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Speaking with Many Voices: Continuity and Change in U.S. Africa Policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Peter J. Schraeder
Peter J. Schraeder
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Loyola University, Chicago.
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Extract

The story of the blind men and the elephant is universally known. Each…concluded that the elephant had the appearance of the part he had touched. Hence, the blind man who felt the animal's trunk concluded that an elephant must be tall and slender…Others of course reached different conclusions. The total result was that no man arrived at a very accurate description of the elephant. Yet, each man had gained enough evidence from his own experience to disbelieve his fellows and to maintain a lively debate about the nature of the beast.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 373 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

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9 Other Bureaux in the State Department, although generally in agreement over the necessity to pursue diplomatic options, have missions which can conflict with those pursued by African Affairs. For example, the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs is naturally more concerned with European sensitivities when African issues arise and, thus, serves to reinforce the executive branch's tendency to defer to European, as opposed to African, sensitivities.

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13 These observations result from the author's internship with the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Djibouti during 1987.

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62 Quoted in Hughes, Anthony J., ‘Randall Robinson: executive director of TransAfrica’, in Africa Report, 25, 1, 01–02 1980, p. 9.Google Scholar

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64 See Weissman, Stephen R. and Carson, Johnnie, ‘Economic Sanctions Against Rhodesia’, in John, Spanier and Joseph, Nogee (eds.), Congress, the Presidency and American Foreign Policy (New York, 1981).Google Scholar

65 The ‘40 committee’ reviewed funding proposals for covert intervention. The four members of this National Security Council sub-committee were Kissinger, William Clement, Deputy Secretary of Defense, William Colby, Director of the C.I.A., and General George S. Brown, who chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

66 Bender, , loc. cit. p. 99.Google Scholar

67 The Senate agreed to the Tunney Amendment by a vote of 54 to 22, and in January 1976 the House of Representatives concurred by voting 323 to 99 in favour.

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70 For a succinct overview, see Baker, Pauline H., The United States and South Africa: the Reagan years (New York, 1989).Google Scholar

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid. p. 31.

74 Ibid.

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76 Quoted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sub-Committees on International Economic Policy and Trade, and on Africa, Legislative Options and United States Policy toward South Africa (Hearings, 9 04 and 4–5 06 1986), 99th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C., 1987), p. 246.Google Scholar

77 Quoted in Baker, Pauline H., ‘The Sanctions Vote: a G.O.P. milestone’, in The New York Times, 26 August 1986.Google Scholar

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80 Quoted in Perlez, Jane, ‘Africans Fear Their Needs Will be Placed on the Back Burner’, in The Mew York Times, 27 December 1989, p. A4.Google Scholar

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82 Confidential interview.

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86 See Petterson, Donald K., ‘Democracy Can Take Hold in Africa’, in The New York Times, 19 May 1990, p. A15.Google Scholar

87 Quoted in press release by U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, ‘Winds of Change in Africa’, 7 June 1990.