The Cold V d r in North Ahicd: J

Americm Foreign Policy and Postwdr Mndim Nationdim 194-1962

BY PAUL J. ZINGG”

“By following the contemporaries of Marx, Africans would simply exchange one tyranny for a new.”

Chester Bowles, 1956

HE rightward pivot of American foreign policy in the years after World War I1 is no unstudied development. The statement of Chester Bowles above, former United States ambassador to India, reflects an ideological conviction

which was maintained with equal vigor in Western Europe, Greece and Turkey, the Middle East, Guatemala and the Dominican Re- public, and Korea and Vietnam. Although his message of inherent opposition to the anticipated challenges of communism and the Soviet Union could refer to any or all of these areas, it does not. I t applies to North Africa, the land of the Kasbah and the Sahara, a land shrouded in exotic mystery to most Americans, who prob- ably could not identify the countries of the Maghrib and who only know of the area as the place either where the United States launched its first offensive of World War I1 or which served as the setting for a Humphrey Bogart film.

In postwar North Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia - as elsewhere throughout the Third World, a political and social upheaval of dramatic and intense proportions accelerated the na- tionalist movements which had grown in the years before the German surrender. Although America’s attention focused pri- marily on promoting economic recovery in Europe, the quickening pace of the anticolonial struggle in North Africa tested the ill- defined alliance with France and the credibility of American rhetoric. Yet, in challenging American ideals and interests, the conflict between the colonizer and the colonized also provided a North African stage for the exercise of American Cold War policies. Fitted with political blinders, the United States es-

T

*The author is Assistant Professor of History at Southern Benedictine College, St. Bernard, Alabama.

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Muslim Nationalism sentiaIIy saw the Maghrib as an attendant area to the East-West conflict. Such perception universalized a condition which never threatened to dominate North Africa - communism - and ne- gated the significance and reality of a true global phenomenon - Third World nationalism.

Both the French and Muslim North African communities questioned the intentions of the United States in the postwar Maghrib. Yet, both the colonizer and the colonized strove to elicit from the United States support for their respective positions. French fears lest the United States threaten her hegemony in North Africa mingled with an uncertain Muslim view, which op- posed French control on one hand but questioned the benefits of substituting such rule for an American presence on the other. The colonizer reminded the United States of the wartime alliance and political pledges for the restoration of the French colonial empire, as apparently confirmed within the Anfa Accords signed at Casablanca in January 1943 by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henri Giraud. The colonized challenged the United States to translate the liberal rhetoric of the Atlantic Charter and its principled commitment to the right of self-determination into action. In the face of a radicalizing nationalist movement and an entrenched imperialist force, the United States found its foreign policies con- tested in a new and crucial manner.

Despite preoccupation with the problems of peace in Europe and the Far East, the United States did not abandon North Africa at the end of the war. American military authorities accepted a subordinate position to the protectorate governments, but they did not acquiesce completely to French pressures to relinquish all wartime bases. Although, by March 1947, the United States had terminated operations in nearly thirty North African installations, American authorities insisted on the retention of naval and air rights a t Port Lyautey in Morocco.2 An agreement between the American and French Navies, signed in Paris on September 15, 1947, returned the base to nominal French control but retained

The Anfa Accords ratified the Murphy-Giraud and Clark-Darlan agreements of November 1942, which defined an American commitment to the full restoration of French independence and to the reestablishment of French authority over all territories, metropolitan and colonial. The full proceedings of the Casablanca Conference are included in P~Pers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943: Conferences at Washington and Casablanca (Washington 1965), 536-732. Particularly note Roosevelt’s conference with Ciraud, January 19, 1943, 644-47. For a summary of the Anfa Accords see Wiley, consul-general at Algiers, to Secretary of State, telegram, February 6, 1943, National Archives Numerical File [hereafter cited as NANF] 740.0011/European War 1939, 27782, National Archives, Washingcon, D.C.

New York Times, March 15, 1947.

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The Historian for the United States full authority over a special enclave within the base. This arrangement continued until December 1950, when the IJnited States reached a major agreement with France provid- ing for the expansion of American facilities at Port Lyautey and the construction of four new air bases at Sidi Slimane, Nouasseur, