New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. 1968. 291 p.
Guinea became something of a crossroads in sub-Saharan Africa from the moment it achieved its independence. It became also a meeting place for those Africans who were dissatisfied with the slow progress toward freedom in their homelands. At a given point in time it was often possible to see at the Hôtel de France or in the streets of Conakry dissidents from the Cameroons, the Ivory Coast, Portuguese Guinea, Angola, Ghana, Algeria, and many other places.
Along with his pressing duties as President, Sékou Touré had to play host to numerous dignitaries, among whom could be counted President William Tubman of Liberia, Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, President Modibo Keita of the Republic of Mali, President Sukarno of Indonesia, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of Congo, President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Leonid I. Brezhnev, and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia. I witnessed the arrival and participated in the activities that went on during these visits. Unfortunately for me, Marshal Tito did not visit Guinea until after I had returned to the United States. It was rumored while I was in Guinea that Khrushchev was going to visit this African republic, but the visit never took place, either during my stay in Guinea or after my departure.
There was such a constant coming and going of delegations that I wondered how officials in this new nation facing the difficult problems confronting their Government found it possible to play host to so many people. It was not just that these visits consumed much valuable time and energy, but they must have been quite costly. A rich nation like the United States has sought ways and means of shortening and simplifying state visits without detracting from the purpose or the importance of such visits.
The most significant visits to Guinea during my tour of duty there were those made by Lumumba, Nkrumah, Keita, and Brezhnev. I have not singled out these visits because of their great pomp and ceremony, for these elements were a part of all visits of dignitaries to Guinea. They were important in my estimation either because of the joint communiqués issued at their conclusion, speeches made during the visit, or incidents that occurred.
Since I had got down to Léopoldville during the Congolese independence celebration and had seen Lumumba in action, I wanted to see how he would perform in the first French-speaking republic in West Africa to win its independence from France. I found it difficult to understand how Lumumba was willing to leave the Congo in the midst of the uprising which was bringing death and untold misery to Congolese and Belgians alike, visit the United Nations, and then stop off for a series of visits in North and sub-Saharan Africa. Lumumba used as his reason for going to New York the necessity of pleading his cause in person at the United Nations. After his appearance at the UN, the Congolese Prime Minister saw Premier Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia (August 3, 1960), and on the next day went to see King Mohammed V of Morocco and his son Crown Prince Moulay Hassan (who became King of Morocco after his father's death in 1961). After visiting Guinea (August 6-7), Lumumba went to see Liberian President William Tubman (August 7), and ended his visits with a call on Prime Minister Nkrumah of Ghana. There was some question in my mind about the judgment of a leader who felt that he could spend that much time away from his people in a period of crisis. Lumumba was actually appealing to his fellow Africans for aid to ensure his personal victory in the Congo.
The singular feature about the Lumumba visit to Guinea was the number of times those of us in the diplomatic corps had to journey to the airport to welcome a plane that had not even left Morocco. Between 12:00 noon, Friday and 2:30 a.m., Saturday we were summoned to the airport three times by the Guinean Protocol Chief only to discover upon reaching the airport that Lumumba's plane had not arrived. It was never admitted that the plane had delayed its take-off from Morocco because of some mechanical defect. Aside from the inconvenience and the vexation of riding back and forth in the heat, however, we did not fare as badly as the inhabitants of Donka and Conakry, many of whom stood for hours along the airport route to welcome the fiery Congolese leader.
On my final trip out to the airport in the driving rain of the early morning hours of that August Saturday, I could hear the shouts of the police and members of the Youth Organization, who were silhouetted in the beams of the automobile headlights as they roused the sleeping inhabitants and directed them to return to the parade route towelcome Lumumba.
Lumumba's plane finally did land, and the ebullient and not easily nonplussed Protocol Chief, Sassone, moved forward to introduce the African leader to a weary and somewhat sleepy diplomatic corps. Not even Ambassador Knap of Czechoslovakia could muster up his usual show of cordiality and enthusiasm. All of us returned to the Présidence with President Touré, Lumumba, and his large delegation. We sipped champagne or fruit juice, and then disappeared into the night to salvage what was left of it.
