TSHOMBE MOISE: (1919-1969) Congolese Politician. President of the secessionist State of Katanga 1960...

TSHOMBE MOISE: (1919-1969) Congolese Politician. President of the secessionist State of Katanga 1960-63, and Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo 1964-65. Signed printed visiting card by Tshombe, the card showing at the heading the printed text ''Moise Tshombe - President du Katanga''. Signed in bold blue ink `Tshombe«, across the card. Accompanied by the original 12mo envelope, post-stamped with an ink cancellation dated 3rd November 1961. Very small remnants of a former staple to the verso. VG £80-100 Tshombe was dismissed as the Congo Prime Minister in 1965 by President Kasa-Vubu, and only few months later General Mobutu staged a successful coup and brought charges of treason against Tshombe who fled to Spain into exile. In 1967 Tshombe was sentenced to death ''in absentia'', and same year in June he was taken in a Hawker aircraft hijacked by French-British external intelligence agents. Taken to Algeria, jailed and under house arrest, he died officially as ''death from heart failure''. The novel The Thin White Line (1977) by Daniel Carney and the film Wild Geese (1978) directed by Andrew Mclaglen, starring Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris, were based on rumours and speculations following Tshombe«s death.