title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: As he consolidated power, Mobutu set up several military forces whose sole purpose was to protect him. These included the Special Presidential Division, Civil Guard and Service for Action, and Military Intelligence (SNIP).


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Embarking on a campaign of pro-Africa cultural awareness, called "authenticité", Mobutu began renaming cities that reflected the colonial past, starting on 1 June 1966: Leopoldville became Kinshasa, Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, and Stanleyville became Kisangani. In October 1971, he renamed the country as the Republic of Zaire. He ordered the people to change their European names to African ones, and priests were warned that they would face five years' imprisonment if they were caught baptizing a Zairian child with a European name. Western attire and ties were banned, and men were forced to wear a Mao-style tunic known as an "abacost" (shorthand for "à bas le costume", or "down with the suit"). Christmas was moved from December to June because it was more of an "authentic" date.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In 1972, in accordance with his own decree of a year earlier, Mobutu renamed himself "Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga" (meaning "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake."). Around this time, he eschewed his military uniform in favor of what would become his classic image—the tall, imposing man carrying a walking stick while wearing an abacost, thick-framed glasses, and leopard-skin toque.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In 1974, a new constitution consolidated Mobutu's grip on the country. It defined the MPR as the "single institution" in the country. It was officially defined as "the nation politically organized"—in essence, the state was a transmission belt for the party. All citizens automatically became members of the MPR from birth. The constitution stated that the MPR was embodied by the party's president, who was elected every seven years at its national convention. At the same time, the party president was automatically nominated as the sole candidate for a seven-year term as president of the republic; he was confirmed in office by a referendum. The document codified the emergency powers Mobutu had exercised since 1965; it vested Mobutu with "plenitude of power exercise", effectively concentrating all governing power in his hands. Mobutu was reelected three times under this system, each time by implausibly high margins of 98 percent or more. A single list of MPR candidates was returned to the legislature every five years with equally implausible margins; official figures gave the MPR list unanimous or near-unanimous support. At one of those elections, in 1975, formal voting was dispensed with altogether. Instead, the election took place by acclaim; candidates were presented at public locations around the country where they could be applauded.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Early in his rule, Mobutu consolidated power by publicly executing political rivals, secessionists, coup plotters, and other threats to his rule. To set an example, many were hanged before large audiences. Such victims included former Prime Minister Évariste Kimba, who, with three cabinet members—Jérôme Anany (Defense Minister), Emmanuel Bamba (Finance Minister), and Alexandre Mahamba (Minister of Mines and Energy)—was tried in May 1966, and sent to the gallows on 30 May, before an audience of 50,000 spectators. The men were executed on charges of being in contact with Colonel Alphonse Bangala and Major Pierre Efomi, for the purpose of planning a coup. Mobutu explained the executions as follows: "One had to strike through a spectacular example, and create the conditions of regime discipline. When a chief takes a decision, he decides – period."


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In 1968, Pierre Mulele, Lumumba's Minister of Education and a rebel leader during the 1964 Simba rebellion, was lured out of exile in Brazzaville on the belief that he would receive amnesty. Instead, he was tortured and killed by Mobutu's forces. While Mulele was still alive, his eyes were gouged out, his genitals were ripped off, and his limbs were amputated one by one.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu later switched to a new tactic, buying off political rivals. He used the slogan "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer still" to describe his tactic of co-opting political opponents through bribery. A favorite Mobutu tactic was to play "musical chairs", rotating members of his government, switching the cabinet roster constantly to ensure that no one would pose a threat to his rule. Between November 1965 and April 1997, Mobutu reshuffled his cabinet 60 times. The frequent cabinet reshuffles as intended encouraged insecurity in his ministers, who knew that the mercurial Mobutu would reshuffle his cabinet with no regard for efficiency and competence on the part of his ministers. The frequency that men entered and left the cabinet also encouraged gross corruption because ministers never knew how long they might be in office, thus encouraging them to steal as much as possible while they were in the cabinet. Another tactic was to arrest and sometimes torture dissident members of the government, only to later pardon them and reward them with high office. The Congolese historian Emizet F. Kisangani wrote: "Most public officials knew that regardless of their inefficiency and degree of corruption, they could reenter the government. To hold a government position required neither a sense of management nor a good conscience. On most occasions, effectiveness and a good conscience were major obstacles to political advancement. Mobutu demanded absolute personal allegiance in return for the opportunity to accumulate wealth". As early as 1970, it was estimated that Mobutu had stolen 60% of the national budget that year, marking him as one of the most corrupt leaders in Africa. Kisangani wrote that Mobutu created a system of institutional corruption that greatly debased public morality by rewarding venality and greed.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In 1972, Mobutu tried unsuccessfully to have himself named president for life. In June 1983, he raised himself to the rank of Field Marshal; the order was signed by General Likulia Bolongo. Victor Nendaka Bika, in his capacity as Vice-President of the Bureau of the Central Committee, second authority in the land, addressed a speech filled with praise for President Mobutu.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: To gain the revenues of Congolese resources, Mobutu initially nationalized foreign-owned firms and forced European investors out of the country. But in many cases he handed the management of these firms to relatives and close associates, who quickly exercised their own corruption and stole the companies' assets. In 1973–1974, Mobutu launched his "Zairianization" campaign, nationalising foreign owned businesses that were handed over to Zairians. In October 1973, the Arab oil shock ended the "long summer" of prosperity in the West that had begun in 1945, and send the world economy into its sharpest contraction since the Great Depression. One consequence of the oil shock and the resulting global recession was that the price of copper dropped by 50% over the course of 1974, which proved to be a disaster for Zaire as copper was its most important export. The American historian Thomas Odom wrote because of the collapse in copper prices Zaire went from "prosperity to bankruptcy almost overnight" in 1974. The economic collapse forced Zaire to turn towards the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help its manage its debts which could no longer be serviced. Seeking an alternative source of support as the auditors for the IMF discovered major corruption within the Zairian finances, Mobutu visited China in 1974 and returned wearing a Mao jacket and the new title of "Citoyen Mobutu" (Citizen Mobutu"). Influenced by the Cultural Revolution, Mobutu shifted to the left and announced his intention to "radicalize the Zairian revolution". The businesses that Mobutu had just handed over to Zairians were in turn nationalized and placed under state control. At the same time, Mobutu imposed a 50% salary cut to state employees, which led a failed coup attempt against him in June 1975.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: By 1977, Mobutu's nationalizations had precipitated such an economic slump that Mobutu was forced to try to woo foreign investors back. Katangan rebels based in Angola invaded Zaire that year, in retaliation for Mobutu's support for anti-MPLA rebels. France airlifted 1,500 Moroccan paratroopers into the country and repulsed the rebels, ending Shaba I. The rebels attacked Zaire again, in greater numbers, in the Shaba II invasion of 1978. The governments of Belgium and France deployed troops with logistical support from the United States and defeated the rebels again. The poor performance of the Zairian Army during the both Shaba invasions, which humiliated Mobutu by forcing him to ask for foreign troops, did not lead to military reforms. However, Mobutu reduced the size of the Army from 51,000 troops in 1978 down to 23,000 troops in 1980. By 1980, it was estimated that about 90% of the Zairian Army were Ngbandi as Mobutu did not trust the other peoples of Zaire to serve in the Army. The most loyal and best of Mobutu's units were his bodyguards, the Israeli-trained "Division Spéciale Présidentille" that was made up exclusively of Ngbandi and was always commanded by one of Mobutu's relatives.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu was re-elected in single-candidate elections in 1977 and 1984. He spent most of his time increasing his personal fortune, which in 1984 was estimated to amount to US$5 billion. He held most of it out of the country in Swiss banks (however, a comparatively small $3.4 million was declared found in Swiss banks after he was ousted.). This was almost equivalent to the amount of the country's foreign debt at the time. In a speech that he delivered on 20 May 1976 in a football stadium in Kinshasa that was filled with some 70,000 people, Mobutu openly accepted petty corruption, stating: "If you want to steal, steal a little in a nice way, but if you steal too much to become rich overnight, you will be caught". By 1989, the government was forced to default on international loans from Belgium.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu owned a fleet of Mercedes-Benz vehicles that he used to travel between his numerous palaces, while the nation's roads deteriorated and many of his people starved. The infrastructure virtually collapsed, and many public service workers went months without being paid. Most of the money was siphoned off to Mobutu, his family, and top political and military leaders. Only the Special Presidential Division – on whom his physical safety depended – was paid adequately or regularly. A popular saying that "the civil servants pretended to work while the state pretended to pay them" expressed this grim reality. The "Forces Armées Zaïroises" (FAZ) suffered from low morale made worse by irregular salaries, dismal living conditions, shortages of supplies and a venal officer corps. The soldiers of the FAZ behaved very much like a brutal occupying force who supported themselves by robbing the civilian population of Zaire. A recurring feature of Mobutu's rule were the seemingly endless number of roadblocks put by the FAZ who extorted money from the drivers of any passing automobile or lorries.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Another feature of Mobutu's economic mismanagement, directly linked to the way he and his friends siphoned off so much of the country's wealth, was rampant inflation. The rapid decline in the real value of salaries strongly encouraged a culture of corruption and dishonesty among public servants of all kinds.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu was known for his opulent lifestyle. He cruised on the Congo on his yacht "Kamanyola". In Gbadolite, he erected a palace, the "Versailles of the jungle". For shopping trips to Paris, he would charter a Concorde from Air France; he had the Gbadolite Airport constructed with a runway long enough to accommodate the Concorde's extended take-off and landing requirements. In 1989, Mobutu chartered Concorde aircraft F-BTSD for a 26 June – 5 July trip to give a speech at the United Nations in New York City, then again on 16 July for French bicentennial celebrations in Paris (where he was a guest of President François Mitterrand), and on 19 September for a flight from Paris to Gbadolite, and another nonstop flight from Gbadolite to Marseille with the youth choir of Zaire.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu's rule earned a reputation as one of the world's foremost examples of kleptocracy and nepotism. Close relatives and fellow members of the Ngbandi tribe were awarded high positions in the military and government, and he groomed his eldest son, Nyiwa, to succeed him as president; however, Nyiwa died from AIDS in 1994.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu led one of the most enduring dictatorships in Africa and amassed a personal fortune estimated to be over US$5 billion by selling his nation's rich natural resources while the people lived in poverty. While in office, he formed a totalitarian regime responsible for numerous human rights violations, attempted to purge the country of all Belgian cultural influences, and maintained an anti-communist stance to gain positive international support.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu was the subject of one of the most pervasive personality cults of the twentieth century. The evening newscast opened with an image of him descending through clouds like a god. His portraits were hung in many public places, and government officials wore lapel pins bearing his portrait. He held such titles as "Father of the Nation", "Messiah", "Guide of the Revolution", "Helmsman", "Founder", "Savior of the People", and "Supreme Combatant". In the 1996 documentary of the 1974 Foreman–Ali fight in Zaire, dancers receiving the fighters can be heard chanting "Sese Seko, Sese Seko". At one point, in early 1975, the media were forbidden to refer to anyone other than Mobutu by name; others were referred to only by the positions they held.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu successfully capitalized on Cold War tensions among European nations and the United States. He gained significant support from the West and its international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Relations between Zaire and Belgium wavered between close intimacy and open hostility during the Mobutu years. More often than not, Belgian decision-makers responded in a lackluster way when Mobutu acted against the interests of Belgium, partly explained by the highly divided Belgian political class. Relations soured early in Mobutu's rule over disputes involving the substantial Belgian commercial and industrial holdings in the country, but they warmed soon afterwards. Mobutu and his family were received as personal guests of the Belgian monarch in 1968, and a convention for scientific and technical cooperation was signed that same year. During King Baudouin's highly successful visit to Kinshasa in 1970, a treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries was signed. However, Mobutu tore up the treaty in 1974 in protest at Belgium's refusal to ban an anti-Mobutu book written by left-wing lawyer Jules Chomé. Mobutu's "Zairianisation" policy, which expropriated foreign-held businesses and transferred their ownership to Zairians, added to the strain. Mobutu maintained several personal contacts with prominent Belgians. Edmond Leburton, Belgian prime minister between 1973 and 1974, was someone greatly admired by the President. Alfred Cahen, career diplomat and "chef de cabinet" of minister Henri Simonet, became a personal friend of Mobutu when he was a student at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Relations with King Baudouin were mostly cordial, until Mobutu released a bold statement about the Belgian royal family. Prime Minister Wilfried Martens recalled in his memoirs that the palace gates closed completely after Mobutu published a handwritten letter of the King. Next to friendly ties with Belgians residing in Belgium, Mobutu had a number of Belgian advisors at his disposal. Some of them, such as Hugues Leclercq and Colonel Willy Mallants, were interviewed in Thierry Michel's documentary "Mobutu, King of Zaire".