That next afternoon I returned to Conakry to hear Lumumba address the people from a platform which had been constructed in front of the Présidence. The streets around the Présidence were crowded with people waiting to hear the speech over the public address system. Since there was no King Baudouin on the platform in Conakry that afternoon, Lumumba did not have to be so careful of what he said. He used the same fighting language employed during his unheralded appearance at the independence ceremony in the Congo in June. He attacked the “imperialistic” Belgians and the “other imperialistic forces” that, according to him, were trying to “besmirch the hard-won Congolese independence.” Lumumba was spurred on by the vigorous applause of his Guinean audience and bloc diplomatic members. He accused UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold of failing to play his role in the Congo. He challenged Hammarskjold to explain why the United Nations force was parading in certain parts of the Congo, but not in Moise Tshombe's Katanga Province. He accused the Belgians of merely seeking a pretext to return to the Congo to finish their exploitation of this part of the continent. He proclaimed loudly that the Congolese were going to refuse all “imperialist aid” and were not going to become a colony of the United Nations.
Lumumba was at his crowd-stirring best. None of us in the audience had reason to suspect that this was the last time he would be seen or heard in Guinea. The specter of death did not seem to be hovering around the tall young revolutionary, whose failing was not knowing when to begin to build constructively after having fought for and won a cause.
Lumumba went to some lengths to emphasize his personal efforts to secure Congolese unity, and he stressed the necessity for African unity also. He told us that Bourguiba, Mohammed V, and Sékou Touré had assured him the help of their respective nations, and he declared that he intended henceforth to disregard the United Nations force and call directly upon Africans for aid in the fight for Congolese independence.
After his speech and ride through the streets of Conakry in President Touré's open Cadillac, followed by a bus bearing Guinean Ministers and members of the diplomatic corps, Lumumba returned to the Présidence for deliberations with Touré and his Ministers.
Not until I saw the joint statement issued at the end of the visit did I have any inkling of the nature of the exchange between the Guineans and the Congolese visitors. The statement, distributed to the press and the diplomatic corps, condemned the subversive action of “imperialistic Belgium” and its allies through armed aggression. It pledged aid in reestablishing peace and in safeguarding the territorial integrity of the Congo. It condemned the secession of Katanga Province from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and insisted that the UN Secretary General should send the UN force into Katanga without delay. Complete solidarity was expressed for the Algerian fight for independence, and “Apartheid” in South Africa was severely condemned. Compliance with the Charter of the United Nations was reaffirmed, and the belief was expressed that Africa could make a contribution to the world through positive neutrality and fraternal co-operation.
Lumumba's departure from Guinea went off smoothly, in sharp contrast to the hectic circumstances which had marked his arrival. All of Guinea was shocked and embittered when the news of Lumumba's assassination in the Congo the following January became generally known early in February. The Guinean populace had not reacted in this fashion even to the revelation some months earlier of the death of Dr. Félix Moumié, a Cameroons dissident, who had died in Switzerland from poison administered by an unknown enemy.
The next significant visit to Guinea, in December 1960, created much speculation and interest in the diplomatic corps because its purpose was the creation of a three-nation union. I have mentioned elsewhere the bonds existing between Ghana and Guinea resulting in the formation of the Ghana-Guinea Union. I learned that a third African nation had decided to join the Union, and it was for this reason that Prime Minister Nkrumah and President Modibo Keita of the Republic of Mali journeyed to Guinea on December 22. They came to form the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union.
I had met neither Nkrumah nor Keita, but I had been hearing about the former for a good many years before he became Ghanaian Prime Minister, because of his prominence in the Pan-African movement. Nkrumah's active interest in the Pan-African movement stemmed from the time he had served as secretary of the congress of Negro leaders held in Manchester, England, in October 1945. Nkrumah had been influenced in his thinking about Pan-Africanism by his close friend George Padmore of the West Indies and by Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, the brilliant and controversial American Negro leader. It had been Nkrumah, however, who persisted in the effort to get other African leaders to accept the idea of a Union of Independent African States.
Thirteen months before my arrival in Africa, Nkrumah had served as host to the first conference of Independent African States, held in Accra scarcely a year after Ghanaian independence. At the June 1959 meeting in Saniquelli, Liberia, neither Nkrumah nor Touré had been able to persuade the cagey elder statesman, William Tubman of Liberia, to join their Union. In fact, Tubman skillfully outmaneuvered these young leaders and gave them a lesson in statesmanship.
I had had some doubts about the true nature of the Ghana-Guinea Union. I was struck by the reported differences in the temperament and personality of Nkrumah and Touré, as well as by their obvious differences in language and style. I failed to see how two such strong-willed individuals who liked to be at the head of things were going to surrender enough of the sovereignty of their respective nations to make such a partnership. Of course, this sovereignty could be surrendered on a piece of paper, but I did not see Sékou Touré playing second fiddle in any aggregation led by Kwame Nkrumah. Certain public displays of displeasure during the December 1960 meeting in Conakry caused further misgivings as to the future of the now three-nation Union. I do not wish to give the impression that Touré entered the Union in the first place with an ulterior motive, that of securing a loan from Nkrumah; for I had come to know that Touré had genuine Pan-African interests, and felt him to be sincere in believing that no nation in Africa could be really free as long as any African nation remained under colonial rule.
