Michael Le Flem reviews Stephen Kinzer’s Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control (Henry Holt and Co., 2019)

by Jamie Doward, at: The Guardian

Once again, the so-called progressive alternative media attempts—this time via the unfounded asseverations of a former West Point faculty member—to depict JFK as a typical Cold Warrior and an ineffectual president on all fronts. As usual, Jim DiEugenio demolishes the argument.

In my opinion, Newman offers one of the best medium-length treatments of the Congo crisis I have read, writes Jim DiEugenio.

Probe was twenty years ahead of the mainstream in discussing the importance of the Congo struggle and the possibility Hammarskjold's plane was shot down.

By Greg Grandin, At: The Nation

From Michael's conclusion: Ganis’ book is an uncomfortable, freewheeling careen down strange dead-end tracks, with unannounced detours through cold dark streets full of faceless characters, and later, journeys through mirror-filled fun houses of speculation, with a final twist and turn that spits you out right over Niagara Falls, barrel and all.

Michael Le Flem elucidates the terrible power play that engulfed Congo and took the life of Patrice Lumumba with it. With the newest information, he shows us how a democratically elected, constitutional government was wrecked by Belgium and the CIA before it got off the ground.

With their defense of the Dulles brothers as “decent people” in Part One, the disappearance of Kennedy’s withdrawal plan and the championing of Vann and Sheehan in Part Two, so far the net value of this documentary is something less than zero, writes Jim DiEugenio.

Spies in the Congo: America’s Atomic Mission in World War II, by Susan Williams

Reviewed by Dan Alcorn, At: AARC