White Malice

Susan Williams

• Publisher: Hurst Publishers
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781787385559
• eBook ISBN:
  9781787385825
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

Accra, 1958. Africa’s liberation leaders have gathered for a conference, full of strength, purpose and vision. Newly independent Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Congo’s Patrice Lumumba strike up a close partnership. Everything seems possible. But, within a few years, both men will have been targeted by the CIA, and their dream of true African autonomy undermined.

The United States, watching the Europeans withdraw from Africa, was determined to take control. Pan-Africanism was inspiring African Americans fighting for civil rights; the threat of Soviet influence over new African governments loomed; and the idea of an atomic reactor in black hands was unacceptable. The conclusion was simple: the US had to ‘recapture’ Africa, in the shadows, by any means necessary.

Renowned historian Susan Williams dives into the archives, revealing new, shocking details of America’s covert programme in Africa. The CIA crawled over the continent, poisoning the hopes of 1958 with secret agents and informants; surreptitious UN lobbying; cultural infiltration and bribery; assassinations and coups. As the colonisers moved out, the Americans swept in—with bitter consequences that reverberate in Africa to this day

NOTES

Many of the archive collections cited as sources are referred to in the notes by abbreviated references. Each such reference corresponds to an entry in the List of Archives, where more information about the collection can be found.

1. Freedom at Midnight

1. Information given in this chapter about the independence celebrations is drawn from a range of sources, including: Raymond, Black Star in the Wind; Powell, Private Secretary; I M R Maclennan to the Earl of Home, 1 May 1957, TNA, DO 35/9203; Cameron Duodu, ‘6th March 1957—You’d Simply Have Loved to Have Been There!’, Modern Ghana, 6 March 2018, www.modernghana.com/news/839638/6th-march-1957-youd-simply-have-loved-to-have.html.

2. Duodu, ‘6th March 1957—You’d Simply Have Loved to Have Been There!’

3. The author is grateful to John Cowley for sharing his research on the Highlife.

4. ‘The Birth of a New Nation’, sermon delivered by Martin Luther King Jr at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 7 April 1957, The Martin Luther King, Jr, Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, King Papers 4:1604:160.

5. I M R Maclennan to the Earl of Home, 1 May 1957, TNA, DO 35/9203.

6. Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite, p 32.

7. Ibid, p 35.

8. Powell, Private Secretary, pp 31–32.

9. Ibid, p 31.

10. Ibid, p 76.

11. Frederick, Ten First Ladies of the World, pp 128–129.

12. Quoted in Charles Leonard, ‘The Nkrumahs’ Marriage Was No Match Made in Heaven’, Mail and Guardian, April 14, 2020.

13. Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite, p 59.

14. Raymond, Black Star in the Wind, p 277.

15. Powell, Private Secretary, p 103.

16. Raymond, Black Star in the Wind, p 276.

17. Ibid, p 279.

18. Ibid, pp 279–280. The description of Benedictov as ‘handsome’ was made by Powell in Private Secretary, p 106.

19. Ibid, pp 271–272.

20. Urquhart, Ralph Bunche, pp 277 and 283.

21. Quoted in James, George Padmore and Decolonization from Below, p 181.

22. Raymond, Black Star in the Wind, p 276.

23. See, for example TNA, KV 2/1849, and TNA, KV 2/1851.

24. Ray, Crossing the Color Line, pp 212, 215–217.

25. Powell, Private Secretary, p 103.

26. Ibid, pp 108–109.

27. Gaines, American Africans in Ghana, p 82.

28. Marais, Kwame Nkrumah, pp 9, 88, 97, and 12.

29. Vincent Djokoto, ‘Genoveva Esther Marais: The Woman Rumored to Be Nkrumah’s Secret Lover’, GhanaWeb, 28 June 2020, https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Genoveva-Esther-Marais-The-woman-rumoured-to-be-Nkrumah-s-secret-lover-992371.

30. Radio interview with Martin Luther King Jr by Etta Moten Barnett, Accra, 6 March 1957, The Martin Luther King, Jr, Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, King Papers, 4:146.

31. King, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol 4, p 9.

32. Quoted and discussed in Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p 91.

33. Raymond, Black Star in the Wind, p 279.

34. Powell, Private Secretary, p 106.

35. Batsa, The Spark, pp 31–32.

2. ‘My Home is Over Jordan’

1. Frederick, Ten First Ladies of the World, p 130.

2. Davidson, Black Star, pp 25–30.

3. FBI report on Kwame Nkrumah, 29 May 1945, FBI 100-21745, reproduced in Rahman, The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah, pp 76–77.

4. Alden Whitman, ‘Nkrumah, 62, Dead: Ghana’s Ex-Leader’, New York Times, 28 April 1972; Sherwood, Kwame Nkrumah, pp 51, 75, 79.

5. Davidson, Black Star, p 32.

6. Milne, Kwame Nkrumah: A Biography, pp 11-12.

7. Nkrumah, The Autobiography, pp 42–43.

8. Andrew Glass, ‘Eisenhower Apologizes for Racial Insult, Oct. 10, 1957’, Politico, 10 October 2018, www.politico.com/story/2018/10/10/eisenhower-apologizes-racial-insult-1957-880971.

9. Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans, p 172.

10. ‘Portrait of Nkrumah as Dictator’, New York Times, 3 May 1964, p 10.

11. Quoted in Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans, p 174; emphasis in the original.

12. Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans, p 174.

13. Nesbitt, ‘Race for Sanctions’, pp 84–85.

14. Powell, Private Secretary, p 136.

15. ‘Year of Return Tour’, Ghana Tech Summit, London, 1 November 2019, Movemeback, www.movemeback.com/about/.

16. ‘Beyond the Return’, Visit Ghana, https://visitghana.com/beyond-the-return/, accessed 15 March 2021.

17. Myers refers to Fage and Oliver, The Cambridge History of Africa, 2:295–296, 3:472–473, 4:216–217.

18. This is the Slave Voyages Database (Slave Voyages: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade—Database, www.slavevoyages.org), created by the Em...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps
• I. The United States of Africa
• II. The CIA
• III. African Jazz
• IV. America and Africa
• V. ‘Indépendance Cha Cha’
• VI. YQPROP
• VII. The Global Game
• VIII. Carrot and Stick
• IX. The Turning Point
• X. The Seeds are Sown
• XI. Dark Days
• Acknowledgements
• List of Acronyms
• List of Archives
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index