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Mobutu still managed to cut a dashing if reptilian figure on the international stage. Resplendent in his leopardskin toque, symbol of his authority as a traditional tribal chief, the jovial dictator has had little difficulty charming nearly all U.S. Presidents stretching back to John Kennedy. Political friendships with a long line of leaders in China, Romania, France, North Korea, South Africa and Israel (where he trained as a paratrooper) made him a widely traveled statesman. Some were seduced by Mobutu's eagerness to serve as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in the heart of Africa, others by Zaire's natural treasure trove of diamonds, gold, cobalt, copper, and the uranium used in the American nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in World War II.
As Mobutu never tires of saying, whenever the U.S. needed a favor, he was usually delighted to oblige. He turned over facilities to the CIA in support of Jonas Savimbi, an American client in the still festering Angolan civil war, and helped train forces loyal to Hissene Habre, the West's ousted candidate for leadership in Chad. Zaire chaired the U.N. Security Council in January 1991 when the crucial votes were taken to approve military action against Iraq in the Gulf War. A senior U.S. official says Washington suggested to Kuwait that Mobutu's vote in favor of allied military strikes be generously rewarded. That initiative could be viewed as an attempt to circumvent U.S. law, which has for several years banned all but humanitarian aid to Zaire.
Impulsive and generous to a fault with relatives and friends, Mobutu must contend with their incessant demands for money and favors. One major distraction has been a feud between children of his late first wife Marie- Antoinette and those of his second, Bobi Ladawa. Another has been rivalry between Bobi Ladawa and her identical twin, a widow whom Mobutu took as a mistress some years ago and with whom he promptly had several children. Though such behavior has roots in African tradition, it has led to raucous family turmoil that represents a significant drain on the time Mobutu devotes to statecraft.
As he sits on his terrace and watches an array of computer-controlled fountains dance to the easy-listening melodies from his sound system, with an officer in camouflage fatigues standing at attention nearby, Mobutu shows no signs of fearing the turmoil that threatens to engulf him. "I have rendered my country and people an enormous service," he says, beckoning to a servant who rushes up with an iced Baccarat tumbler of Coca-Cola. "They owe me everything." Then why not hold elections? "I plan to. I would win them." Then he leans back in his gold thronelike chair, staring into the distant jungle. "If ever I leave power, it will be only in conditions of beauty, never under pressure."