Overview

The volume focuses on the issues that primarily engaged high-level U.S. policymakers. Major topics include: U.S. efforts to strengthen North African ties to the West and forestall Soviet attempts to dominate any part of the region; the attempts of U.S. policymakers to find a basis for improved relations with Algeria without prejudicing the good relations enjoyed with Morocco and Tunisia; the desire of the United States to preserve Moroccan independence and unity; continuation of substantial U.S. economic and military aid to Morocco and Tunisia; U.S. efforts to preserve the independence and stability of Libya; renegotiation of the 1954 Wheelus Base agreement with the hope of prolonging U.S. retention of the base despite Libya's announced intention of not renewing the agreement; U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and prevent them from falling under Communist domination; a revitalized and strengthened policy toward Africa following a review of African development policies and programs (the Korry Report) ordered by President Johnson in May 1966; U.S. efforts to maintain friendly relations with Nkrumah's successor following the February 1966 overthrow of his authoritarian and anti-Western regime in Ghana; U.S. support for peaceful resolution of Somali-Ethiopian border conflicts in the strategically important Horn of Africa; the U.S. effort to maintain a close relationship with Ethiopia, with its important U.S. military base at Kagnew Station and the largest Military Assistance Program in Africa, while maintaining good relations with Somalia; the U.S. policy of non-intervention and advocacy of negotiation and compromise following the July 1967 outbreak of civil war in Nigeria; the tension between U.S. support for reform and self-determination in Portugal's African colonies of Angola and Mozambique, on the one hand, and the U.S. and Portuguese membership in NATO, which granted the United States important military base rights in the Azores, on the other; U.S. support for British efforts to guarantee universal adult suffrage before granting Rhodesia full independence, and for mandatory UN economic sanctions against Rhodesia following the white minority government's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965; U.S. condemnation of apartheid while opposing mandatory UN economic sanctions against South Africa; and U.S. support for UN termination of South Africa's mandate to administer South West Africa. The editors included a selection of intelligence estimates and analyses seen by high-level policymakers, especially those that were sent to President Johnson.