Daily Express Subscriber
Sign in to your account.

The SAIMR documents are dynamite if they are authentic. They discussed the method of getting rid of (UN-Sec-Gen Dag) Hammarskjold in a way that fits in with the fate of the plane, and also implicated Allen Dulles of the CIA. This was the first time that solid evidence of CIA involvement in the crash has surfaced after evaluation of all evidence by the three boards of inquiry although the CIA should have been the logical target of suspicion following the murder of Lumumba. One of the SAIMR documents was very explicit:

“UNO is becoming troublesome and it is felt that Hammarskjold should be removed. Allen Dulles agrees and has promised full cooperation from his people…..Please see that Leo airport as well as Elisabethville is covered by your people as I want his removal to be handled more efficiently than was Patrice [Lumumba]..” The suspicion that the CIA was behind it was further given credence in Dr Greg Poulgrain’s book, ‘JFK vs Allen Dulles, Battleground Indonesia,’ (Skyhorse Publishing, 2020) In his well researched and indeed most extensive account of the involvement of the USA in Indonesian affairs, Poulgrain traces the beginning of American interest in the Dutch East Indies from the discovery of huge gold and copper deposits in the Grasberg and Erstbert mountains in Dutch New Guinea, to the tussle for the territory between the Netherlands and Indonesia after the Second World War.

Poulgrain found the revelation in the TRC documents supportive of his thesis that certain parties had wanted to get rid of Hammarskjold for their own benefit. The most important question asked in all criminal investigations; ‘Cui bono’, or ‘who benefits?’ that had so far not been asked in any of the investigative bodies, is finally asked, and answered. Discovery of the TRC documents in South Africa constitutes a piece of the puzzle that fitted into Poulgrain’s research on the involvement of Allen Dulles in the CIA’s collusion with the Indonesian armed forces to keep the Netherlands out of West New Guinea.

Hammarskjold was on the verge of intervening in the dispute with a program to allow the Papuan natives to gradually attain independence from the Netherlands with the aid of the UN under its ‘Operation Executive’ initiative which would see the deployment of UN administrators in the country to assist the indigenous people in self-governance (OPEX). Unbeknownst to the UN Secretary-General, both the Netherlands and the CIA had knowledge of the vast mineral resources in the province, which neither wanted to lose to an independent New Guinea.

‘Operation Celeste’ mentioned in the TRC documents with the letterhead of the South African Institute of Marine Research (SAIMR) also confirms Poulgrain’s suspicion, that the altimeters in the DC6 were tempered with so that the plane in coming to land was flying lower than it should have. He notes that the altimeters were almost immediately taken and sent to the FBI in the States by a CIA plane that just conveniently happened to be at Ndola at the time. The altimeters were reported later to be working correctly.

Suspicion of CIA involvement also came from a report by a New York Times reporter of what former President [Harry]Truman said when he heard the news of the death of the Secretary-General:

“Dag Hammarskjold was on the point of getting something done when they killed him,” Truman was quoted as saying. “Note that I said They” he added. When pressed to say to whom “they” referred, the 77 year old former president replied: “That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter. Draw your own conclusions. (Poulgrain, JFK vs Allen Dulles, pg.160)

Although it was he who had re-formed the wartime secret service to become the famous intelligence agency, Truman was chary of its operations, and came to regret its formation. In ‘Plain Speaking, An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman,’(Berkley Publishing, 1974), Merle Miller quoted Truman as saying of the agency:

“ Now as nearly as I can make out, those fellows in the CIA don’t just report on wars and the like, they go out and make their own, and there’s nobody to keep track of what they’re up to…..it’s become a government all of its own and all secret. They don’t have to account to anybody …… [on setting up the CIA] it was a mistake. And if I had known what was going to happen I never would have done it.”

Going by the sentiment of the plain speaking Truman on the agency, it is almost certain that he was referring to the CIA when he said “they” in response to the NYT reporter.

Williams also noted the presence of a British MI6 agent at the time of the crash, without further elaboration, but it is implicit in her statement that British intelligence knew more than they were willing to admit. She notes:

‘..[the MI6] had a man on the ground, it doesn’t make them responsible for the crash but it does indicate they knew a lot of what was going on.’

If that were the case, the British intelligence services and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the U.K. should have a lot to disclose to the UN A panel of jurists in the light of the revelations in the book formed the Hammarskjold Commission in 2013, to make a determination ‘on whether the evidence now available would justify the United Nations in reopening its inquiry into the death of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 1759 9XVII) of 26 October 1962.’

The Commission, in addition to examining the reports of the earlier boards of inquiry considered also the political aspects of the case particularly the ‘geopolitical situation in 1961, the relations between the United Nations and Katanga, and the Secretary-General’s intervention in the conflict. It also deals specifically with the various hypotheses on the cause of the crash, namely, whether it was sabotage, aerial attack or threat of attack. Among other things, it was especially critical of the UN Commission “selectively interpreting evidence” giving as an instance, the delay in the departure of the DC6 caused by Lansdowne:

“Rather than investigate the fact that it was strange for Lansdowne to go off somewhere for lunch, even though he had been alerted of his flight leaving anytime during the day, the UN chooses to follow the statements of Lansdowne and Jacques Poujoulat (a UN spokesman), as showing that Lansdowne had no way of coming to the airport earlier….even though [it had been] stated very clearly how adamant Hammarskjold was, not only to reach Ndola, but also to be there as soon as possible.”

- In this series that will appear over the next few weeks, David CC Lim and Syn Chew look at what happened on the world stage when colonialism was being dismantled to understand the decisions that also had a bearing on the future of other colonies like British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak.