MEMORANDUM

To: The Files
From: Frederick D. Baron
Date: September 5, 1975
Re: Interview with Robert Johnson regarding the Lumumba Case.

I interviewed Robert Johnson by phone this afternoon to supplement the earlier interview (June 10, 1975) and examination (June 18, 1975) that the Committee conducted with him. At the beginning of the conversation I explained there were a number of questions raised by his interview and examination that needed to be answered on the record. Because it was inconvenient for him to make a trip to Washington in the near future and because of the limited amount of additional information he was able to provide, we agreed that I would memorialize the important points of our interview in the form of an affidavit to which Mr. Johnson would swear.

The following points are related as faithfully as possible in the manner in which Mr. Johnson made them:

1. I never heard of a CIA plot assassinate Lumumba with lethal biological substances.

2. To the best of my recollection, President Eisenhower turned toward Allen Dulles when he made the statement relating to Lumumba about which I have testified.

3. After the meeting at which I heard the statement by President Eisenhower which I described in my testimony on June 18, 1975, I must have consulted James Lay (Executive Secretary of the NSC) for advice on how to treat the President's statement in my memorandum of the meeting. Mr. Lay was meticulous about including in the record some form of reference to every major subject that was discussed at NSC meetings. So we probably included the President's statement in some form, but in what form I do not know. In general, these memoranda would be as complete as we could make them. Nevertheless, on something as sensitive as this, we may have decided to handle it with euphemism.

4. The NSC meeting of September 21, 1961 is probably not the meeting at which I heard the President's statement.

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