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: As what was then the second most populous French-speaking country in the world (it has subsequently come to have a larger population than France) and the most populous one in sub-Saharan Africa, Zaire was of great strategic interest to France. During the First Republic era, France tended to side with the conservative and federalist forces, as opposed to unitarists such as Lumumba. Shortly after the Katangan secession was successfully crushed, Zaire (then called the Republic of the Congo), signed a treaty of technical and cultural cooperation with France. During the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, relations with the two countries gradually grew stronger and closer. In 1971, Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing paid a visit to Zaire; later, after becoming president, he would develop a close personal relationship with President Mobutu, and became one of the regime's closest foreign allies. During the Shaba invasions, France sided firmly with Mobutu: during the first Shaba invasion, France airlifted 1,500 Moroccan troops to Zaire, and the rebels were repulsed; a year later, during the second Shaba invasion, France itself (along with Belgium) would send French Foreign Legion paratroopers (2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment) to aid Mobutu.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Initially, Zaire's relationship with the People's Republic of China was no better than its relationship with the Soviet Union. Memories of Chinese aid to Mulele and other Maoist rebels in Kwilu province during the ill-fated Simba Rebellion remained fresh on Mobutu's mind. He also opposed seating the PRC at the United Nations. However, by 1972, he began to see the Chinese in a different light, as a counterbalance to both the Soviet Union as well as his intimate ties with the United States, Israel, and South Africa. In November 1972, Mobutu extended diplomatic recognition to the Chinese (as well as East Germany and North Korea). The following year, Mobutu paid a visit to Beijing, where he met with chairman Mao Zedong and received promises of $100 million in technical aid.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In 1974, Mobutu made a surprise visit to both China and North Korea, during the time he was originally scheduled to visit the Soviet Union. Upon returning home, both his politics and rhetoric became markedly more radical; it was around this time that Mobutu began criticizing Belgium and the United States (the latter for not doing enough, in Mobutu's opinion, to combat white minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia), introduced the "obligatory civic work" program called "salongo", and initiated "radicalization" (an extension of 1973's "Zairianization" policy). Mobutu even borrowed a title – the Helmsman – from Mao. Incidentally, late 1974 to early 1975 was when his personality cult reached its peak.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: China and Zaire shared a common goal in central Africa, namely doing everything in their power to halt Soviet gains in the area. Accordingly, both Zaire and China covertly funneled aid to the National Liberation Front of Angola (and later, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) in order to prevent their former allies, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, who were supported and augmented by Cuban forces, from coming to power. The Cubans, who exercised considerable influence in Africa in support of leftist and anti-imperialist forces, were heavily sponsored by the Soviet Union during the period. In addition to inviting Holden Roberto, the leader of the National Liberation Front of Angola, and his guerrillas to Beijing for training, China provided weapons and money to the rebels. Zaire itself launched an ill-fated, pre-emptive invasion of Angola in a bid to install a pro-Kinshasa government, but was repulsed by Cuban troops. The expedition was a fiasco with far-reaching repercussions, most notably the Shaba I and Shaba II invasions, both of which China opposed. China sent military aid to Zaire during both invasions, and accused the Soviet Union and Cuba (who were alleged to have supported the Shaban rebels, although this was and remains speculation) of working to de-stabilize central Africa.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu's relationship with the Soviet Union was frosty and tense. A staunch anti-communist, he was not anxious to recognize the Soviets; the USSR had supported—though mostly in words—both Patrice Lumumba, Mobutu's democratically elected predecessor, and the Simba rebellion. However, to project a non-aligned image, he did renew ties in 1967; the first Soviet ambassador arrived and presented his credentials in 1968. Mobutu did, however, join the United States in condemning the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that year. Mobutu viewed the Soviet presence as advantageous for two reasons: it allowed him to maintain an image of non-alignment, and it provided a convenient scapegoat for problems at home. For example, in 1970, he expelled four Soviet diplomats for carrying out "subversive activities", and in 1971, twenty Soviet officials were declared "persona non grata" for allegedly instigating student demonstrations at Lovanium University.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Moscow was the only major world capital Mobutu never visited, although he did accept an invitation to do so in 1974. For reasons unknown, he cancelled the visit at the last minute, and toured the People's Republic of China and North Korea instead.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Relations cooled further in 1975, when the two countries found themselves on opposing sides in the Angolan Civil War. This had a dramatic effect on Zairian foreign policy for the next decade; bereft of his claim to African leadership (Mobutu was one of the few leaders who refused to recognize the Marxist government of Angola), Mobutu turned increasingly to the US and its allies, adopting pro-American stances on such issues as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Israel's position in international organizations.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: For the most part, Zaire enjoyed warm relations with the United States. The United States was the third largest donor of aid to Zaire (after Belgium and France), and Mobutu befriended several US presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Relations did cool significantly in 1974–1975 over Mobutu's increasingly radical rhetoric (which included his scathing denunciations of American foreign policy), and plummeted to an all-time low in the summer of 1975, when Mobutu accused the Central Intelligence Agency of plotting his overthrow and arrested eleven senior Zairian generals and several civilians, and condemned ("in absentia") a former head of the Central Bank (Albert Ndele). However, many people viewed these charges with skepticism; in fact, one of Mobutu's staunchest critics, Nzongola-Ntalaja, speculated that Mobutu invented the plot as an excuse to purge the military of talented officers who might otherwise pose a threat to his rule. In spite of these hindrances, the chilly relationship quickly thawed when both countries found each other supporting the same side during the Angolan Civil War.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Because of Mobutu's poor human rights record, the Carter Administration put some distance between itself and the Kinshasa government; even so, Zaire received nearly half the foreign aid Carter allocated to sub-Saharan Africa. During the first Shaba invasion, the United States played a relatively inconsequential role; its belated intervention consisted of little more than the delivery of non-lethal supplies. But during the second Shaba invasion, the US played a much more active and decisive role by providing transportation and logistical support to the French and Belgian paratroopers that were deployed to aid Mobutu against the rebels. Carter echoed Mobutu's (unsubstantiated) charges of Soviet and Cuban aid to the rebels, until it was apparent that no hard evidence existed to verify his claims. In 1980, the US House of Representatives voted to terminate military aid to Zaire, but the US Senate reinstated the funds, in response to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu enjoyed a very warm relationship with the Reagan Administration, through financial donations. During Reagan's presidency, Mobutu visited the White House three times, and criticism of Zaire's human rights record by the US was effectively muted. During a state visit by Mobutu in 1983, Reagan praised the Zairian strongman as "a voice of good sense and goodwill".


