Thomas Mboya

Thomas Mboya (1930-1969) was a Kenyan trade unionist and political leader.Mboya, Thomas Joseph (1930-1969), King Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, accessed 4 October 2013.
Mboya, a former activist of the Kenyan African Union, was General Secretary of the Kenyan Federation of Labour during the Mau Mau uprising. In order to get him out of the country, the colonial government paid for him to study in England, and a scholarship from the ICFTU was also arranged.Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.144. According to Ted Morgan, the scholarship at Ruskin College was facilitated by Walter Hood of the TUC's Colonial Department.Ted Morgan, A Covert Life - Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist and Spymaster, Random House, 1999, p.307.
Stephen Dorril cites Anthony Verrier as describing Mboya's 'virtual recruitment' by MI6.Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.721.
In 1956, Mboya visited New York where he stayed with Maida Springer. During the trip he obtained $35,000 from George Meany for a Labour Center, and 81 scholareships from Jay Lovestone.Ted Morgan, A Covert Life - Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist and Spymaster, Random House, 1999, p.305.
Mboya made a second visit to the US in 1959.Ted Morgan, A Covert Life - Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist and Spymaster, Random House, 1999, p.307.
Mboya accused the Colonial Office of supporting the foundation of the New Kenya Group.Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.146.
At a meeting of the CIA-funded International Student Conference in 1961, Mboya persuaded Jonas Savimbi to join the Union of the Peoples of Angola (UPA).Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.190.
In 1962, the former Governor of Kenya, Evelyn Baring, wrote that Mboya was the man to back 'since the real danger was those who would look east'.Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.149. Baring proposed an alliance between Mboya, KADU and KANU moderates to be facilitated by withdrawal of Mboya's American funding.Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.150.
Griffith-Jones subsequently wanted Mboya to challenge Jomo Kenyatta, a move Mboya resisted in the belief that Kenyatta was needed to isolate Oginga Odinga.Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.150.
Mboya worked closely with the Ariel Foundation, backing a socio-economic report on Kenya by Arthur Gaitskell that provided the basis for KANU's 1963 election manifesto, and supporting its scholarships for Zimbabwean nationalists.Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.152.
Mboya became minister of labour in the new government, which passed restrictive labour laws.Ted Morgan, A Covert Life - Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist and Spymaster, Random House, 1999, p.308. 
Mboya was assassinated in 1969. At the time, he had been seen as Kenyatta's most likely successor.Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.155. 
==External resources==
*NameBase MBOYA TOM
===Books===
D. Goldworthy, Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget, East African Publishers, 1982.
==Notes==
Mboya, Thomas