950s. “By 1959,
about 9 percent of the world’s copper, 49 percent of cobalt (rising to 54 percent in 1960), 69 percent of
industrial diamonds and 6.5 percent of tin came from the Congo.”
We all know that the CIA played a role in Lumumba’s assassination, but did you know that CIA may have also poisoned writer Richard Wright, causing his fatal heart attack? Or that the CIA spied on Louis Armstrong during a concert tour in the Congo? Or that Wole Soyinka was given a fellowship by a CIA-fronted organization? Or that the CIA allegedly spiked a drink Paul Robeson had in Moscow and made him delusional? Or that the CIA was behind many other people either dying or going missing under highly suspicious reasons in Africa, including Nkrumah?
This book is wild and full of CIA history tea! But it is also a long book. Clocking in at over 600 pages, White Malice is not for the casual reader but rather for serious students of African history, Cold War politics, or covert CIA activities. But I highly recommend reading it.