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A few feet away, there was a bustle of another kind in the wake of Tshombe's appeal to Kennedy; there, U Thant's special representative, Ralph Bunche. and the regular U.N. Congo civilian chief, Sweden's Dr. Sture Linner, worked to get the agreement of the wary Central Congolese Prime Minister, Cyrille Adoula, on terms for a Tshombe-Adoula "summit" parley. But Leopoldville's key man now would be U.S. Ambassador Gullion, 48. Kentucky-born Ed Gullion was a good choice for the job of conciliator; his talent for analysis of tricky problems had been polished by duty on the State Department's policy planning staff, and later on the U.S. Disarmament Agency; Gullion's skill at handling people matured in long service at a half-dozen posts abroad.
The Airlift. Meanwhile, 15 miles outside Leopoldville, at Ndjili Airport, the big U.S. airlift of troops and equipment continued. One day a battalion of sweating Ethiopians trudged silently into the gaping mouth of a U.S. Air Force Globemaster. Crammed into the plane with them were 45,000 Ibs. of ammunition and rations and 14 gleaming white Jeeps. Another day, the troops might be Swedish or Irish, the scene otherwise the same. Said Ambassador Gullion: "The Congo government leaders recognize that the U.N. effort is the salvation of their country, and that within the U.N. effort the U.S. airlift is vital. The size itself of the Globemasters has an effect on people here —we reckoned on that too."
It was one of the longest airlifts the U.S. had ever run; to haul a company of Irish troops from Dublin, for example, was a 5,000-mile hop. TIME-LIFE Correspondent Judson Gooding flew the final lap, from Leo to Eville, with a planeload of 76 Swedish reinforcements. The plane kept to 9,500 ft., just in case of an unknown antiaircraft gun in the hands of the Congolese below, but the young Swedes did not seem concerned. One had bought some U.S. insignia at an American PX and said: "I look like a Yankee now, and Yankees are very tough guys. I want to go over there and see what it is like to fight. Besides, the money is good—double what we get paid in Sweden." As the big bird neared Elisabethville, one of the crew broke out .45s for the officers, carbines for the enlisted men; there might be trouble on the ground. Landing guidance came from another nearby bird, which was heading back the other way. "Make a real steep approach and stay north of the field to avoid the town," he radioed. There was no sign of trouble on the ground, but in 23 minutes flat the Globemaster was unloaded and airborne again.
Something Unreal. In Elisabethville, peppery Indian Brigadier K.A.S. Raja and his civilian counterpart, Australia's George Ivan Smith, for most of the week had been content to secure and hold islands of strength around the city. Two were at the old and new airports on the northern outskirts; another was east of the city, at a camp where 30,000 restive, Tshombe-hating Baluba tribesmen were kept in protective custody by Swedish and Irish troops. As reinforcements arrived to fill the gaps, these and other strongpoints formed a solid crescent around the northern outskirts.