I found it less difficult to understand Modibo Keita's desire to enter this Union, which included his respected and trusted friend Sékou Touré. The friendship between Touré and Keita made it possible to conceive of a union or federation involving their two nations alone. A federation had been attempted by Mali—then Sudan—and Senegal in 1959, but this federation, known as the Mali Federation, had been dissolved because of dissension between the leaders. Senegal seceded from the Mali Federation on August 20, 1960, and under the brilliant leadership of Léopold Sédar Senghor had become the independent Republic of Senegal. Modibo Keita. and his followers had then proclaimed their nation the independent Republic of Mali on September 22, 1960. Despite his first unfortunate experience, Modibo Keita was journeying to the Republic of Guinea three months later in the hope of gaining strength, support, and stature for his nation by joining the Ghana-Guinea Union.
I went out to the airport with my diplomatic corps colleagues on December 22, 1960, to greet Prime Minister Nkrumah and President Keita. After a forty-five minute wait, during which we sought refuge from the broiling sun in the waiting room, we were summoned outside to line up in the places previously designated by the Protocol Chief. Within a few moments a Soviet IL-18 plane came into view, landed on the airstrip, and taxied toward the tarmac.
President Touré arrived as the plane came to a stop, and moved forward to greet Nkrumah as the latter, dressed in a business suit, swagger stick in hand, descended from the plane. The two leaders greeted each other warmly, and the band played their national anthems. Touré and Nkrumah reviewed the Guinean troops and then walked over to greet the diplomatic corps. After introductions the two leaders disappeared inside the airport waiting room.
We had hardly time to order a cool drink at the airport bar before being told that President Keita's plane was about to land. Again we lined up on the tarmac for a repetition of ceremonies. Out of the sky came a small DC-3, piloted by an Air France pilot (Nkrumah's IL-18 was piloted by Czechoslovakians, as were the planes acquired later by Guinea). A very tall man, wearing a flowing white boubou, white hat, and white sandals, open at the heels, stepped from the plane. I realized that this was President Keita of the Republic of Mali, but he looked more like an African king stepping out of the pages of a history book. As I watched President Touré greet the Malian leader, I was glad that I was not going to play opposite him in a basketball game.
We had been informed that the three leaders would meet from December 22 to December 25. A reception had been planned for December 23 and a dinner the following evening. Then, without any explanation, we were told that there had been a change in plans and a stag buffet dinner at the Présidence on December 23 was to be followed by a reception the same night to which all diplomats and their wives were invited.
My curiosity was piqued by this change of plans, but I did not go out of my way to seek an explanation. I noticed at the stag dinner, however, that President Touré, Prime Minister Nkrumah, and President Keita were seated at the same table, but there was no interpreter present to enable Touré and Nkrumah to converse. This struck me as slightly odd, but I would not have given the matter a second thought if my wife had not asked me why there was no interpreter with Touré and Nkrumah throughout the reception. There were long intervals during the dancing on the terrace when Touré and Nkrumah had the opportunity for discussing the problems confronting their Union, but they didn't seem to be making any effort to talk. Once my wife had asked her question, I began to observe these two men closely. It was obvious that Touré was not his usual congenial, charming self. By contrast, Nkrumah was smiling at the guests and giving the appearance of enjoying every moment of the festivities.
By mere chance, I stumbled on one possible explanation of Touré's visible discontent. Apparently, Nkrumah was insisting that he had to return to Accra to spend Christmas. Touré could not understand this sudden desire to change plans which had been agreed upon months before. Nkrumah's excuse might have been believed by the Americans, but it didn't stand up well in a Muslim country. As I speculated about other reasons for Nkrumah's sudden departure, I remembered that he had been trying to get Guinea to pay the interest on the $28 million loan in foreign exchange rather than in Guinean francs. He had not succeeded in getting Guinea to consent to paying in anything other than Guinean francs. Perhaps this was Nkrumah's way of showing his pique.
