The Third World War

From a Cold War Notebook

Nairobi, Kenya. The authorities and the general press are united in their effort to hide from the world the revival of the Mau Mau movement. Intelligence Digest reports that the unspeakably bestial oath-taking ceremonies—with their pledge to steal, burn and destroy crops, houses and cattle, and to kill in the most ferocious manner not only all Europeans but all Africans who reject Mau Mau leadership—have been held almost nightly since the first of the year. A number of moderate Kikuyu chiefs have been hacked to pieces in one of the milder Mau Mau modes of assassination. (In one standard procedure of the Mau Mau inner circle, the victim is mutilated; suspended upside down; his head slowly sawed off; the liquid then drunk from the gouge dout eyeballs.)

JB

About the Author

James Burnham

Featured Tags

From a Cold War Notebook

Nairobi, Kenya. The authorities and the general press are united in their effort to hide from the world the revival of the Mau Mau movement. Intelligence Digest reports that the unspeakably bestial oath-taking ceremonies—with their pledge to steal, burn and destroy crops, houses and cattle, and to kill in the most ferocious manner not only all Europeans but all Africans who reject Mau Mau leadership—have been held almost nightly since the first of the year. A number of moderate Kikuyu chiefs have been hacked to pieces in one of the milder Mau Mau modes of assassination. (In one standard procedure of the Mau Mau inner circle, the victim is mutilated; suspended upside down; his head slowly sawed off; the liquid then drunk from the gouge dout eyeballs.)