Book reveals how the jazz musician unwittingly became party to secret cold war manoeuvres by the US in Africa
![Louis Armstrong and the spy: how the CIA used him as a ‘trojan horse’ in Congo](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7dfb66e14453c8cbabbf8d770ddf05fc73219b5a/0_496_3789_2275/master/3789.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdG8tZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=7c62c4e4289fe8df03451a3ca127187f)
It was a memorable evening: Louis Armstrong, his wife and a diplomat from the
US Embassy were out for dinner in a restaurant in what was still Léopoldville, capital of the newly independent Congo.
The trumpeter,
Singer and band leader, nicknamed Satchmo as a child, was in the middle of a tour of Africa that would stretch over months, organised and sponsored by the State Department in a bid to improve the image of the US in dozens of countries which had just won freedom from colonial regimes.