Office of the Historian

44. Memorandum From Phil Ringdahl of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Poindexter)1

Washington, December 12, 1984

SUBJECT

  • Coup in Mauritania

Information

There is still no information on the new government in Mauritania, which overthrew the previous leader, Lt Colonel Haidalla, in an apparent bloodless, palace coup2 (Haidalla was attending the Franco-African summit in Burundi, thus violating one of the cardinal rules of staying in power in Africa which is to stay at home—always). There is a curfew, the airport is closed. Our Embassy has no problems.

We will be looking to see whether Libya was involved—recall yesterday’s comments by President Kountche3 that neither Libya nor Morocco liked the recent regime; Morocco because of non-support on Western Sahara, and Libya because of opposition to its Chad occupation.

  1. Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Country File, Africa, Morocco (09/21/1984–01/11/1985). Secret. Sent for information.↩
  2. In telegram 5905 from Nouakchott, December 12, the Embassy informed the Department about the coup: “According to the information being given out, the CMSN voted Haidalla out unanimously.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D840794–0878)↩
  3. No record of Kountche’s comments has been found.↩