Rashomon in Leopoldville

The version my father remembers had the Ambassador going to a British picnic on one of the islands in the river, straying too close to the water, and getting taken. (I didn't remember anything about picnics, or islands, but was told the picnics were fairly spiffy, unfortunately off-limits to Americans; and I dutifully dusted off my old city map of Leopoldville/Kinshasa and found, sure enough, a few small islands not far from the riverbank.)

Then I checked with Larry Devlin, the former CIA station chief in the Congo — who, knock on wood, will soon be a guest on the EP podcast. Larry's version is that the Ambassador was on a small boat with his son, went over the side to fix something (there's always been a lot of riverweed that tend to foul motors, paddlewheels, etc., so this part makes sense), and the next thing his son sees is dad's straw hat floating away...

So we've got four versions! I'm not particularly inclined to check with the Germans but chances are they'd have a fifth. What's agreed, nevertheless, is that the Ambassador lost his life to a crocodile. I'm inclined to believe that that part of the story, at least, is true.

The moral here, I guess, is that we should not shed crocodile tears for the process of historical fact-finding.