96. Conversation Among President Nixon, Vice President Agnew, and Secretary of State Rogers1
[Omitted here is conversation unrelated to Portuguese Africa.]
Agnew: That’s the thing about Africa, Mr. President, since you bring that up.2 The Portuguese are, of course, very sensitive about their African situation. The new Prime Minister, Caetano, is working very hard to liberalize the conditions there. He feels that they’re making substantial progress in—not only in Angola and Mozambique, but he feels that he’s getting great assistance from Malawi, which is a little country that’s very helpful in an intermediate position. And also, Mobuto sent through me a message to Caetano indicating that he was not anti-Portuguese, he thought they were committed to racial equality. They have some differences about how, perhaps, self-determination should come about, or even what it is, but he was willing to be of assistance with Holden Roberto, where the big problem is Angola. So, it would help to have more presence shown in Africa, because things are developing very rapidly there, and the North African countries have a great influence on this Mediterranean question and the increasing So [Page 224] viet presence there, even though they’re around on the other side of the Muslim world. It’s still quite interesting.
[Omitted here is conversation unrelated to Portuguese Africa.]
Rogers: But I don’t think there’s any real danger. I think the danger in Africa comes through between the blacks and the whites. I think eventually we’ll have, probably, warfare in southern part of Africa. I don’t, I don’t think—I think the Russians are trying to stir up as much trouble as they can, but they don’t look at Africa as of strategic importance. It’s just another place to cause trouble and exploit their ideology, but they don’t own it. They’re not playing a very active role. As matter of fact they are this—they aren’t as successful in Africa now as they were in 1960 when I was there.
[Omitted here is conversation unrelated to Portuguese Africa.]
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Cabinet Room, Conversation 67–11. No classification marking. The editors transcribed the portions of the tape recording printed here specifically for this volume. The exchange is part of a larger conversation, 10–11:57 a.m. According to the President’s Daily Diary, other participants in the Cabinet meeting were John B. Connally, Melvin Laird, John N. Mitchell, J. Phil Campbell, Maurice Stans, James Hodgson, John Veneman, George Romney, John Volpe, George Shultz, Robert Finch, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Raymond K. Price, Herbert G. Klein, Ronald L. Ziegler, Alexander P. Butterfield, and Robert Dole. (Ibid., White House Central Files)↩
- Agnew visited Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zaire July 10–17.↩