Retro Raunch Revisit

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the publication debut of DEBONAIR magazine (1964). A first series (featuring literature, jazz, and sports) had launched in Dec 1960 and ended at just only 2 issues with the next (and last) magazine appearing in Feb 1961. The Nov 1964 relaunch maintained general culture with the erotica eventually shifting from softcore, and making the switch to explicit in the mid 70's. The final print issue was Jun 1980.


NOVEMBER 1964 ON THE WORLD STAGE The claims from Washington and Brussels that the recent paratroop drop on rebel-held Stanleyville (the capital of Tshopo Province in the eastern part of the central Congo) in what they called a "humanitarian mission to save hostages" has fallen on unbelieving ears the world over in a sea of global protest, as anti-US and anti-Belgian demonstrations have spread from Egypt to China. Under African, Asian, and Russian pressure, Belgian troops and their American transport planes withdrew from their all-out imperialist invasion of the Congo, which seems temporarily to have been staved-off. In Moscow, 2000 African, Asian & Latin-American students attacked the Congolese, American and Belgian embassies, and hurled stones at the British embassy for allowing the paratroopers to launch their assault from Ascension Island, some 7hrs away. Thousands of Yugoslavian students demonstrated in Belgrade, and in Cairo an angry mob sacked & set fire to the US Information Service resulting in the library's 24,000 book collection being destroyed, along with furniture & equipment. In all, the crowd caused damage estimated at $500,000. In Peking, 700,000 turned out to hear Mao Tse Tung denounce the Congolese invasion in one of the largest anti-imperialist gatherings since the victory of the Chinese revolution which declared the People's Republic of China in Oct 1949. [15yrs later, being just last month this past Oct, China conducted it's first nuclear test & successfully exploded its first atom bomb]. The Soviet Union labeled the attack "an act of armed aggression by the imperialists and their puppets who needed the pretext of protecting white hostages to disguise their criminal action." The strongest international criticism came from Algeria where President Ahmed Ben Bella declared: "We will send arms & volunteers to help our Congolese brothers as we have already done. The veil is finally lifted on the most sinister of comedies, exposing nakedly the machinations & intrigues of the imperialists." Cuba joined China & Algeria in promising material support to Lumumbist rebels while 14 African nations, led by Egypt & Kenya, called for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to avert further intervention in the Congo. In the USA, the most outspoken critic of the American-financed & airlifted invasion was Malcolm X who had just returned from Africa. When asked about the alleged massacre of white hostages, the black nationalist leader replied it was only natural to expect, seeing as President Lyndon B. Johnson was bankrolling Congolese President Moïse Tshombe's white mercenaries, and that the weight of the guilt is on them. He then added, "chickens come home to roost," a controversial phrase which got him in trouble in Nov 1963 when he used the same reference to describe the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. World pressure against President Johnson's attack was so great that even the previously silent & gradualist Negro leadership spoke out, including most prominently Martin Luther King who with others sent a message to Johnson urging support of the Organization of African Unity which called for disengagement of American military commitments in the Congo. As details of the Belgian paratroop drops became clear, it was apparent that American press stories of the white hostage massacres were crassly racist propaganda. While the highest estimates of the deaths by so-called massacres never reached above 80, the media reported that over 1700 hostages were rescued. And it would appear that most of those whites who were killed infact died in the sporadic battles between the rebels and the paratroopers which continued throughout the air-drop, finally ending with the virtual recapture of Stanleyville by the rebels following the withdrawl of Belgian forces. Shortly afterwards, the rebels shot down a chartered Belgian DC-4 plane as it was taking off from Stanleyville airport. Of the total 51 people on board, most were Congolese National Army soldiers. Only 7 passengers survived. Whatever the final death toll for both black & white in the ongoing carnage, the blame of this invasion lies on the United States and Belgium. For months, the mercenary army of puppet dictator Tshombe has been pillaging & slaughtering its way through the Congolese countryside, attempting to terrorize the people who support the Lumumbist rebels. [These insurgents themselves were spawned as part of the 1963 Simba Rebellion, which itself stems from the wider power struggle of the 1960 Congo Crisis -- both of which culminate in the assassination of independence leader and the country's first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in Jan 1961. Conspiracy in his death has been linked to government involvement from Belgium and Great Britain, and the USA via a CIA plot]. The privately-funded soldiers of fortune operating in the Congo have been condemned in the court of public opinion. Their campaign which is armed & fed by Washington using American aircraft has killed thousands of defenseless civilians. [The Belgians have maintained their purpose was always to liberate 3000 foreigners taken hostage by the rebels starting back in Oct that initially began with the abduction of a group of Belgian & Italian nuns of whom most were saved]. The paratroop invasion was evidently considered necessary if Tshombe's forces were going to hold onto the territory they had invaded. Many of the towns captured by the mercenaries were reoccupiued by the rebels after the conquerors had moved onto further atrocities but the paratroopers fooled no one. Days after first taking Stanleyville & various other cities, they had allegedly butchered as many as 4000 more Congolese civilians according to some reports. Government forces are said to have executed 300 suspected rebels, and over 500 condemned altogether. Only when the last vestige of foreign imperialist intervention is withdrawn from the Congo, will this real & wholesale bloodbath come to an end.