Beyond the Storm: Treating the Powerless & the Powerful in Mobutu's Congo/Zaire

The colonel's great-aunt sat cross-legged on the carpet with her mouth wide open. With a gnarled finger, she pointed down her throat. A fishbone peeked over the base of her tongue and was easily retrieved. The old woman and the colonel were delighted. The doctor was relieved. This episode was the first of many that led Dr. Bill Close toward becoming the physician and friend to many, including the colonel who became president and then dictator of the Congo.

Beyond the Storm details Dr. Close's extraordinary experiences during the uncontrollable human storms that crashed repeatedly in the Congo after independence. In July of 1960 chaos erupted when Belgium turned over power to Patrice Lumumba, the first elected prime minister, but kept the keys to the nation's prodigious mineral wealth. Two men, Colonel Joseph Désiré Mobutu, the newly appointed army chief of staff, and William T. Close, M.D., volunteer surgeon in the general hospital, met, and their lives became intertwined during the next sixteen years.

William T. Close, M.D., a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Fellow of the American Adaemy of Family Physicians, is also the recipient of an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from the University of Utah. During the Ebola outbreak of 1976 in the Congo, he supervised the logistics for the international medical team. He is the author of the best-selling book Ebola: Through the Eyes of the People.

Dr. Malonga Miatudila earned a master's in Public Health from Tulane University. For fifteen years he was a Public Health Specialist at the World Bank, and now devotes his time as an advisor to individuals and organizations in the areas of public health and international development.