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu also had a cordial relationship with Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush; he was the first African head of state to visit Bush at the White House. Even so, Mobutu's relationship with the US radically changed shortly afterward with the end of the Cold War. With the Soviet Union gone, there was no longer any reason to support Mobutu as a bulwark against communism. Accordingly, the US and other Western powers began pressuring Mobutu to democratize the regime. Regarding the change in US attitude to his regime, Mobutu bitterly remarked: "I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the US. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing." In 1993, Mobutu was denied a visa by the US State Department after he sought to visit Washington, D.C.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu also had friends in America outside Washington. Mobutu was befriended by televangelist Pat Robertson, who promised to try to get the State Department to lift its ban on the African leader.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In May 1990, due to the ending of the Cold War and a change in the international political climate, as well as economic problems and domestic unrest, Mobutu agreed to give up the MPR's monopoly of power. In early May 1990, students studying at the Lubumbashi campus of the National University of Zaire protested against Mobutu's regime, demanding his resignation. On the night of 11 May 1990, electricity was cut off to the campus while a special military unit called "Les Hiboux" ("The Owls") were sent in, armed with machetes and bayonets. By the dawn of 12 May 1990, at least 290 students had been killed. The massacre led to the nations of the European Economic Community (now the European Union), the United States, and Canada to end all non-humanitarian aid to Zaire, which marked the beginning of the end of Western support for Mobutu.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu appointed a transitional government that would lead to promised elections but he retained substantial powers. Following the 1991 riots in Kinshasa by unpaid soldiers, Mobutu brought opposition figures into a coalition government, but still connived to retain control of the security services and important ministries. Factional divisions led to the creation of two governments in 1993, one pro- and one anti-Mobutu. The anti-Mobutu government was headed by Laurent Monsengwo and Étienne Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS).


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: The economic situation was still dismal, and in 1994 the two groups merged into the High Council of Republic – Parliament of Transition (HCR-PT). Mobutu appointed Kengo Wa Dondo, an advocate of austerity and free-market reforms, as prime minister. During this period, Mobutu was becoming increasingly physically frail and during one of his trips to Europe for medical treatment, ethnic Tutsis captured much of eastern Zaire.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: The seeds of Mobutu's downfall were sown in the Rwandan Genocide, when about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by about 200,000 Hutu extremists aided by the Rwandan government in 1994. The genocide ended when the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front seized the whole country, leading hundreds of thousands of Hutus including many of the genocidal killers, to flee into refugee camps in eastern Zaire. Mobutu welcomed the Hutu extremists as personal guests and allowed them to establish military and political bases in the eastern territories, from where they attacked and killed ethnic Tutsis across the border in Rwanda and in Zaire itself, ostensibly to prepare for a renewed offensive back into Rwanda. The new Rwandan government began sending military aid to the Zairian Tutsis in response. The resulting conflict began to destabilize eastern Zaire as a whole.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: When Mobutu's government issued an order in November 1996 forcing Tutsis to leave Zaire on penalty of death, the ethnic Tutsis in Zaire, known as Banyamulenge, were the focal point of a rebellion. From eastern Zaire, the rebels, aided by foreign government forces under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Rwandan Minister of Defense Paul Kagame launched an offensive to overthrow Mobutu, joining forces with locals opposed to him under Laurent-Désiré Kabila as they marched west toward Kinshasa. Burundi and Angola also supported the growing rebellion, which mushroomed into the First Congo War.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Ailing with cancer, Mobutu was in Switzerland for treatment, and he was unable to coordinate the resistance which crumbled in front of the march. The rebel forces would have completely overrun the country far sooner than it ultimately did if not for the country's decrepit infrastructure. In most areas, no paved roads existed; the only vehicle paths were irregularly used dirt roads.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: By mid-1997, Kabila's forces resumed their advance, and the remains of Mobutu's army offered almost no resistance. On 16 May 1997, following failed peace talks held in Pointe-Noire on board the South African Navy ship SAS "Outeniqua" with Kabila and President of South Africa Nelson Mandela (who chaired the talks), Mobutu fled into exile. Kabila's forces, known as the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), proclaimed victory the next day. On 23 May 1997, Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu went into temporary exile in Togo, until President Gnassingbé Eyadéma insisted that Mobutu leave the country a few days later. From 23 May 1997, he lived mostly in Rabat, Morocco. He died there on 7 September 1997 from prostate cancer at the age of 66. He is interred in an above ground mausoleum at Rabat, in the Christian cemetery known as Cimetière Européen.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In December 2007, the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo recommended returning his remains, and interring them in a mausoleum in the DRC, which has not yet taken place. Mobutu remains interred in Morocco.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu was married twice. He married his first wife, Marie-Antoinette Gbiatibwa Gogbe Yetene, in 1955. They had nine children. She died of heart failure on 22 October 1977 in Genolier, Switzerland, at the age of 36. On 1 May 1980, he married his mistress, Bobi Ladawa, on the eve of a visit by Pope John Paul II, thus legitimizing his relationship in the eyes of the Church. Two of his sons from his first marriage died during his lifetime, Jean-Paul "Nyiwa" (d. 16 September 1994) and Konga (d. 1992). Two more died in the years following his death: Kongulu (d. 24 September 1998), and Manda (d. 27 November 2004). His elder son from his second marriage, Nzanga Mobutu Ngbangawe, now the head of the family, was a candidate in the 2006 presidential elections and later served in the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Minister of State for Agriculture. A daughter, Yakpwa (nicknamed Yaki), was briefly married to a Belgian, Pierre Janssen, who later wrote a book that described Mobutu's lifestyle in vivid detail.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: On trips across Zaire he appropriated the "droit de cuissage" (right to deflower) as local chiefs offered him virgins; this practice was considered an honor for the virgin's family.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu was the subject of the three-part 1999 Belgian documentary "Mobutu, King of Zaire" by Thierry Michel. Mobutu was also featured in the 2000 feature film "Lumumba", directed by Raoul Peck, which detailed the pre-coup and coup years from the perspective of Lumumba. Mobutu also featured in the 1996 American documentary "When We Were Kings", which centred around the famed Rumble in the Jungle boxing bout between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali for the 1974 heavyweight championship of the world which took place in Kinshasa during Mobutu's rule. In the 1978 war adventure film "The Wild Geese", the villain, General Ndofa, described in the film as an extremely corrupt leader of a copper-rich nation in central Africa, was a thinly disguised version of Mobutu.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu also might be considered as the inspiration behind some of the characters in the works of the poetry of Wole Soyinka, the novel "A Bend in the River" by V. S. Naipaul, and "Anthills of the Savannah" by Chinua Achebe. William Close, father of actress Glenn Close, was once a personal physician to Mobutu and wrote a book focusing on his service in Zaire. Barbara Kingsolver's 1998 historical novel "The Poisonwood Bible" depicts the events of the Congo Crisis from a fictional standpoint, featuring the role of Mobutu in the crisis. Mobutu was played by the Belgian actor Marc Zinga in the 2011 film "Mister Bob". The French critic Isabelle Hanne praised Zinga's performance as Mobutu, writing he "brilliantly embodies this Shakespearian and bloodthirsty figure." Mobutu was included as an additional promotional card in the card-driven strategy game "Twilight Struggle". His card, when played, increases the stability of the country then known as Zaire and increases the influence of the United States over the African nation.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: According to Mobutu's "New York Times" obituary: "He built his political longevity on three pillars: violence, cunning, and the use of state funds to buy off enemies. His systematic looting of the national treasury and major industries gave birth to the term 'kleptocracy' to describe a rule of official corruption that reputedly made him one of the world's wealthiest heads of state."


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu was infamous for embezzling the equivalent of billions of US dollars from his country. According to the most conservative estimates, he stole US$4–5 billion from his country, and some sources put the figure as high as US$15 billion. According to Pierre Janssen, the ex-husband of Mobutu's daughter Yaki, Mobutu had no concern for the cost of the expensive gifts he gave away to his cronies. Janssen married Yaki in a lavish ceremony that included three orchestras, a US$65,000 wedding cake, and a giant fireworks display. Yaki wore a US$70,000 wedding gown and US$3 million worth of jewels. Janssen wrote a book describing Mobutu's daily routine, which included several daily bottles of wine, retainers flown in from overseas, and lavish meals.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: According to Transparency International, Mobutu embezzled over US$5 billion from his country, ranking him as the third-most corrupt leader since 1984 and the most corrupt African leader during the same period. Philip Gourevitch, in "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families" (1998), wrote:


