Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume
E–5, Part 1, Documents on Sub-Saharan Africa, 1969–1972
Press release
Office of the Historian
Bureau of Public Affairs
United States Department of State
October 27, 2005
The Department of State released today Foreign Relations
of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–5, Documents on Africa, 1969–1972, as
an electronic-only publication. This volume is the latest publication in the
subseries of the Foreign Relations series that documents
the most important decisions and actions of the foreign policy of the
administrations of Presidents Richard
Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Volume E–5 is the third Foreign Relations volume to be
published in this new format, available to all free of charge on the Internet.
Approximately 25 percent of the volumes scheduled for publication for the
1969–1976 subseries, covering the Nixon
and Nixon-Ford administrations, will be in this format.
This volume documents the foreign policy of the Nixon administration toward Sub-Saharan Africa, 1969–1972, with
the exception of Southern Africa, which will be covered in a Foreign Relations print volume to be published later. The largest
chapter in this volume deals with the challenges faced by the Department of
State and the Nixon administration during
and after the Nigerian civil war. The principal issue was how to channel
humanitarian aid to Biafrans, without undermining the U.S. policy of
non-intervention in the civil war. Included in this chapter are documents that
illuminate President Richard Nixon's
personal views on the humanitarian crisis there. The second largest chapter is
on the Horn of Africa and U.S. relations with Ethiopia and the Somali Republic.
The United States became increasingly identified with Emperor Haile Selassie's Government and U.S. relations
with the pro-Soviet Union Somali Republic deteriorated markedly. The chapter on
Burundi highlights another humanitarian crisis: the large-scale massacres of
civilians condoned by the Burundi Government in late 1972. The Department of
State and the Nixon administration were
slow to realize the nature of this tragedy. Given a policy of non-intervention,
and the fact that the massacres were drawing to a close when the tragic nature
of the events were brought to its attention, the Nixon administration decided that realistically there was little
that it could do to ameliorate the situation. The downward spiral of U.S.
relations with Uganda and its erratic President, IDI AMIN, is covered in a separate chapter. Zaire and its
President Mobutu, who was then
considered by Washington a staunch friend in a key central African country and a
relative success story in Africa, has its own chapter. U.S. relations and policy
toward other sub-Saharan African countries not mentioned above, if significant,
are covered in the first chapter on general African policy.
The volume, including a preface, list of names, abbreviations, sources, annotated
document list, and this press release, is available on the Office of the
Historian website (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e5). For further
information contact Edward Keefer, General Editor of the Foreign Relations series, at (202) 663–1131; fax (202) 663–1289;
e-mail history@state.gov.