Whatever differences might have existed between Touré and Nkrumah during this meeting were not revealed in any way by statements made by either leader. At the conclusion of the meetings, it was pointed out that the decision to form the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union had been reached to facilitate the co-ordination and promotion of a common economic and financial policy. Two special committees were to be formed to consider ways and means of achieving these objectives. An agreement had been reached to co-ordinate the diplomatic activities of the three states and to hold four yearly meetings respectively at Accra, Bamako, Conakry, and Accra. Regrets were expressed over the “inadequacies” and “failures” of the United Nations to settle the crisis in the Congo. It was announced that the three leaders intended to withdraw their troops from the Congo as an expression of their dissatisfaction with the UN policy. Certain African chiefs of state were soundly reprimanded for “compromising” African unity and for “reinforcing neocolonialism.”
Nkrumah and Keita departed as they had arrived, with appropriate airport ceremonies and farewells. Their visit and the resulting Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union represented, perhaps, another victory for Nkrumah in his persistent search for a Pan-African Union. Only history would show whether there had been any real value or lasting quality to this three-nation pact.
I did not see these three leaders together again until the following month, when they gathered in Conakry to journey together to the meeting of what was then known as the Casablanca Group. It may be recalled that their delayed arrival in Casablanca caused the press to speculate that they had stopped over in Guinea to formulate a stopNasser strategy. Gamal Abdel Nasser, the United Arab Republic leader, who was also attending the meeting in Casablanca, was said to desire recognition not only as leader of the Arab world but also of Africa. It is possible that these leaders discussed details of the Casablanca meeting, but they did not delay their departure from Conakry for this reason. It was simply a question of a fuel shortage-temporary, but long enough to throw off the departure schedule.
As usual, I was on hand for the airport ceremonies at the request of the Protocol Chief. Nkrumah arrived in his sleek Soviet IL-18 with its Czechoslovakian pilots, and then Keita came in from Mali in his DC-3. The wailing of police sirens announced the arrival of President Touré at the airport, so the Protocol Chief asked us to line up againthis time for the departure ceremonies. Liberian Ambassador S. Edward Peal led the way in the absence of the dean of the corps, the Bulgarian Ambassador. Ten minutes later we were still standing in line and there were no signs of activity in the waiting room. After still another ten minutes, I asked Ambassador Peal to suggest to the Protocol Chief that we could wait in more comfort inside. As Ambassador Peal approached the Guinean official, the soldiers on the tarmac came suddenly to attention. We thought the leaders were at last coming out to the planes. Incidentally, I should have mentioned that President Touré also had an IL-18 at his disposal as a result of a flight connecting Guinea with Prague. Thus there were two IL-18's at the airport to transport the three leaders and their huge delegations to Casablanca.
Instead of coming out to the tarmac, Touré, Nkrumah, and Keita turned and disappeared through the front entrance of the airport building. In a moment the sound of motorcycles and automobiles could be distinctly heard, and in a few seconds it was possible to see, beyond the corner of the building, a procession moving in the direction of Conakry.
For the first and only time during my stay in Guinea I saw a look of embarrassment on the face of Protocol Chief Sassone. He announced quietly that there would be a delay of an undetermined duration. He promised to notify us when to return to the airfield. He had hardly finished speaking before the Ghanaian IL-18 took off, after a brief warmup, in the direction of Sierra Leone.
Not until later that day when we finally assembled at the airport to see Touré, Nkrumah, Keita, and some of their Ministers take off in Nkrumah's IL-18 was it possible to piece together an explanation of the strange events of the morning. It had been discovered too late that fuel was going to be needed not only for Touré's IL-18 but also for Nkrumah's. Ordinarily no problem would have been created by this demand, for there seemed to be ample storage tanks in and around the port in Conakry. However, the Ministry of Commerce, responsible for importing fuel from the Soviet Union, was in the middle of negotiations with Western companies owning storage tanks in Guinea to force these companies to store Soviet fuel in their tanks. The latest Soviet shipment had yet to be stored, consequently no kerosene, the fuel used by IL-18's, had been brought to the airfield.
To complicate matters, the nearest tanks containing kerosene were in Sierra Leone, in the sterling zone. Guinea was no longer in the franc zone, and complete arrangements had yet to be made for foreign exchange in areas such as Sierra Leone. Foreign exchange presented no problem to Nkrumah, nor did the sterling zone, for that matter. Nkrumah, therefore, sent his plane to Sierra Leone for refueling and had it return to Conakry to pick up the leaders and their aides for the trip to Casablanca. The others were to follow as soon as the Guinean plane could be fueled. Everybody sighed with relief when Nkrumah's IL-18 soared into the Guinean skies en route to Casablanca.