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu was instrumental in bringing the Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman to Zaire on 30 October 1974. According to the documentary "When We Were Kings", promoter Don King promised each fighter five million dollars (U.S.) for the fight. To this end, King offered the bout to any African country that put up the money to host it, in exchange for recognition. Mobutu was willing to fund the ten million dollar purse and host the bout, in order to gain international recognition and legitimacy in the process. Mobutu gained Zaire and its people considerable publicity in the weeks even before the televised bout, as worldwide attention focused on his country. According to a quote in the film, Ali supposedly said: "Some countries go to war to get their names out there, and wars cost a lot more than ten million (dollars)." On 22 September 1974, Mobutu presented the rebuilt 20 May Stadium, a multi-million-dollar sports project constructed to host the Ali-Foreman boxing card, to the Zaire Ministry of Youth and Sport, and to the people of Zaire.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Carole Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 23rd on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard was born into a wealthy family in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but was raised in Los Angeles by her single mother. At 12, she was recruited by director Allan Dwan and made her screen debut in "A Perfect Crime" (1921). Eager to become an actress, she signed a contract with the Fox Film Corporation at age 16, but mainly played bit parts and was dropped after a year. Her career came close to ending shortly before her 19th birthday when a shattered windshield from a car accident left a scar on her face, but she overcame this challenge and appeared in fifteen short comedies for Mack Sennett between 1927 and 1929, and then began appearing in feature films such as "High Voltage" (1929) and "The Racketeer" (1929). After a successful appearance in "The Arizona Kid" (1930), she was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Paramount quickly began casting Lombard as a leading lady, primarily in drama films. Her profile increased when she married William Powell in 1931, but the couple divorced amicably after two years. A turning point in Lombard's career came when she starred in Howard Hawks's pioneering screwball comedy "Twentieth Century" (1934). The actress found her niche in this genre, and continued to appear in films such as "Hands Across the Table" (1935) (forming a popular partnership with Fred MacMurray), "My Man Godfrey" (1936), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and "Nothing Sacred" (1937). At this time, Lombard married "The King of Hollywood", Clark Gable, and the supercouple gained much attention from the media. Keen to win an Oscar, Lombard began to move towards more serious roles at the end of the decade. Unsuccessful in this aim, she returned to comedy in Alfred Hitchcock's "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (1941) and Ernst Lubitsch's "To Be or Not to Be" (1942), her final film role.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard's career was cut short when she died at the age of 33 aboard TWA Flight 3, which crashed on Mount Potosi, Nevada, while returning from a war bond tour. Today, she is remembered as one of the definitive actresses of the screwball comedy genre and American comedy, and as an icon of American cinema.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908, at 704 Rockhill Street. Christened with the name Jane Alice Peters, she was the third child and only daughter of Frederic Christian Peters (1875–1935) and Elizabeth Jayne "Bessie" (Knight) Peters (1876–1942). Her two older brothers, with whom she was close, both growing up and in adulthood, were Frederic Charles (1902–1979) and John Stuart (1906–1956). Lombard's parents both descended from wealthy families and her early years were lived in comfort, with the biographer Robert Matzen calling it her "silver spoon period". The marriage between her parents was strained, however, and in October 1914, her mother took the children and moved to Los Angeles. Although the couple did not divorce, the separation was permanent. Her father's continued financial support allowed the family to live without worry, if not with the same affluence they had enjoyed in Indiana, and they settled into an apartment near Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Described by her biographer Wes Gehring as "a free-spirited tomboy", the young Lombard was passionately involved in sports and enjoyed watching movies. At Virgil Junior High School, she participated in tennis, volleyball, and swimming, and won trophies for her achievements in athletics. At the age of 12, this hobby unexpectedly landed Lombard her first screen role. While playing baseball with friends, she caught the attention of the film director Allan Dwan, who later recalled seeing "a cute-looking little tomboy ... out there knocking the hell out of the other kids, playing better baseball than they were. And I needed someone of her type for this picture." With the encouragement of her mother, Lombard happily took a small role in the melodrama "A Perfect Crime" (1921). She was on set for two days, playing the sister of Monte Blue. Dwan later commented, "She ate it up".


title: Carole Lombard

text: "A Perfect Crime" was not widely distributed, but the brief experience spurred Lombard and her mother to seek more film work, and she participated unsuccessfully in several auditions. While appearing as the queen of Fairfax High School's May Day Carnival at the age of 15, Lombard was scouted by an employee of Charlie Chaplin and offered a screen test to appear in his film "The Gold Rush" (1925). Lombard did not win the role, but the test raised awareness of her promising talent in Hollywood. Her test was seen by the Vitagraph Film Company, which expressed interest in signing her to a contract. Although this did not materialize, the condition that she adopt a new first name (as Jane was considered too dull) lasted with Lombard throughout her career. She selected the name Carol after a girl with whom she played tennis in middle school.


title: Carole Lombard

text: In October 1924, shortly after these disappointments, 16-year-old Lombard was signed to a contract with the Fox Film Corporation. Lombard's mother contacted gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who arranged a screen test. According to biographer Larry Swindell, Lombard's beauty convinced studio head Winfield Sheehan to sign her to a $75-per-week contract, and abandoned her schooling to pursue the new career. Fox approved of the name Carol, but unlike Vitagraph, it disliked her surname. She was renamed Carol Lombard, with the new surname adopted from that of a family friend.


title: Carole Lombard

text: The majority of Lombard's appearances with Fox were bit parts in low-budget Westerns and adventure films. She later commented on her dissatisfaction with these roles: "All I had to do was simper prettily at the hero and scream with terror when he battled with the villain." However, she enjoyed the other aspects of film work such as photo shoots, costume fittings and socializing with actors on the studio set. Lombard embraced the flapper lifestyle and became a regular at the Coconut Grove nightclub, where she won several Charleston dance competitions.


title: Carole Lombard

text: In March 1925, Fox awarded Lombard a leading role in the drama "Marriage in Transit" opposite Edmund Lowe. Her performance was received well, and a reviewer for "Motion Picture News" wrote that Lombard displayed "good poise and considerable charm." However, the studio heads were unconvinced that Lombard was leading-lady material, and her one-year contract was not renewed. Gehring has suggested that a facial scar resulting from an automobile accident was a factor in this decision, but the crash occurred nearly two years later on September 9, 1927.


title: Carole Lombard

text: According to historian Olympia Kiriakou, on the night of the accident, Lombard was on a date with a man named Harry Cooper. As they were driving down Santa Monica Boulevard, Cooper crashed into another car; the windshield shattered and shards of glass cut "Lombard’s face from her nose and across her left cheek to her eye." Lombard underwent reconstructive surgery and faced a long recovery period. For the remainder of her career, Lombard learned to hide the mark with makeup and careful lighting. At the time of the accident, Lombard was already under contract with Mack Sennett. In October 1927, Lombard and her mother Bess sued Cooper for $35,000 in damages, citing in the lawsuit that "where she formerly was able to earn a salary of $300 monthly as a Sennett girl, she is now unable to obtain employment of any kind." The lawsuit was settled out of court, and Lombard received $3,000. Although Lombard feared that the accident would end her career, Sennett pledged to help her recover. He afforded her "lucrative film roles and ample publicity," including the nickname "Carole of the Curves." Kiriakou explains that "the nickname simultaneously drew audiences’ focus away from her facial scars and worked harmoniously with the physicality and female sensuality that were emblematic of Lombard's performances" in Sennett's films.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Although Lombard initially had reservations about performing in slapstick comedies, she joined Sennett's company as one of the Sennett Bathing Beauties. She appeared in 18 short films (all as Lillian Smith in the Smith Family series) between September 1927 and March 1929, and enjoyed her time at the studio. Lombard's first experiences in comedy provided valuable training for her future comedic work. In 1940, she called her Sennett years "the turning point of [my] acting career."


title: Carole Lombard

text: Sennett's productions were distributed by Pathé Exchange, and the company began casting Lombard in feature films. She had prominent roles in "Show Folks" and "Ned McCobb's Daughter" (both 1928), and reviewers observed that she made a "good impression" and was "worth watching." The following year, Pathé elevated Lombard from a supporting player to a leading lady. Her success in Raoul Walsh's picture "Me, Gangster" (also 1928), opposite June Collyer and Don Terry in his film debut, finally eased the pressure that her family had been exerting for her to succeed. In Howard Higgin's "High Voltage" (1929), Lombard's first talking picture, she played a criminal in the custody of a deputy sheriff, both of whom are among bus passengers stranded in deep snow. Her next film, the comedy "Big News" (1929), cast her opposite Robert Armstrong and was a critical and commercial success. Lombard was reunited with Armstrong for the crime drama "The Racketeer", released in late 1929. The review in "Film Daily" wrote: "Carol Lombard proves a real surprise, and does her best work to date. In fact, this is the first opportunity she has had to prove that she has the stuff to go over."


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard returned to Fox for a one-off role in the western "The Arizona Kid" (1930). It was a big release for the studio, starring the popular actor Warner Baxter, in which Lombard received third billing. Following the success of the film, Paramount Pictures recruited Lombard and signed her to a $350-per-week contract, gradually increasing to $3,500 per week by 1936. They cast her in the Buddy Rogers comedy "Safety in Numbers" (also 1930), and one critic observed of her work, "Lombard proves [to be] an ace comedienne." For her second assignment, "Fast and Loose" (also 1930) with Miriam Hopkins, Paramount mistakenly credited the actress as "Carole Lombard". She decided she liked this spelling and it became her permanent screen name.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard appeared in five films released during 1931, beginning with the Frank Tuttle comedy "It Pays to Advertise". Her next two films, "Man of the World" and "Ladies Man", both featured William Powell, Paramount's top male star. Lombard had been a fan of the actor before they met, attracted to his good looks and debonair screen persona, and they were soon in a relationship. The differences between the pair have been noted by biographers: she was 22, carefree, and famously foul-mouthed, while he was 38, intellectual, and sophisticated. Despite their disparate personalities, Lombard married Powell on June 26, 1931, at her Beverly Hills home. Talking to the media, she argued for the benefits of "love between two people who are diametrically different", claiming that their relationship allowed for a "perfect see-saw love".


title: Carole Lombard

text: The marriage to Powell increased Lombard's fame, while she continued to please critics with her work in "Up Pops the Devil" and "I Take this Woman" (both 1931). In reviews for the latter film, which co-starred Gary Cooper, several critics predicted that Lombard was set to become a major star. She went on to appear in five films throughout 1932. "No One Man" and "Sinners in the Sun" were not successful, but Edward Buzzell's romantic picture "Virtue" was well received. After featuring in the drama "No More Orchids", Lombard was cast as the wife of a con artist in "No Man of Her Own". Her co-star for the picture was Clark Gable, who was rapidly becoming one of Hollywood's top stars. The film was a critical and commercial success, and Wes Gehring writes that it was "arguably Lombard's finest film appearance" to that point. It was the only picture that Gable and Lombard, future husband and wife, made together. There was no romantic interest at this time, however, as she recounted to Garson Kanin: "[we] did all kinds of hot love scenes ... and I never got any kind of tremble out of him at all".


