An Assessment of Current American Influence in Africa

Uncertainty about domestic and foreign policies in areas where the United States has vital interests makes haz ardous an assessment of current American influence in Africa. An effective American influence in that continent is weakened by several liabilities. The United States is so greatly over- extended by commitments in so many crisis areas that Africa does not receive the necessary high-level attention. Many of these commitments require continued support of dictatorships and other governments which enables some Africans to scoff at the American role of "Leader of the Free World." On our domestic front, federal, state, and local governments, supported by nongovernmental organizations, are attacking with varying degrees of success the inequalities imposed upon most American Negroes. 1 Watts I, Watts II, other violent eruptions, and the acquittal of many whites who have been charged with the mur der of civil-rights workers and of men and women not engaged in civil-rights activities more than offset in the minds of Afri cans the onslaughts on segregation and discrimination. African Negroes living in the United States are understandably more prone to write home about segregation and discrimination from which they suffer than about the organizations and individuals engaged in promoting a better knowledge of Africa. On the African continent, American policy in Rhodesia and South Africa constitutes the greatest current liability. In mid-1966, the African policy of the United States may still have time to reduce its liabilities and increase its assets.