During the Congo Crisis, Mobutu, serving as Chief of Staff of the Army and supported by Belgium and the United States, deposed the democratically elected government of left-wing nationalist Patrice Lumumba in 1960.

Mobutu received strong support (military, diplomatic and economic) from the United States, France, and Belgium, given his opposition to communism in Francophone Africa.

[citation needed] A classmate recalled that when the Belgian priests, whose first language was Dutch, made an error in French, Mobutu would leap to his feet in class and point out the mistake.

His favorites were the writings of French president Charles de Gaulle, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

[26] On 8 July the full Council of Ministers convened in an extraordinary session under the chairmanship of President Joseph Kasa-Vubu at Camp Léopold II to address the task of Africanising the garrison.

[31][32] Mobutu was affronted by this development, and upon his return to the capital he confronted Lumumba in a cabinet meeting, saying, "Either I was unworthy, and you have to dismiss me, or I faithfully accomplished my mission and so I keep my rank and functions.

"[32] The British diplomat Brian Urquhart serving with the United Nations wrote: "When I first met Mobutu in July 1960, he was Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's chief military assistant and had just promoted himself from sergeant to lieutenant-colonel.

In early March 1966 he opened a new session of Parliament by declaring that he was revoking their right of review, and two weeks later his government permanently suspended the body and assumed all of its remaining functions.

[citation needed] Embarking on a campaign of pro-Africa cultural awareness, called authenticité, Mobutu began renaming cities that reflected the colonial past, starting on 1 June 1966: Léopoldville became Kinshasa, Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, and Stanleyville became Kisangani.

[40] Western attire and ties were banned, and men were forced to wear a Mao-style tunic known as an abacost (shorthand for à bas le costume, or "down with the suit").

[47][48] Around this time, he eschewed his military uniform in favor of what would become his classic image—the tall, imposing man carrying a walking stick while wearing an abacost, thick-framed glasses, and leopard-skin toque.

A favorite Mobutu tactic was to play "musical chairs", rotating members of his government, switching the cabinet roster constantly to ensure that no one would pose a threat to his rule.

Victor Nendaka Bika, in his capacity as Vice-President of the Bureau of the Central Committee, second authority in the land, addressed a speech filled with praise for President Mobutu.

[40] In October 1973, the Arab oil shock ended the "long summer" of prosperity in the West that had begun in 1945, and sent the world economy into its sharpest contraction since the Great Depression.

[63] The Forces Armées Zaïroises (FAZ) suffered from low morale made worse by irregular salaries, dismal living conditions, shortages of supplies and a venal officer corps.

[64] A recurring feature of Mobutu's rule were the seemingly endless number of roadblocks put by the FAZ who extorted money from the drivers of any passing automobile or lorries.

[70] Mobutu led one of the most enduring autocracies in Africa and amassed a personal fortune estimated to be over US$50 million by selling his nation's rich natural resources while the people lived in poverty.

[71][72] While in office, he formed a totalitarian regime responsible for numerous human rights violations, attempted to purge the country of all Belgian cultural influences, and maintained an anti-communist stance to gain positive international support.

[79] Two years after the launch of the first rocket, the Soviet Union alleged that former Nazi scientists were involved with OTRAG, and became convinced that the company was secretly gathering military intelligence.

[80] Relations soured early in Mobutu's rule over disputes involving the substantial Belgian commercial and industrial holdings in the country, but they warmed soon afterwards.

In addition to inviting Holden Roberto, the leader of the National Liberation Front of Angola, and his guerrillas to Beijing for training, China provided weapons and money to the rebels.

China sent military aid to Zaire during both invasions, and accused the Soviet Union and Cuba (who were alleged to have supported the Shaban rebels, although this was and remains speculation) of working to de-stabilize central Africa.

The United States was the third largest donor of aid to Zaire (after Belgium and France), and Mobutu befriended several US presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.

But during the second Shaba invasion, the US played a much more active and decisive role by providing transportation and logistical support to the French and Belgian paratroopers that were deployed to aid Mobutu against the rebels.

[108] In May 1990, due to the ending of the Cold War and a change in the international political climate, as well as economic problems and domestic unrest, Mobutu agreed to give up the MPR's monopoly of power.

Following the 1991 riots in Kinshasa by unpaid soldiers, Mobutu brought opposition figures into a coalition government, but still connived to retain control of the security services and important ministries.

A daughter, Yakpwa (nicknamed Yaki), was briefly married to a Belgian, Pierre Janssen, who later wrote a book[117] that described Mobutu's lifestyle in vivid detail.

[citation needed] According to Mobutu's New York Times obituary: "He built his political longevity on three pillars: violence, cunning, and the use of state funds to buy off enemies.

His systematic looting of the national treasury and major industries gave birth to the term 'kleptocracy' to describe a rule of official corruption that reputedly made him one of the world's wealthiest heads of state.

[124] Philip Gourevitch, in We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families (1998), wrote: Mobutu had really staged a funeral for a generation of African leadership of which he—the Dinosaur, as he had long been known—was the paragon: the client dictator of Cold War neocolonialism, monomaniacal, perfectly corrupt, and absolutely ruinous to his nation.Mobutu was instrumental in bringing the Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman to Zaire on 30 October 1974.