Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXI, Africa

216. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Williams) to Secretary of State Rusk⁰

Washington, February 25, 1963.

SUBJECT

• Major Conclusions of Williams African Trip¹

1. U.S. Congo policy has won us high esteem in all Africa except for European minorities in Portuguese Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and Republic of South Africa.

2. Southern Rhodesia is new African time bomb. If Nationalist aspirations do not get some hope and if Nationalists are not brought into constitutional dialogue instead of belligerent hostility, there will be major flare-up (after period of gestation).

3. Portuguese Africa will be under increasing pressure for self-determination from all independent Africa.

4. Nigerian development will grind to a slowdown if US and other aid does not soon start flowing significantly.

5. American policy must move imaginatively and quickly in these areas or our present prestige will suffer acute and rapid diminution.

6. PAFMECA² promises to become an African association of considerable importance involving all East African countries from Ethiopia to Tanganyika and Congo (L), Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland. It will concern itself with black self-government in Southern Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique, and Southwest and South Africa.

[Here follow country summaries.]

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Brubeck Series, Africa. Confidential.
1. Result of visit to Algeria, Nigeria, Congo, Rhodesias and discussions with principal officers there and Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, Togo, Dahomey, Angola, RSAF, Mozambique, and Tanganyika. [Footnote in the source text. Williams visited Africa February 1-23.]
2. The Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) held its first conference at Mwanza, Tanganyika, September 17, 1958.