A book that very much  explains not only Africa but  today’s world and the US position in it. It’s a very important book, very well documented. 

I was either very sad or very angry while reading it; very digusted more than once too. The summary would be : do not trust the US, in any way. 

It does mention  other countries of the West, but the focus is of course the CIA and therefore the US. 

I wish we  mearnt more about these events in schools. We talked about Lumumba, but only only coyple sentences, as for Nkrumah I don’t recall his name being even mentionned.  This is one of the books that needs to be read by all, and therefore I hope to see it translated in many langages 

Those who study decolonialization (or generally just world history) will know who Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba are. Giants in decolonial, socialist, and pan-Africanist political thought, their influence was cruelly cut short by those they sought to fight against in Africa. White Malice elaborates on the machinations of the CIA that brought about the end of their rule in Ghana and Congo respectively (in Lumumba's case, quite violently).

The book goes at a surprisingly breezy pace despite being a chonky one. It starts off with optimism of young leaders in the decolonization movement (the aforementioned two, Fanon, Padmore etc). Williama then weaves together a spiderweb of CIA influence operations, some overt, most covert through funding of organizations thst were active in Africa during the 60s. Sometimes, it can be a bit of an info overload as an alphabet soup of names and acronyms are introduced within a few pages. 

Williams cites extensive archival research and declassified documents, detailing a gamut of influence operations by the CIA, ranging from funding military officers, staging fake protests against Lumumba, media articles badmouthing him, sending aircraft to support rebels, spying on the UN (!) and culminating in supporting his assassination. She details similar machinations behind the coup to unseat Nkrumah.

One minor gripe is that some links are tenuous at best. Funding an organisation to propagate US-friendly views, while an influence operation in its own right, does not seem akin to the 'recolonization' of the continent, nor is it equal in impact as literally aiding the planning of an assassination of a democratically elected leader.

Nevertheless, this book is a revelatory one for those who are not familiar with the CIA's work

 As if I wasn’t already disillusioned by the US Government…

This was a dense but very interesting overview of the CIA’s actions in post-independence Africa, specifically the Congo and Ghana. It goes over the key players who worked to undermine the nascent democratic institutions of these newly independent countries and install undemocratic and often brutal regimes that were more receptive to the US agenda in Africa. Reading this book, I was constantly in shock at the level of meddling and covert influence the CIA had not just in Africa but also in the United Nations.

Though this book primarily focuses on Africa, it really does a good job at illuminating just how deep the CIA’s influence really went. I was surprised to see the amount of NGOs and other organizations that were funded and influenced by the CIA in one form or another. There’s no doubt that these operations were also flourishing in other parts of the world.

The most depressing part was realizing how in the span of only a few years, the Congolese and Ghanaian (among others) people’s hopes for a fully independent and democratic future were dashed, often due to forces and malicious actors unknown to them.

The author states at the end that in order for the people of Africa to truly move into the future, they need more clarity and information regarding the CIA’s actions in the continent and how they shaped Africa’s postcolonial history; I could not agree more.