title: Carole Lombard

text: In August 1933, Lombard and Powell divorced after 26 months of marriage, although they remained very good friends until the end of Lombard's life. At the time, she blamed it on their careers, but in a 1936 interview, she admitted that this "had little to do with the divorce. We were just two completely incompatible people". She appeared in five films that year, beginning with the drama "From Hell to Heaven" and continuing with "Supernatural", her only horror vehicle. After a small role in "The Eagle and the Hawk", a war film starring Fredric March and Cary Grant, she starred in two melodramas: "Brief Moment", which critics enjoyed, and "White Woman", where she was paired with Charles Laughton.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard was involved romantically with Russ Columbo, the famous crooner killed in a tragic accident in 1934. Lombard had been guiding Columbo's movie and radio career and told Sonia Lee of "Mirror Magazine" in 1934 that they had been engaged. Other press outlets had reported on their relationship earlier that year; "Screenland Magazine" declared that “the Russ Columbo and Carole Lombard romance is one of Hollywood’s most charming.”


title: Carole Lombard

text: The year 1934 marked a high point in Lombard's career. She began with Wesley Ruggles's musical drama "Bolero", where George Raft and she showcased their dancing skills in an extravagantly staged performance to Maurice Ravel's "Boléro". Before filming began, she was offered the lead female role in "It Happened One Night", but turned it down because of scheduling conflicts with this production. "Bolero" was favorably received, while her next film, the musical comedy "We're Not Dressing" with Bing Crosby, was a box-office hit.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard was then recruited by the director Howard Hawks, a second cousin, to star in his screwball comedy film "Twentieth Century" which proved a watershed in her career and made her a major star. Hawks had seen the actress inebriated at a party, where he found her to be "hilarious and uninhibited and just what the part needed", and she was cast opposite John Barrymore. In "Twentieth Century", Lombard plays an actress who is pursued by her former mentor, a flamboyant Broadway impresario. Hawks and Barrymore were unimpressed with her work in rehearsals, finding that she was "acting" too hard and giving a stiff performance. The director encouraged Lombard to relax, be herself, and act on her instincts. She responded well to this tutoring, and reviews for the film commented on her unexpectedly "fiery talent"—"a Lombard like no Lombard you've ever seen". The "Los Angeles Times"' critic felt that she was "entirely different" from her formerly cool, "calculated" persona, adding, "she vibrates with life and passion, abandon and diablerie".


title: Carole Lombard

text: The next films in which Lombard appeared were Henry Hathaway's "Now and Forever" (1934), featuring Gary Cooper and the new child star Shirley Temple, and "Lady by Choice" (1934), which was a critical and commercial success. "The Gay Bride" (1934) placed her opposite Chester Morris in a gangster comedy, but this outing was panned by critics. After reuniting with George Raft for another dance picture, "Rumba" (1935), Lombard was given the opportunity to repeat the screwball success of "Twentieth Century". In Mitchell Leisen's "Hands Across the Table" (1935), she portrays a manicurist in search of a rich husband, played by Fred MacMurray. Critics praised the film, and "Photoplay"'s reviewer stated that Lombard had reaffirmed her talent for the genre. It is remembered as one of her best films, and the pairing of Lombard and MacMurray proved so successful that they made three more pictures together.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard's first film of 1936 was "Love Before Breakfast", described by Gehring as ""The Taming of the Shrew", screwball style". In William K. Howard's "The Princess Comes Across", her second comedy with MacMurray, she played a budding actress who wins a film contract by masquerading as a Swedish princess. The performance was considered a satire of Greta Garbo, and was widely praised by critics. Lombard's success continued as she was recruited by Universal Studios to star in the screwball comedy "My Man Godfrey" (1936). William Powell, who was playing the eponymous Godfrey, insisted on her being cast as the female lead; despite their divorce, the pair remained friendly and Powell felt she would be perfect in the role of Irene, a zany heiress who employs a "forgotten man" as the family butler. The film was directed by Gregory LaCava, who knew Lombard personally and advised that she draw on her "eccentric nature" for the role. She worked hard on the performance, particularly with finding the appropriate facial expressions for Irene. "My Man Godfrey" was released to great acclaim and was a box office hit. It received six nominations at the 9th Academy Awards, including Lombard for Best Actress. Biographers cite it as her finest performance, and Frederick Ott says it "clearly established [her] as a comedienne of the first rank."


title: Carole Lombard

text: By 1937, Lombard was one of Hollywood's most popular actresses, and also the highest-paid star in Hollywood following the deal which Myron Selznick negotiated with Paramount that brought her $450,000, more than five times the salary of the U.S. President. As her salary was widely reported in the press, Lombard stated that 80 percent of her earnings went in taxes, but that she was happy to help improve her country. The comments earned her much positive publicity, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent her a personal letter of thanks.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Her first release of the year was Leisen's "Swing High, Swing Low", a third pairing with MacMurray. The film focused on a romance between two cabaret performers, and was a critical and commercial success. It had been primarily a drama, with occasional moments of comedy, but for her next project, "Nothing Sacred", Lombard returned to the screwball genre. Producer David O. Selznick, impressed by her work in "My Man Godfrey", was eager to make a comedy with the actress and hired Ben Hecht to write an original screenplay for her. "Nothing Sacred", directed by William Wellman and co-starring Fredric March, satirized the journalism industry and "the gullible urban masses". Lombard portrayed a small-town girl who pretends to be dying and finds her story exploited by a New York reporter. Marking her only appearance in Technicolor, the film was highly praised and was one of Lombard's personal favorites.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard continued with screwball comedies, next starring in what Swindell calls one of her "wackiest" films, "True Confession" (1937). She played a compulsive liar who wrongly confesses to murder. Lombard loved the script and was excited about the project, which reunited her with John Barrymore and was her final appearance with MacMurray. Her prediction that it "smacked of a surefire success" proved accurate, as critics responded positively and it was popular at the box office.


title: Carole Lombard

text: "True Confession" was the last film Lombard made on her Paramount contract, and she remained an independent performer for the rest of her career. Her next film was made at Warner Bros., where she played a famous actress in Mervyn LeRoy's "Fools for Scandal" (1938). The comedy met with scathing reviews and was a commercial failure, with Swindell calling it "one of the most horrendous flops of the thirties".


title: Carole Lombard

text: "Fools for Scandal" was the only film Lombard made in 1938. By this time, she was devoted to a relationship with Clark Gable. Four years after their teaming on "No Man of Her Own", the pair had reunited at a Hollywood party and began a romance early in 1936. The media took great interest in their partnership and frequently questioned if they would wed. Gable was separated from his wife, Ria Langham, but she did not want to grant him a divorce. As his relationship with Lombard became serious, Langham eventually agreed to a settlement worth half a million dollars. The divorce was finalized in March 1939, and Gable and Lombard eloped in Kingman, Arizona, on March 29. The couple, both lovers of the outdoors, bought a 20-acre ranch in Encino, California, where they kept barnyard animals and enjoyed hunting trips. Almost immediately, Lombard wanted to start a family, but her attempts failed; after two miscarriages and numerous trips to fertility specialists, she was unable to have children. In early 1938, Lombard officially joined the Baháʼí Faith, which her mother had been a member of since 1922.


title: Carole Lombard

text: While continuing with a slower work-rate, Lombard decided to move away from comedies and return to dramatic roles. She appeared in a second David O. Selznick production, "Made for Each Other" (1939), which paired her with James Stewart to play a couple facing domestic difficulties. Reviews for the film were highly positive, and praised Lombard's dramatic effort; financially, it was a disappointment. Lombard's next appearance came opposite Cary Grant in the John Cromwell romance "In Name Only" (1939), a credit she personally negotiated with RKO Radio Pictures upon hearing of the script and Grant's involvement. The role mirrored her recent experiences, as she played a woman in love with a married man whose wife refuses to divorce. She was paid $150,000 for the film, continuing her status as one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses, and it was a moderate success.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard was eager to win an Academy Award, and selected her next project—from several possible scripts—with the expectation that it would bring her the trophy. "Vigil in the Night" (1940), directed by George Stevens, featured Lombard as a nurse who faces a series of personal difficulties. Although the performance was praised, she did not get her nomination, as the sombre mood of the picture turned audiences away and box-office returns were poor. Despite the realization that she was best suited to comedies, Lombard completed one more drama: "They Knew What They Wanted" (1940), co-starring Charles Laughton, which was mildly successful.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Accepting that "my name doesn't sell tickets to serious pictures", Lombard returned to comedy for the first time in three years to film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (1941), about a couple who learns that their marriage is invalid, with Robert Montgomery. Lombard was influential in bringing Alfred Hitchcock, whom she knew through David O. Selznick, to direct one of his most atypical films. It was a commercial success, as audiences were happy with what Swindell calls "the belated happy news ... that Carole Lombard was a screwball once more."


title: Carole Lombard

text: It was nearly a year before Lombard committed to another film, as she focused instead on her home and marriage. Determined that her next film be "an unqualified smash hit", she was also careful in selecting a new project. Through her agent, Lombard heard of Ernst Lubitsch's upcoming film: "To Be or Not to Be" (1942), a dark comedy that satirized the Nazi takeover of Poland. The actress had long wanted to work with Lubitsch, her favorite comedy director, and felt that the material—although controversial—was a worthy subject. Lombard accepted the role of actress Maria Tura, despite it being a smaller part than she was used to, and was given top billing over the film's male lead, Jack Benny. Filming took place in the fall of 1941, and was reportedly one of the happiest experiences of Lombard's career.


