On August 19, 1998

South Africa's truth commission chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu on
Wednesday released documents he said suggested a Western plot was behind
the death of the head of the United Nations in 1961.

Tutu said his Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is investigating
crimes committed during the apartheid era, had decided to release the
documents although it could not verify their authenticity. ``The
commission has discovered...documents discussing the sabotage of the
aircraft in which the U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold died on the
night of September 17 to 18, 1961,'' Tutu told a news conference before
leaving to spend a year in the United States. ``We have been unable to
investigate the veracity of these documents and of allegations that South
Africa or other Western intelligence agencies were involved in bringing
about the air crash,'' he said.

The letters, headed the South African Institute for Maritime Research
(SAIMR)-- said to be a front company for the South African military--
include references to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the
British MI5 security service. ``In a meeting between MI5, special ops
executive and the SAIMR, the following emerged,'' reads one document
marked Top Secret, ``it is felt that Hammarskjold should be removed.'' ``I
want his removal to be handled more efficiently than was Patrice,'' the
document said. The CIA last year opened its files on Cold War
assassinations and admitted it ordered the murder of Patrice Lumumba,
Congolese independence hero and pro-Soviet prime minister. Another letter
headed ``Operation Celeste'' gives details of orders to plant explosives
in the wheel bay of an aircraft primed to go off as the wheels were
retracted on takeoff.