315. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to Attorney General Kennedy 0

SUBJECT

  • Our Policy in Africa

We are confronting a major decision in our African policy, and I think this is something you may well wish to get in on. I attach four documents1 which will set forth the problem: (A) a memorandum from Mennen Williams to Rusk; (B) a memorandum from Alexis Johnson to Rusk; (C) a memorandum from Rusk commenting on the Williams memorandum; and (D) a letter from Stevenson to the President.

The basic problem is what position we should take in the meeting of the Security Council late in July when the African states, following the Addis Ababa meeting, plan to force the issue on the Portuguese colonies [Page 497] and on South Africa. Their basic policy is to try to make us choose between Portugal and South Africa, on the one hand, and the rest of Africa, on the other. We wish to evade that choice. We are opposed to sanctions against Portugal and South Africa, to their expulsion from the UN, etc. On the other hand, we recognize that the African states have history on their side and probably justice too; and that, unless we want to abandon Africa altogether, we will have to do something to show our support of the principle of self-determination. The question is how far we can go without risking the Azores base and various tracking stations, etc., made available to us in South Africa—or, even more essentially whether these military facilities are so indispensable to us that they must determine our African policy. The choice may well be between the military risk of losing the Azores and the South African tracking stations and the political risk of losing Africa.

As you will see from the attached documents, the Secretary and Johnson are fearful of pushing Portugal and South Africa too hard, while Williams and Stevenson would like to go at least as far as some form of arms embargo.

It is not an easy question. My own feeling is that DOD should make a much more rigorous examination than it seems yet to have made of the alternatives to the Azores and the tracking stations. We should also know much more than we seem to know at present about the prospects of the Salazar regime; I doubt if even this regime can hold out forever against the winds of change. I think it would be a great mistake to base our African policy on the indispensability of the military facilities and the permanence of the Salazar regime if neither of these things turns out to be so.

In any case, I hope you will be interested.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr .2
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, Schlesinger Papers, White House Files, Africa 7/1/63-7/9/63. Secret.
  2. Tabs A, B, and C are not attached to the source text. Tab D is attached but is not printed.
  3. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.