<--PREV Doc #1598  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1600 Document #1599; August 2, 1960 To Kwame Nkrumah Series: EM, AWF, International Series: Ghana ; Category: Cable. Secret The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XXI - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part X: Ending an Era; August 1960 to January 1961 Chapter 23: "To keep the Free World free"   As Ambassador Halm has doubtless reported to you, the State Department has been keeping in touch with African Ambassadors here on the rapidly changing situation in the Congo.1 We are agreed that this situation is unique and that, while it presents grave dangers to world peace, it is also a great challenge to statesmanship and an opportunity for the UN in general and the African states in particular. If this challenge can be successfully met I feel that the world may be able to enter on a new stage of interdependence and healthy development.2 We are also agreed that the immediate problem is the speedy resolution of the Belgian troop and Katanga questions.3 I am convinced that SYG Hammarskjold, though hampered by strong conflicting pressures and passions, is doing his best to carry out his SC mandate. In this effort the US is backing and supporting him to the hilt, not only because we believe that the SC resolution is the right one, but also because we feel that if the UN were unsuccessful or discredited in the Congo, the results for world peace and cooperation would be disastrously tragic. Important as are these immediate problems, I believe we should start looking beyond them to the situation which will exist after they are solved. The Congo will, I fear, have almost no trained experienced personnel to administer the country and operate the economy. This puts the Congo, it seems to us, in a position unique amongst all newly independent countries. It will be forced for a period of a few years at least, to entrust the country’s essential services to outsiders. In this situation it seems vital to me that the Congo be effectively protected against conflicting power politics or other pressures which could not but have an unfortunate effect on its healthy, harmonious and independent development. Our first thought was that this protection might be provided by means of a contract between the UN and the Congolese Government under which the former would be the exclusive agent for the supply of administrative, technical and financial assistance to the latter. As Secretary Herter told Prime Minister Lumumba last week, the US is prepared to contribute its fair share to this common effort.4 In these circumstances Secretary Herter and I would greatly appreciate the benefit of an exchange of views with you. I am therefore asking my Ambassador to the Congo, The Honorable Clare H. Timberlake, to stop at Accra to see you, probably on August 5.5 He has been back in Washington on consultation for a few days during which Secretary Herter and I have discussed the Congo situation with him fully.6 He has my full confidence and I hope you will be able to see him and share with him quite frankly your thoughts on this urgent problem. 1 William Q. M. Halm, ambassador from Ghana to the United States. 2 Intertribal conflict and military rebellion had broken out in the Republic of Congo, formerly the Belgian Congo, a few days after gaining its independence on June 30, 1960. Without the permission of the Congolese government, Belgium had deployed troops to protect its remaining white citizens; this action violated an as yet unratified treaty made by the two countries on the eve of independence. In response, the Congolese government had appealed to the United Nations for military aid to help restore order to the region, and the Security Council had agreed. On July 14 the Security Council had passed a resolution authorizing Secretary General Hammarskjöld to organize military and technical assistance and asking the Belgian troops to withdraw from the Congo (Telephone conversations, Eisenhower and Herter, July 12, 13, Aug. 8, 9, and Hagerty and Herter, July 20, Herter Papers, Telephone Conversations). For background see Eisenhower, Waging Peace, pp. 571 - 76; see also Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1960 - 61, pp. 635 -36, 679, 683; Ernest W. Lefever, The Crisis in the Congo: A United Nations Force in Action (Washington, D.C., 1965), esp. pp. 1 - 45; Rajeshwar Dayal, Mission for Hammarskjold: The Congo Crisis (Princeton, 1976), pp. 1 - 47. 3 Katanga Province had declared itself independent from the Congo Republic on July 11. With large copper and uranium mines, it was the wealthiest of the Congo’s provinces and retained substantial Belgian investments. Katanga’s new president had requested the presence of the Belgian military while refusing U.N. troops right of entry. The Congolese government accused Belgium of masterminding the secession. For developments see no. 1611. 4 On July 27, 1960, Herter and other officials had met with Congo’s Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. A former postal clerk, Lumumba had emerged as the leader of the militant faction of the Congo’s nationalist movement. The Administration viewed him as an unstable, pro-Soviet force in the increasingly conflicted Congolese government. Lumumba had come to the United States to solicit technical assistance and economic aid and had threatened to turn elsewhere if the United Nations did not persuade Belgium to remove its troops (State, Foreign Relations, 1958 - 1960, vol. XIV, Africa, pp. 351 - 66, 368). 5 Timberlake (A.B. University of Michigan 1929), the new U.S. Ambassador to the Congo, would meet August 6 with Nkrumah, an anti-colonialist whom the Administration viewed as an ally of Lumumba. Although Nkrumah would agree that the United Nations should handle all technical and financial assistance to the Congo, he would write Eisenhower that any attempt to detach Katanga from the Congo state, a development that some Africans felt the United States supported, would have "disastrous consequences" for African opinion and the balance of world political forces (Aug. 5, 1960, AWF/I: Ghana; State, Foreign Relations, 1958 - 1960, vol. XIV, Africa, pp. 390 - 92). For developments see no. 1605. 6 Timberlake had attended the National Security Council meeting on August 1, along with Eisenhower and the Secretary of State (NSC meeting minutes, AWF/NSC). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Cable. Secret To Kwame Nkrumah, 2 August 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1599. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/1599.cfm <--PREV Doc #1598  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1600

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