title: Carole Lombard

text: When the U.S. entered World War II at the end of 1941, Lombard traveled to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally with her mother, Bess Peters, and Clark Gable's press agent, Otto Winkler. Lombard raised more than $2 million in defense bonds in a single evening. Her party had initially been scheduled to return to Los Angeles by train, but Lombard was eager to reach home more quickly and wanted to travel by air. Her mother and Winkler were afraid of flying and insisted that the group follow their original travel plans. Lombard suggested that they flip a coin; they agreed, and Lombard won the toss.


title: Carole Lombard

text: In the early morning hours of January 16, 1942, Lombard, her mother and Winkler boarded a Transcontinental and Western Air Douglas DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) aircraft to return to California. After refueling in Las Vegas, TWA Flight 3 took off at 7:07 p.m. and crashed into Double Up Peak near the level of Potosi Mountain, southwest of the Las Vegas airport. All 22 aboard, including Lombard, her mother, and 15 U.S. Army soldiers, were killed instantly. Lombard was 33 years old. The cause of the crash was attributed to the flight crew's inability to properly navigate over the mountains surrounding Las Vegas. As a precaution against the possibility of enemy Japanese bomber aircraft coming into American airspace from the Pacific, safety beacons normally used to direct night flights had been turned off, leaving the pilot and crew of the TWA flight without visual warnings of the mountains in their flight path. Some of the aircraft crash wreckage remains on Potosi, although they are very difficult to find due to slope and brush.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard's funeral was January 21 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She was interred beside her mother under the name of Carole Lombard Gable. Despite remarrying twice following her death, Gable was interred beside Lombard when he died in 1960.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard's final film, "To Be or Not to Be", directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-starring Jack Benny, a satire about Nazism and World War II, was in post-production at the time of her death. Allegedly, it has been said that film's producers decided to cut a line in which Lombard's character asks, "What can happen on a plane?" out of respect for the circumstances surrounding her death. However, there is no indication that this line existed and was removed posthumously, according to the film's PSA file. When "The Jack Benny Program" aired on January the 18th Jack Benny did not attend the live radio broadcast. At its opening, announcer Don Wilson stated Jack would not appear that night, but did not explain why. The show that night did not feature any comedy, just musical numbers. Lombard had been scheduled to appear on the following Sunday's broadcast.


title: Carole Lombard

text: At the time of her death, Lombard had been scheduled to star in the film "They All Kissed the Bride"; when production started, she was replaced by Joan Crawford. Crawford donated all of her salary for the film to the Red Cross, which had helped extensively in the recovery of bodies from the air crash. Shortly after Lombard's death, Gable, who was inconsolable and devastated by his loss, joined the United States Army Air Forces. Lombard had asked him to do that numerous times after the United States had entered World War II. After officer training, Gable headed a six-man motion picture unit attached to a B-17 bomb group in England to film aerial gunners in combat, flying five missions himself. In December 1943, the United States Maritime Commission announced that a Liberty ship named after Carole Lombard would be launched. Gable attended the launch of the SS "Carole Lombard" on January 15, 1944, the two-year anniversary of Lombard's record-breaking war bond drive. The ship was involved in rescuing hundreds of survivors from sunken ships in the Pacific and returning them to safety.


title: Carole Lombard

text: In 1962, Jill Winkler Rath, widow of publicist Otto Winkler, filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the $2,000,000 estate of Clark Gable in connection with Winkler's death in the plane crash with Carole Lombard. The suit was dismissed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Rath, in her action, claimed Gable promised to provide financial aid for her if she would not bring suit against the airline involved. Rath stated she later learned that Gable settled his claim against the airline for $10. He did so because he did not want to repeat his grief in court and subsequently provided her no financial aid in his will.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Author Robert D. Matzen has cited Lombard as "among the most commercially successful and admired film personalities in Hollywood in the 1930s", and feminist writer June Sochen believes that Lombard "demonstrated great knowledge of the mechanics of film making". George Raft, her co-star in "Bolero", was extremely fond of the actress, remarking "I truly loved Carole Lombard. She was the greatest girl that ever lived and we were the best of pals. Completely honest and outspoken, she was liked by everyone".


title: Carole Lombard

text: Historian Olympia Kiriakou identifies Lombard as a progressive, feminist studio-era star. She describes Lombard's politics as "proto-feminist," explaining that "many of her political and social statements pre-date the second-wave feminist movement, yet were very much in line with the second wave’s focus," particularly her views about women's roles in the home and workplace. Lombard's independent star persona balanced her femininity and screen glamour with "male business sense." She was described by "Photoplay" columnist Hart Seymore as the "perfect example of a modern Career Girl," which was based on Lombard's capability to “live by the logical premise that women have equal rights with men." In 1937, "Photoplay" published an article about Lombard's business acumen entitled "Carole Lombard tells: 'How I Live by a Man's Code'," in which she offers readers rules for how to be successful in business and at home such as "“play fair [with men]...don’t burn over criticism - stand up to it like a man." Notably, in the article Lombard tells readers that she “doesn’t believe in a man’s world,” and encourages women to “work - and like it," adding: “All women should have something worthwhile to do, and cultivate efficiency at it, whether it be housekeeping or raising chickens. Working women are interesting women." But as Kiriakou explains, such an article was published in order "to elicit a specific response from the fan magazine readers - namely, to view Lombard’s independent star as indistinguishable from the Lombard heroines they saw on screen."


title: Carole Lombard

text: Moreover, according to scholar Emily Carman, Lombard's independent female star persona was able to emerge only when she “attained greater professional autonomy in the mid-1930s," ultimately leading her to become one of the first stars of the studio-era to go freelance. Freelancing gave Lombard more autonomy over her career decisions, and the types of roles she was able to play. Additionally, Lombard was the first Hollywood star to propose profit participation: in 1938, she negotiated with Selznick International Pictures to take a reduced salary of $100,000 in exchange for a 20 percent cut of the distributor's gross of $1.6 to $1.7 million, and subsequent smaller percentages as the gross increased. Carman explains that this contract also included a "no-loan out" clause, the right to employ Travis Banton as her costume designer of choice, as well as all legal rights to her image. Carman concludes that Lombard's strategic business sense and easy-going nature were central to her independent star persona, and the control she maintained over her career was a challenge to the “paternalistic structure” of the studio system.


title: Carole Lombard

text: Lombard was particularly noted for the zaniness of her performances, described as a "natural prankster, a salty tongued straight-shooter, a feminist precursor and one of the few stars who was beloved by the technicians and studio functionaries who worked with her". "Life" magazine noted that her film personality transcended to real life, "her conversation, often brilliant, is punctuated by screeches, laughs, growls, gesticulations and the expletives of a sailor's parrot". Graham Greene praised the "heartbreaking and nostalgic melodies" of her faster-than-thought delivery, whereas "The Independent" wrote, "Platinum blonde, with a heart-shaped face, delicate, impish features and a figure made to be swathed in silver lamé, Lombard wriggled expressively through such classics of hysteria as "Twentieth Century" and "My Man Godfrey"."


