The awkward biography of the young Washington Okumu: CIA asset (?) and the Prayer Breakfast’s man in Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACTWashington Okumu (1936–2016) is now largely forgotten, but he had had a burst of fame as the mediator that brought the Inkatha Freedom Party back into South Africa’s democratic elections of 1994. This article concerns his professional life until 1988. In addition to reconstructing his life, it comments on the awkward challenges of this biography. Interviews with Okumu yielded confusing and often untruthful testimony. The research process involved extensive corroboration and correction. Okumu’s story was about his great achievements, but his greatest achievement was to position himself on the edges of power. All the same, he had a remarkable life that included relationships with Kenyan political leaders, study at Harvard and Cambridge universities, a likely relationship with the CIA, political imprisonment, and employment by the United Nations. His deepest connection was with the Fellowship (an international Christian network best known for hosting the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC). Most remarkably, it arranged for Okumu to conduct secret shuttle diplomacy between South African Prime Minister BJ Vorster and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere in 1976. His life through early middle-age was well connected and eventful, but his initiatives do not appear to have been politically consequential. Indeed, the most significant event of life before 1988 may have been that he met IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the Prayer Breakfast in Washington and that he gained the trust of the South African National Party government and thus was positioned for his ‘great moment’ in 1994.