Operation Morthor: The Last Great Mystery of the Cold War by Ravi Somaiya Review

In 1961, the Congo was in crisis. Having regained independence from the hated Belgian occupiers, who caused decades of pain for the Congolese, the country was thrown into civil war as the mineral-rich region of Katanga attempted to secede - without the wealth of resources and income from Katanga, the Congo would not survive as a country. The battle-lines were drawn between the Western-backed Katangese rebels and the Congo forces, the latter of whom were appealing to the newly-formed United Nations to diffuse the situation. So the UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, flew out to the region to help - and then his plane was shot down, killing himself and everyone else on board. Whodunit?

I quite liked how Ravi Somaiya’s Operation Morthor started out: providing context for the brutal way the Belgians treated the Congolese, why the region was so hotly disputed (it was immensely rich in resources, particularly uranium - hence the interest of both the US and the USSR; I wonder if this was the inspiration for Marvel’s Wakanda?), and the portrait of Dag Hammarskjold, who was an interesting and accomplished Swedish gentleman.

After the assassination though - eh, not so much. It becomes a hodge-podge of names all chasing down one dead-end lead after another for years and years - it’s a tad too convoluted. And after a certain point I began to wonder what the outcome of the mystery would mean; as in, if it was ever solved (which this book doesn’t) - what if the Russians killed Dag or the US or some rando French mercenaries or a coalition of them all? I don’t think it would mean anything to anyone. Closure to those involved? They’re all dead. I guess closure for historians who’re interested in this particular chapter in the Cold War? Hmm.

The setting is a juicy one: the troubled city of Leopoldville crawling with international spies (the unassuming British spy Daphne Park was another memorable character), mercenaries and a power struggle as the potential for the Congo to become another proxy theatre of war between the US and the USSR, like Vietnam, plays out. But instead the book focuses on the investigation into the Albertina plane crash with Somaiya sifting through the minutiae of the evidence and it wasn’t that interesting to read.

I had hoped there’d be more to the mystery behind the assassination - and that’s what this likely was, even though we’ll probably never find out for sure - but there isn’t much and what there is here is unsatisfying and thin.

Operation Morthor (“morthor” is the Hindi word for “twist and break”; it was a descriptive of the UN’s plan - to put down the Katangese secession by force - but also reflective of the makeup of the initial wave of UN soldiers who were from India) starts well and provides a thorough overview of this matter but it’s ultimately a disappointingly dull and forgettable history book - I can see why this is a little-known episode of the Cold War.