title: Carole Lombard

text: In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 23rd on its list of the 25 greatest American female screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema, and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6930 Hollywood Blvd. Lombard received one Academy Award for Best Actress nomination, for "My Man Godfrey". Actresses who have portrayed her in films include Jill Clayburgh in "Gable and Lombard" (1976), Sharon Gless in "" (1980), Denise Crosby in "Malice in Wonderland" (1985), Anastasia Hille in "RKO 281" (1999) and Vanessa Gray in "Lucy" (2003). Lombard's Fort Wayne childhood home has been designated a historic landmark. The city named the nearby bridge over the St. Mary's River the Carole Lombard Memorial Bridge.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The Adventures of Tintin ( ) is a series of 24 "bande dessinée" albums created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. By 2007, a century after Hergé's birth in 1907, "Tintin" had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies, and had been adapted for radio, television, theatre and film.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The series first appeared in French on 10 January 1929, in ("The Little Twentieth"), a youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper ("The Twentieth Century"). The success of the series led to serialised strips published in Belgium's leading newspaper ("The Evening") and spun into a successful "Tintin" magazine. In 1950, Hergé created Studios Hergé, which produced the canonical versions of 11 "Tintin" albums.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The series is set during a largely realistic 20th century. Its hero is Tintin, a courageous young Belgian reporter and adventurer aided by his faithful dog Snowy ( in the original French edition). Other allies include the brash and cynical Captain Haddock, the intelligent but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus (), incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson (), and the opera diva Bianca Castafiore.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The series has been admired for its clean, expressive drawings in Hergé's signature ("clear line") style. Its well-researched plots straddle the action-adventure and mystery genres and draw upon themes of politics, history, culture and technology, offset by moments of slapstick comedy.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Georges Prosper Remi, best known under the pen name Hergé, was employed as an illustrator at "Le Vingtième Siècle" ("The Twentieth Century"), a staunchly Roman Catholic, conservative Belgian newspaper based in Hergé's native Brussels. Run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez, the paper described itself as a "Catholic Newspaper for Doctrine and Information" and disseminated a far-right, fascist viewpoint. Wallez appointed Hergé editor of a new Thursday youth supplement, titled (""The Little Twentieth""). Propagating Wallez's sociopolitical views to its young readership, it contained explicitly profascist and antisemitic sentiment. In addition to editing the supplement, Hergé illustrated ("The Extraordinary Adventure of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonnet"), a comic strip authored by a member of the newspaper's sport staff. Dissatisfied with this, Hergé wanted to write and draw his own cartoon strip.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: He already had experience creating comic strips. From July 1926, he had written a strip about a Boy Scout patrol leader titled "Les Aventures de Totor C.P. des Hannetons" ("The Adventures of Totor, Scout Leader of the Cockchafers") for the Scouting newspaper ("The Belgian Boy Scout"). Totor was a strong influence on Tintin, with Hergé describing the latter as being like Totor's younger brother. Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier stated that graphically, Totor and Tintin were "virtually identical" except for the Scout uniform, also noting many similarities between their respective adventures, particularly in the illustration style, the fast pace of the story, and the use of humour. He was fascinated by new techniques in the medium such as the systematic use of speech bubbles—found in such American comics as George McManus' "Bringing up Father", George Herriman's "Krazy Kat", and Rudolph Dirks's "Katzenjammer Kids", copies of which had been sent to him from Mexico by the paper's reporter Léon Degrelle.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Although Hergé wanted to send Tintin to the United States, Wallez ordered him to set his adventure in the Soviet Union, acting as antisocialist propaganda for children. The result, "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets", was serialised in "Le Petit Vingtième" from January 1929 to May 1930. Popular in Francophone Belgium, Wallez organised a publicity stunt at the Paris Gare du Nord railway station, following which he organised the publication of the story in book form. The story's popularity led to an increase in sales, so Wallez granted Hergé two assistants. At Wallez's direction, in June he began serialisation of the second story, "Tintin in the Congo", designed to encourage colonial sentiment towards the Belgian Congo. Authored in a paternalistic style that depicted the Congolese as childlike idiots, in later decades it was accused of racism, but at the time was uncontroversial and popular, and further publicity stunts were held to increase sales.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: For the third adventure, "Tintin in America", serialised from September 1931 to October 1932, Hergé finally got to deal with a scenario of his own choice, and used the work to push an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist agenda in keeping with the paper's ultraconservative ideology. "The Adventures of Tintin" had been syndicated to a Catholic magazine named ("Brave Hearts") since 1930, and Hergé was soon receiving syndication requests from Swiss and Portuguese newspapers, too.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Hergé wrote a string of "Adventures of Tintin", sending his character to real locations such as the Belgian Congo, United States, Egypt, India, Tibet, China, and the United Kingdom. He also sent Tintin to fictional countries of his own devising, such as the Latin American republic of San Theodoros, the East European kingdom of Syldavia, or the fascist state of Borduria—whose leader's name, Müsstler, was a portmanteau of the names Nazi German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Italian Fascist Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium as World War II spread further across Europe. Although Hergé briefly fled to France and considered a self-imposed exile, he ultimately decided to return to his occupied homeland. For political reasons, the Nazi authorities closed down "Le Vingtième Siècle", leaving Hergé unemployed. In search of employment, he got a job as an illustrator at Belgium's leading newspaper, "Le Soir" ("The Evening"), which was allowed to continue publication under German management. On 17 October 1940, he was made editor of the children's supplement, "Le Soir Jeunesse", in which he set about producing new Tintin adventures. In this new, more repressive political climate of German-occupied Belgium, Hergé could no longer politicize "The Adventures of Tintin" lest he be arrested by the Gestapo. As Harry Thompson noted, Tintin's role as a reporter came to an end, to be replaced by his new role as an explorer.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: In September 1944, the Allies entered Brussels and Hergé's German employers fled. "Le Soir" was shut down and "The Adventures of Tintin" was put on hold.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Then in 1946, Hergé accepted an invitation from Belgian comic publisher Raymond Leblanc and his new publishing company Le Lombard to continue "The Adventures of Tintin" in the new ("Tintin" magazine).


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Hergé quickly learned that he no longer had the independence he preferred; he was required to produce two coloured pages a week for Leblanc's magazine, a tall order.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: In 1950, Hergé began to poach the better members of the "Tintin" magazine staff to work in the large house on Avenue Louise that contained the fledgling Studios Hergé. Bob De Moor (who imitated Hergé's style and did half the work), Guy Dessicy (colourist), and Marcel DeHaye (secretary) were the nucleus. To this, Hergé added Jacques Martin (imitated Hergé's style), Roger Leloup (detailed, realistic drawings), Eugène Evany (later chief of the Studios), Michel Demaret (letterer), and Baudouin Van Den Branden (secretary).


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: As Harry Thompson observed, the idea was to turn the process of creating "The Adventures of Tintin" into a "veritable production line, the artwork passing from person to person, everyone knowing their part, like an artistic orchestra with Hergé conducting".


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The studios produced eight new Tintin albums for "Tintin" magazine, and coloured and reformatted two old Tintin albums.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Studios Hergé continued to release additional publications until Hergé's death in 1983. In 1986, a 24th unfinished album was released, the studios were disbanded, and the assets were transferred to the Hergé Foundation.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Tintin is a young Belgian reporter and adventurer who becomes involved in dangerous cases in which he takes heroic action to save the day. The "Adventures" may feature Tintin hard at work in his investigative journalism, but seldom is he seen actually turning in a story.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Readers and critics have described Tintin as a well-rounded yet open-ended, intelligent, and creative character, noting that his lack of backstory and neutral personality permits a reflection of the evil, folly, and foolhardiness which surrounds him. The character never compromises his Boy Scout ideals, which represent Hergé's own, and his status allows the reader to assume his position within the story, rather than merely following the adventures of a strong protagonist. Tintin's iconic representation enhances this aspect, with Scott McCloud noting that it "allows readers to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world".


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Snowy ("Milou" in Hergé's original version), a white Wire Fox Terrier dog, is Tintin's loyal companion. Like Captain Haddock, he is fond of Loch Lomond brand Scotch whisky, and Snowy's occasional bouts of drinking tend to get him into unintentional trouble, as does his only fear: arachnophobia.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Captain Archibald Haddock ("Capitaine Haddock" in Hergé's original version) is a Merchant Marine sea captain and Tintin's best friend. Introduced in "The Crab with the Golden Claws", Haddock is initially depicted as a weak and alcoholic character, but later evolves to become genuinely heroic and even a socialite after he finds a treasure from his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock ("Chevalier François de Hadoque" in the original version). The Captain's coarse humanity and sarcasm act as a counterpoint to Tintin's often-implausible heroism; he is always quick with a dry comment whenever the boy reporter seems too idealistic. The hot-tempered Haddock uses a range of colourful insults and curses to express his feelings, such as "billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" ("Mille milliards de mille sabords de tonnerre de Brest" in the original version) or "ten thousand thundering typhoons".


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Professor Cuthbert Calculus ("Professeur Tryphon Tournesol" in Hergé's original version; "tournesol" is the French word for "sunflower") is an absent-minded and partially deaf physicist and a regular character alongside Tintin, Snowy, and Captain Haddock. He was introduced in "Red Rackham's Treasure", and based partially on Auguste Piccard, a Swiss physicist.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Hergé's supporting characters have been cited as far more developed than the central character, each imbued with strength of character and depth of personality, which has been compared with that of the characters of Charles Dickens. Hergé used the supporting characters to create a realistic world in which to set his protagonists' adventures. To further the realism and continuity, characters would recur throughout the series. The occupation of Belgium and the restrictions imposed upon Hergé forced him to focus on characterisation to avoid depicting troublesome political situations. As a result, the colourful supporting cast was developed during this period.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond in Hergé's original version) are two incompetent detectives who look like identical twins, their only discernible difference being the shape of their moustaches. First introduced in "Cigars of the Pharaoh", they provide much of the comic relief throughout the series, being afflicted with chronic spoonerisms. They are extremely clumsy, thoroughly incompetent, and usually bent on arresting the wrong character just to look good as detectives. They usually wear bowler hats and carry walking sticks except when sent abroad; during those missions they attempt the national costume of the locality they are visiting, but instead dress in conspicuously stereotypical folkloric attire which makes them stand apart. The detectives were based partly on Hergé's father Alexis and uncle Léon, identical twins who often took walks together, wearing matching bowler hats while carrying matching walking sticks.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Bianca Castafiore is an opera singer of whom Haddock is terrified. She was first introduced in "King Ottokar's Sceptre" and seems to appear wherever the protagonists travel, along with her maid Irma and pianist Igor Wagner. Although amiable and strong-willed, she is also comically foolish, whimsical, absent-minded, talkative, and seemingly unaware that her voice is shrill and appallingly loud. Her speciality is the Jewel Song ( / "Ah! My beauty past compare, these jewels bright I wear") from opera, "Faust", which she sings at the least provocation, much to Haddock's dismay. She is often maternal toward Haddock, of whose dislike she remains ignorant. She often confuses words, especially names, with other words that rhyme with them or of which they remind her; "Haddock" is frequently replaced by malapropisms such as "Paddock", "Stopcock", or "Hopscotch", while Nestor, Haddock's butler, is confused with "Chestor" and "Hector". Her own name means "white and chaste flower": a meaning to which Professor Calculus once refers when he breeds a white rose and names it for the singer. She was based upon opera divas in general (according to Hergé's perception), Hergé's Aunt Ninie (who was known for her "shrill" singing of opera), and, in the post-war comics, on Maria Callas.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Other recurring characters include Nestor the butler, Chang (or Chang-Chong-Chen in full) the loyal Chinese boy who, like Tintin, is not defined by a particular backstory, Rastapopoulos the criminal mastermind, Jolyon Wagg the infuriating (to Haddock) insurance salesman, General Alcazar the South American freedom fighter and President of San Theodoros, Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab the Arab emir, and Abdullah his mischievous son, Dr. Müller the evil German psychiatrist, Oliveira da Figueira the friendly Portuguese salesman, Cutts the butcher whose phone number is repeatedly confused with Haddock's, and Allan the henchman of Rastapopoulos and formerly Haddock's first mate.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The settings within "Tintin" have also added depth to the strips. Hergé mixes real and fictional lands into his stories. In "King Ottokar's Sceptre" (revisited once more in "The Calculus Affair") Hergé creates two fictional countries, Syldavia and Borduria, and invites the reader to tour them in text through the insertion of a travel brochure into the storyline. Other fictional lands include Khemed on the Arabian Peninsula and San Theodoros, São Rico, and Nuevo Rico in South America, as well as the kingdom of Gaipajama in India. Apart from these fictitious locations, Tintin also visits real places such as Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, Belgian Congo, Peru, India, Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia, Nepal, Tibet, and China. Other actual locales used were the Sahara Desert, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Moon.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Hergé's extensive research began with "The Blue Lotus"; Hergé said that "it was from that time that I undertook research and really interested myself in the people and countries to which I sent Tintin, out of a sense of responsibility to my readers".


