Susan Williams is a historian and author, based in London. Her latest book is ''White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa'', published in 2021. Her other publications include: ''The People's King: The True Story of the Abdication'', a book about the

abdication of Edward VIII In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King-Emperor Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing the divorce of her secon ...

, published in 2003; and ''Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation'', published in 2006, on which the 2016 film ''

A United Kingdom ''A United Kingdom'' is a 2016 biographical romantic drama film directed by Amma Asante and written by Guy Hibbert, based on the true-life romance of Seretse Khama, heir to the throne of the Bangwato Tribe in Serowe – one of many tribes f ...

'' is based. Her book ''Who Killed Hammarskjold?'' (2011), about the death in 1961 of the then-

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

Secretary-General,

Dag Hammarskjöld Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld ( , ; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 196 ...

, triggered a new UN investigation in 2015. In ''Spies in the Congo: America’s Atomic Mission in World War II.'' she tells the intricate tale of a special unit of the US

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS), the forerunner of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

, that was set up to purchase and secretly remove all the

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

from the unique uranium mine in

Katanga province Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika Province, Tanganyika, Hau ...

Shinkolobwe Shinkolobwe, or Kasolo, or Chinkolobew, or Shainkolobwe, was a radium and uranium mine in the Haut-Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), located 20 km west of Likasi (formerly Jadotville), 20 km south of Kamb ...

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...

that the US could get its hands on and keep out of the hands of the

Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

. The uranium was to be used in the bombing of

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

and

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

. Williams is a senior research fellow at the

Institute of Commonwealth Studies The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, founded in 1949, is the sole postgraduate academic institution in the United Kingdom devoted to the study of the Commonwealth. It is also home to the longest-running interdisciplinary and practice-oriented ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

Books

* ''White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa'',

PublicAffairs PublicAffairs (or PublicAffairs Books) is an imprint of Perseus Books, an American book publishing company located in New York City and has been a part of the Hachette Book Group since 2016. PublicAffairs was launched in 1997 by Peter Osnos. ...

, 2021. * ''Spies in the Congo: America’s Atomic Mission in World War II'', Public Affairs, 2016. * ''Who Killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War, and White Supremacy in Africa'', London:

Hurst Hurst may refer to: Places England * Hurst, Berkshire, a village * Hurst, North Yorkshire, a hamlet * Hurst, a settlement within the village of Martock, Somerset * Hurst, West Sussex, a hamlet * Hurst Spit, a shingle spit in Hampshire ** Hurs ...

, 2011. * ''Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation'',

Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fictio ...

, 2006. – on the founding president of Botswana * ''The People’s King: The True Story of the Abdication'', Allen Lane, 2003. – on the abdication of Edward VIII * ''Ladies of influence: women of the elite in interwar Britain'', Allen Lane, 2000.

References

External links

Official website
1953 births Living people 21st-century British historians 21st-century British women writers Academics of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London British women biographers British women historians Historians of the Democratic Republic of the Congo {{UK-historian-stub