Office of the Historian

38. Circular Telegram From the Department of State to Multiple African Diplomatic Posts1

Washington, July 4, 1961, 1312Z.

19. 1. Department requests Ambassadors or Principal Officers, drawing as appropriate on staff, other embassies, and public sources, submit free-hand but considered sketch US image as seen by (1) officials, (2) other influential elements (oppositionists, editors, labor etc.) and (3) general public addressee countries.

By “image” we mean composite of views on such factors as our relative affluence and power, our readiness to consider African and local issues on their own merits, effect US race problem, acceptability [Page 114] our political views and counsel, adequacy our present or potential material assistance, trustworthiness our underlying motives and their conformity with our professed traditions and principles.

2. As subsidiary matter, being careful not let it affect basic assessment, request evidence of and comment on extent, character any recent, detectable gains or losses in this image. From here, number recent events encourage view some improvement registered. Those include election new President and his Inaugural Address philosophy; Rusk, Bowles, Williams appointments and latter’s African trip;2 Stevenson role at UN and our votes there; Africa Freedom Day reception of Secretary and President’s speech there;3 work of “new nations” section Department Protocol office; visits African leaders to White House and Johnson, Shriver visits Africa.4 Department interested getting local African perspective on these evidences responsiveness, how much or how little they count for. Guard against overvaluing favorable reactions.

3. Identification of factors having greatest bearing on future forthcoming new tests of that image, and suggestions toward bolstering it, are welcome but not required part of report we have in mind. Hold to three pages and submit by airgram or telegram to reach Department by July 15.

Rusk
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Office of Plans, General Subject Files, 1949–1970, Entry UD WW 151, Box 289, Director’s Correspondence—1961. Limited Official Use. Drafted by Patrick O’Sheel (AF/P) on July 3, cleared in AFW and S/S and by Olcott Deming (AFE) and William Witman (AFN); approved by Fredericks. Sent to Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Bamako, Bangui, Brazzaville, Conakry, Cotonou, Dakar, Dar-es-Salaam, Elisabethville, Fort Lamy, Freetown, Kampala, Khartoum, Lagos, Leopoldville, Libreville, Lome, Lourenco Marques, Luanda, Mogadiscio, Monrovia, Nairobi, Niamey, Ouagadougou, Rabat, Salisbury, Tananarive, Tripoli, Tunis, Usumbura, and Yaounde. Payne initialed the top of the telegram and wrote: “Now they’re getting into I/R’s field. Bob.” Murrow sent the telegram to Thomas Sorensen under a cover note stamped July 10, in which he wrote: “Pray advise what we should do regarding the attached. I am concerned: (1) about duplication between State and the Agency, and (2) this message brings them dangerously close to a ‘prestige poll.’” (Ibid.)↩
  2. Assistant Secretary Williams made a month-long trip to several African nations; for information, see “Williams Off on Month’s Trip to 15 African Nations,” The New York Times, February 16, 1961, p. 15. For the text of Williams’ February 17 address to delegates to the third session of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, meeting in Addis Ababa, see Department of State Bulletin, March 13, 1961, pp. 373–376. Williams provided an overview of his trip in a March 24 address before the National Press Club; for the text, see Department of State Bulletin, April 10, 1961, pp. 527–531.↩
  3. The President spoke at an April 15 reception at the Department of State, held by Rusk for African Ambassadors and their staffs, commemorating Africa Freedom Day. Various members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, and other government officials also attended the reception. For the President’s remarks made at the reception, see Public Papers: Kennedy, 1961, pp. 280–282. In CA–9113 to multiple African diplomatic posts, April 21, the Department sent a copy of the President’s remarks “for the Post’s information and discretionary use.” (National Archives, RG 306, Alphabetical Subject Files Containing Policy Guidance, 1953–1961, Entry UD WW 199, Box 164, Africa (Gen’l–1962))↩
  4. The Vice President traveled to Senegal in early April to represent the United States at events commemorating the first anniversary of Senegalese independence from France. Johnson stopped in Geneva and Paris before returning to Washington on April 7. (Richard L. Lyons, “Johnson Flies Home, Is Praised by Kennedy,” The Washington Post, April 8, 1961, p. A9) Shriver, as a personal representative of the President, left for Guinea on June 13 to meet with Sékou Touré. Shriver’s undated narrative of his trip, sent to the President and Rusk under an undated covering memorandum, is in the Kennedy Library, President’s Office Files, Departments and Agencies Series, Box 85, Peace Corps: Shriver Trip to Guinea, June 1961. For additional information, see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. XXI, Africa, Documents 256 and 257.↩