A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger

Author:Arthur M. Schlesinger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

3. AFRICA VS. EUROPE

The problem of balancing the relative claims of our NATO allies and the new African states was always tricky. It especially affected our policy in the United Nations, confronting Adlai Stevenson, the State Department and the President with a series of delicate decisions. The vote on the Angola resolution in March 1961 had liberated the United States from its position of systematic deference to the old colonial powers. Nonetheless, each new issue had to be met on its merits. Some presented hard choices, and the presidential decision was not made easier by the tendency of both Europeanists and Africanists in the State Department to overstate the dreadful consequences which would follow from favoring the other.

Kennedy was thus considerably concerned in the early months of 1961 with his old problem of Algeria. He watched with sympathy de Gaulle’s careful and circuitous effort to bring his nation to the acceptance of Algerian independence. When the French generals in Algeria mutinied at the end of April and there seemed for a panicky moment the prospect of a paratroop attack on Paris, Kennedy promptly offered de Gaulle his assistance. The collapse of the revolt permitted de Gaulle to move forward; but in the next months, as France finally began talks with the Algerian nationalists, Tunisia took the opportunity to try to drive the French out of their military base at Bizerte. When the French responded by a large and bloody attack, the matter came before the United Nations. In August a special session of the General Assembly met to consider an Afro-Asian resolution calling for the withdrawal of French armed forces from Tunisian territory.

De Gaulle, of course, pronounced the debate no business of the UN and declined to let France take part. In New York Stevenson felt that we should vote for the Afro-Asian resolution. In Washington the Bureau of European Affairs recommended abstention. When I brought the matter to the President, he thought for a moment and then said, “Everyone forgets how shaky de Gaulle’s position is. . . . If the Tunisian affair goes really sour, it might just start a new military revolt. We don’t want the ultras to take over France. With all his faults, the General is the only hope for a solution in Algeria. Tell Adlai that our sympathy is with the anti-colonial nations; but their cause won’t be helped by the overthrow of de Gaulle, nor will our position in Berlin. Let’s sit this one out.”

We abstained without undue damage to our position in Africa. Kennedy then asked the State Department to prepare a letter to Habib Bourguiba, the wise president of Tunisia, in order to “reestablish with you a communication which seems to have been partially interrupted by the incidents of Bizerte.” When I brought it to him for clearance, he strengthened it by scribbling on the draft: “Standing as my country does close to a holocaust that could destroy the U.S. as well as Europe and much of the East, I have not found it possible to take a public position on this matter satisfactory to you.

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