Murderous angels: A political tragedy and comedy in black and white

About this book

From dust jacket flap: "In his preface to Murderous Angels ConorCruise O'Brien writes :'In 1967, while at work on a book on the ritual and dramatic workings of the United Nations – now published as United Nations: Sacred Drama, I found myself having to think again about the story of the United Nations operation in the Congo and to think about it in a new way, partly necessitated by a new theme, and partly by new information …. While I was preoccupied by these questions, I dreamt one night that a new notebook of Dag Hammarskjold's had been discovered which constituted a sort of political key or equivalent to the spiritual cogitations of Hammarskjold which have been published under the title Markings. In the dream I seemed not to have access to the new notebook. And was vaguely distressed by this.Puzzled by this dream, I began rather reluctantly to re-examine and re-interpret what I knew or guessed about fates of Hammarskjold and of Lumumba. Probably partly by the inherently dramatic nature of these intertwined fates, and partly because of "the sacred drama" thesis on which I was then working, I found it necessary to think in terms of a play….'The germ of Murderous Angels is the conception that Hammarskjold, for exalted and convincing reasons and in the service of humanity deliberately brings about the downfall and death of Patrice Lumumba, which in its turn precipitates his own downfall and death.''This dramatic theme is embroidered with a great deal of controversial material concerning the attitudes of the great powers involved in the first year of Congolese independence in which the author played such a prominent part. Plans are in hand for the production of Murderous Angels in the United States, with a possible production to follow in London.