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Hergé's use of research and photographic reference allowed him to build a realised universe for Tintin, going so far as to create fictionalised countries, dressing them with specific political cultures. These were heavily informed by the cultures evident in Hergé's lifetime. Pierre Skilling has asserted that Hergé saw monarchy as "the legitimate form of government", noting that democratic "values seem underrepresented in [such] a classic Franco-Belgian strip". Syldavia in particular is described in considerable detail, Hergé creating a history, customs, and a language, which is actually a Slavic-looking transcript of Marols, a working-class Brussels dialect. He set the country in the Balkans, and it is, by his own admission, modelled after Albania. The country finds itself threatened by neighbouring Borduria, with an attempted annexation appearing in "King Ottokar's Sceptre". This situation parallels the Italian conquest of Albania, and that of Czechoslovakia and Austria by expansionist Nazi Germany prior to World War II.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Hergé's use of research would include months of preparation for Tintin's voyage to the moon in the two-part storyline spread across "Destination Moon" and "Explorers on the Moon". His research for the storyline was noted in "New Scientist": "The considerable research undertaken by Hergé enabled him to come very close to the type of space suit that would be used in future Moon exploration, although his portrayal of the type of rocket that was actually used was a long way off the mark". The moon rocket is based on the German V-2 rockets.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: In his youth, Hergé admired and suggested that a number of images within "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" reflected this influence, particularly the pictures of animals. , the Art Deco designer, also affected early Tintin adventures: "His influence can be detected at the beginning of the "Soviets", where my drawings are designed along a decorative line, like an 'S'". Hergé also felt no compunction in admitting that he had stolen the image of round noses from George McManus, feeling they were "so much fun that I used them, without scruples!"


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: During the extensive research Hergé carried out for "The Blue Lotus", he became influenced by Chinese and Japanese illustrative styles and woodcuts. This is especially noticeable in the seascapes, which are reminiscent of works by Hokusai and Hiroshige.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Hergé also declared Mark Twain an influence, although this admiration may have led him astray when depicting Incas as having no knowledge of an upcoming solar eclipse in "Prisoners of the Sun", an error T. F. Mills attributed to an attempt to portray "Incas in awe of a latter-day 'Connecticut Yankee'".


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Tintin first appeared in English in the weekly British children's comic "Eagle" in 1951 with the story "King Ottokar's Sceptre". It was translated in conjunction with Casterman, Tintin's publishers, and starts by describing Tintin as "a French boy". Snowy was called by his French name "Milou".


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The process of translating Tintin into British English was then commissioned in 1958 by Methuen, Hergé's British publishers. It was a joint operation, headed by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner, working closely with Hergé to attain an accurate translation as true as possible to the original work. Due in part to the large amount of language-specific word play (such as punning) in the series, especially the jokes which played on Professor Calculus' partial deafness, it was never the intention to translate literally, instead striving to sculpt a work whose idioms and jokes would be meritorious in their own right. Despite the free hand Hergé afforded the two, they worked closely with the original text, asking for regular assistance to understand Hergé's intentions.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The British translations were also Anglicised to appeal to British customs and values. Milou, for example, was renamed Snowy at the translators' discretion. Captain Haddock's was renamed Marlinspike Hall.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: When it came time to translate "The Black Island", which is set in Great Britain, the opportunity was taken to redraw the entire book. Methuen had decided that the book did not portray Great Britain accurately enough, and had compiled a list of 131 errors of detail which should be put right, such as ensuring that the British police were unarmed and ensuring scenes of the British countryside were more accurate for discerning British readers. The resulting album is the dramatically updated and redrawn 1966 version that is the most commonly available today. , Egmont publishes Tintin books in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The works were first adapted for the American English market by Golden Books, a branch of the Western Publishing Company in the 1950s. The albums were translated from French into American English with some artwork panels blanked except for the speech balloons. This was done to remove content considered to be inappropriate for children, such as drunkenness and free mixing of races. The albums were not popular and only six were published in mixed order. The edited albums later had their blanked areas redrawn by Hergé to be more acceptable, and they currently appear this way in published editions around the world.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: From 1966 to 1979, "Children's Digest" included monthly instalments of "The Adventures of Tintin". These serialisations served to increase Tintin's popularity, introducing him to many thousands of new readers in the United States.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Atlantic Monthly Press, in cooperation with Little, Brown and Company beginning in the 1970s, republished the albums based on the British translations. Alterations were made to vocabulary not well known to an American audience (such as gaol, tyre, saloon, and spanner). , Little, Brown and Company (owned by the Hachette Book Group USA) continues to publish Tintin books in the United States.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Moulinsart's official Tintin app in Apple's App Store, launched with the release of the digital version of "Tintin in the Congo" on 5 June 2015, features brand new English language translations by journalist, writer and Tintin expert Michael Farr.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The English-language "Adventures of Tintin" books were originally published with handwritten lettering created by cartographer Neil Hyslop. 1958's "The Crab with the Golden Claws" was the first to be published with Hyslop's lettering. Hyslop was given versions of Hergé's artwork with blank panels. Hyslop would write his English script on a clear cellophane-like material, aiming to fit within the original speech bubble. Occasionally the size of the bubbles would need to be adjusted if the translated text would not fit. In the early 2000s, Tintin's English publishers Egmont discontinued publishing books featuring Hyslop's handwritten lettering, instead publishing books with text created with digital fonts. This change was instigated by publisher Casterman and Hergé's estate managers Moulinsart, who decided to replace localised hand-lettering with a single computerised font for all Tintin titles worldwide.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: On 1 June 2006, the Dalai Lama bestowed the International Campaign for Tibet's Light of Truth Award upon the Hergé Foundation, along with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The award was in recognition of Hergé's book "Tintin in Tibet", Hergé's most personal adventure, which the Executive Director of ICT Europe Tsering Jampa noted was "for many ... their introduction to the awe-inspiring landscape and culture of Tibet". In 2001, the Hergé Foundation demanded the recall of the Chinese translation of the work, which had been released with the title "Tintin in Chinese Tibet". The work was subsequently published with the correct translation of the title. Accepting on behalf of the Hergé Foundation, Hergé's widow Fanny Rodwell said: "We never thought that this story of friendship would have a resonance more than 40 years later".


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The study of Tintin, sometimes referred to as "Tintinology", has become the life work of some literary critics in Belgium, France and England. Belgian author Philippe Goddin has written "Hergé et Tintin reporters: Du Petit Vingtième au Journal Tintin" (1986, later republished in English as "Hergé and Tintin Reporters: From "Le Petit Vingtième" to "Tintin" Magazine" in 1987) and "Hergé et les Bigotudos" (1993) amongst other books on the series. In 1983, French author Benoît Peeters released "Le Monde d'Hergé", subsequently published in English as "Tintin and the World of Hergé" in 1988. English reporter Michael Farr has written works such as "Tintin, 60 Years of Adventure" (1989), "Tintin: The Complete Companion" (2001), "Tintin & Co." (2007) and "The Adventures of Hergé" (2007), while English television producer Harry Thompson authored "Tintin: Hergé and his Creation" (1991).


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: Literary critics, primarily in French-speaking Europe, have also examined "The Adventures of Tintin". In 1984, Jean-Marie Apostolidès published his study of the "Adventures of Tintin" from a more "adult" perspective as "Les Métamorphoses de Tintin", published in English as "The Metamorphoses of Tintin, or Tintin for Adults" in 2010. In reviewing Apostolidès' book, Nathan Perl-Rosenthal of "The New Republic" thought that it was "not for the faint of heart: it is packed with close textual analysis and laden with psychological jargon". Following Apostolidès's work, French psychoanalyst Serge Tisseron examined the series in his books "Tintin et les Secrets de Famille" ("Tintin and the Family Secrets"), which was published in 1990, and "Tintin et le Secret d'Hergé" ("Tintin and Hergé's Secret"), published in 1993.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The first English-language work of literary criticism devoted to the series was "Tintin and the Secret of Literature", written by the novelist Tom McCarthy and published in 2006. McCarthy compares Hergé's work with that of Aeschylus, Honoré de Balzac, Joseph Conrad, and Henry James and argues that the series contains the key to understanding literature itself. McCarthy considered the "Adventures of Tintin" to be "stupendously rich", containing "a mastery of plot and symbol, theme and sub-text" which, influenced by Tisseron's psychoanalytical readings of the work, he believed could be deciphered to reveal a series of recurring themes, ranging from bartering to implicit sexual intercourse that Hergé had featured throughout the series. Reviewing the book in "The Telegraph", Toby Clements argued that McCarthy's work, and literary criticism of Hergé's comic strips in general, cut "perilously close" to simply feeding "the appetite of those willing to cross the line between enthusiast and obsessive" in the Tintinological community.


title: The Adventures of Tintin

text: The earliest stories in "The Adventures of Tintin" have been criticised for displaying racial stereotypes, animal cruelty, colonialism, violence, and even fascist leanings, including ethnocentric, caricatured portrayals of non-Europeans. While the Hergé Foundation has presented such criticism as naïveté and scholars of Hergé such as Harry Thompson have said that "Hergé did what he was told by the Abbé Wallez", Hergé himself felt that his background made it impossible to avoid prejudice, stating: "I was fed the prejudices of the bourgeois society that surrounded me".