Frantz Fanon and the CIA Man

Abstract

This essay reconstructs a missing link in Frantz Fanon’s life and death. Based on an encounter with Fanon’s CIA handler, C. Oliver Iselin, it presents the firsthand experience of a mid-level figure in the U.S. security state who participated in the national liberation movements in Africa. The essay suggests that Iselin’s memories and images of decolonization reflect the wider arc of how liberal American attitudes evolved and congealed toward the Third World, as national liberation went from attracting hopeful sympathy, to disappointment, and finally to blame. The long, unedited samples of Iselin’s speech are meant to grant his perspective some autonomy from the author’s interpretations of them, and to provide the reader with raw material to make different interpretations. The essay also examines Fanon’s understanding of American liberals’ changing attitude toward national liberation movements. Both Iselin and Fanon’s projections are then counterpoised with the author’s own impressions of present-day Algeria.