The visit of the Soviet Union President of the Presidium is the only other visit by a foreign dignitary that merits mention here. Surprisingly enough, the Sukarno visit that preceded Brezhnev's by several months was relatively unimportant and prosaic and gave one the impression that Sukarno was either bored, tired, or both, and was merely going through the motions. I do not recall anything outstanding that was said or done during Sukarno's visit. As for Brezhnev, it was already rumored in Guinea that he was the man to watch as a possible successor to Khrushchev. Nobody was prophesying or betting, however, that Khrushchev was going to be pushed out of the Soviet picture so unceremoniously, and that Brezhnev would become the First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party by 1965.
Two events outside the borders of Guinea set the atmosphere for the visit of the representative of the Soviet Union. The first was the disclosure of the assassination of Lumumba in the Congo. The second was the announcement that the IL-18 bearing Brezhnev to Guinea had been harassed by French fighter planes in the air over North Africa. French sources alleged that the Soviet plane had failed to give advance notice that it would be entering North African airlanes, and when it was challenged had failed to give proper identification. The death of Touré's friend and the harassment of his distinguished visitor's plane gave rise to protestations over Lumumba's “untimely” death and the action of the French fighter pilots.
The Guinean Government issued to the press a statement characterizing the harassment of the Soviet plane as proof of permanent hostility on the part of the French Government toward any policy of co-operation and peaceful coexistence. The attack by the fighter planes—that is, their buzzing of the IL-18-was called an act of ingratitude against the very country that had rescued France from Hitler's grip.
I looked to Sékou Touré to make some kind of public statement in view of the importance attached to the Brezhnev visit, but I did not anticipate the exact nature of the remarks he eventually made. I listened carefully to his welcoming address and tried to get the import of what became the much-discussed Touré statement concerning the identical nature of the views of the Guinean Government and the Soviet Government. Touré complimented the Soviet Union for supporting all people seeking independence and for giving tangible aid to the Algerian struggle for liberation. He decried what he described as the treachery of the United Nations, and then declared:
We have chosen between the forces of exploitation and op. pression characterized by imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism on the one hand, and the socialist forces. We do not fear this choice, by the very reason of its obligatory nature, which is imposed upon all people from the moment they become conscious of the conditions of realizing perfectly their own destiny. …
Touré added, much as an afterthought:
If we have translated with courage the sentiments of the Guinean people in affirming that they are not Communists and that the Parti Democratique de Guinée is not Communist … that the state of Guinea is not an organic extension of any people or the clique of any military or financial coalition, nevertheless, we have the firm conviction to be equally the interpreter of the political and moral thinking of our people, by proclaiming the historic thought which is theirs and which is translated by the merciless struggle against all phenomena pertaining to inipcrialism and colonialism, for the most popular democratization of our society and for the installation of structures which emanate exclusively from the interdependent interest of the people of Guinea and other peoples of the world.
Touré finally spoke the passage which became discussed in many capitals of the world:
Yes, the international policy of your Government [USSR], which we have observed, is deeply engaged in this route of peaceful coexistence, without any ideological or other conditions. Let me be allowed to affirm, therefore, in this respect, the identity of the views of the Government of Guinea with the people and the Soviet Government.
This was the furthest I had ever heard Touré go in expressing the Guinean position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. At that moment I had the impression that the Guinean policy of positive neutrality was moving closer in the direction of neutrality in favor of the East-something which I had predicted since July 1959 unless the West matched words with deeds. There was certainly nothing in the joint statement issued at the close of the Brezhnev visit to dispel my impression. It was not until the expulsion of the Soviet Ambassador in December 1961 for alleged meddling in the internal affairs of Guinea and of its Youth Organization, that the pendulum swung back toward more neutral positive neutrality-if such is possible.
This joint statement referred to above highly praised peaceful coexistence, and condemned the imperialist aggression against the Republic of Congo fostered under the flag of the United Nations. It declared legitimate the Government of Antoine Gizenga in the Congo, and decried the "atrocious slaughter" of the great patriot Lumumba. It lashed out at the colonialist war in Algeria. It indicated that agreement had been reached on Soviet-Guinean co-operation in economic, scientific, and technical fields. It stated that Soviet assurance had been given for an increase in the delivery of machine equipment, petroleum products, and consumer goods, and for the purchase of traditional Guinean exports.
I saw a highly pleased, smiling, and confident Soviet representative climb into his IL-18 after putting on a great show of affection and friendship for an equally smiling President Sékou Touré. I did not foresee—and I don't believe Brezhnev did either—that within less than a year the Soviet Union's troubleshooter, Anastas I. Mikoyan, would be journeying to Guinea to attempt to salvage GuineanSoviet relations left in the air by the precipitous departure of Soviet Ambassador Solod.
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