751T.00/1–552
The Consul General at Dakar ( Blake ) to the Department of State
No. 158
Subject:
- Conversation with Governor Camille Bailly, Secretary General of the Government of French West Africa
At various social affairs in recent months, I have had several short conversations with Governor Bailly on a number of political subjects. These led to a suggestion by Governor Bailly that we get together at an early date for a serious conversation where we could talk more freely and without interruption. As a result of the Governor’s suggestion and by pre-arrangement, I called on him on December 26, accompanied by Vice Consul Birge 1 as interpreter.
Governor Bailly initiated the conversation by saying that he was going to speak frankly, but that the views that he was about to express were his own personal views and not necessarily those of his Government.
With this preliminary statement out of the way, the Governor began his remarks by speaking of the traditional anti-colonial feeling in the [Page 234] United States, which he said he perfectly well understood, but which he felt was not always well-considered from an overall point of view, and which, when translated into terms of American policy, had sometimes had unfortunate results, as recent events in the Far East, he believed, had abundantly shown. While undoubtedly having French North Africa in the back of his mind, he did not specifically refer to it at this point in his remarks, but went on to state that he believed that recent history has shown that it was extremely dangerous to cut colonial territories adrift before they were ready for independence and strong enough to be able successfully to resist Communist propaganda and infiltration tactics.
While the United States, he said, was, of course, by far the strongest power in the anti-Communist bloc, he stated that he felt that we should not lose sight of the fact that our strongest and most reliable allies, whether we liked it or not, were colonial powers, and that any encouragement, or seeming encouragement, of nationalistic aspirations at this particular time in our allies’ dependent territories could not help but result in situations which Moscow would know very well how to exploit to its advantage and to our, the West’s, disadvantage.
Governor Bailly then turned to the situation in French West Africa and, speaking of Communism, stated, as this Consulate General has frequently reported, that there is absolutely no Communist danger here at the present time; that the RDA’s recent alliance with the Communist party, now happily broken off, had, it turned out, been only tactical in nature.2 This was not to say, he went on, that there are no Communists in French West Africa. There are a few, he said, most of them French from the Metropole who had come out to French West Africa in minor Government jobs. As these were discovered, however, they were, he remarked, immediately sent back to France where they could be more effectively watched, and where their capacities for making trouble would be less than in an overseas territory.
As for racial problems, the Governor stated that, while racial consciousness, of course, existed in French West Africa, this had not, so far at least, resulted in a feeling in the black population of hostility to the French, but rather in efforts on the part of black political leaders to secure equality of treatment for their fellows. (The so-called Lamine Guèye law3 might be cited as an instance of efforts of this kind.)
The real danger to the security of French West Africa, Governor Bailly stated, was not Communism, at least not at present, and not [Page 235] racial troubles, but the spread from North Africa and the Near East of nationalist and Pan-Islamic ideas. This danger, he said, was, happily, not immediate; there had been detected, so far, only a very few feeble attempts at effecting political liaison between the Arab nationalists in French North Africa and their co-religionists in French West Africa. The danger existed, however, and could, the Governor emphasized, become almost overnight a very serious threat to the security of French West Africa and its continued existence as an integral part of the French Union.
The Governor added that, in his opinion, British policy in the Gold Coast and Nigeria, and the UN’s action in encouraging and facilitating the establishment of Libya as an independent state,4 were cardinal mistakes, which would be bound to have an adverse effect on the stability of all of the dependent African territories. The stability and security of these territories should, he thought, be something which the Western allies, at this particular time especially, should be striving to insure.
- Walter William Birge, Jr.↩
- The Rassemblement Démocratique African ended its affiliation with the Communists in October 1950. For information, see despatch 156 from Dakar, Jan. 19, 1951, Foreign Relations, 1951, vol. v, p. 1211.↩
- This law, which became effective on June 30, 1950, provided for equality in pay, promotion, and recruitment of Africans and European civil servants working in the colonies.↩
- Libya achieved its independence on Dec. 24, 1951.↩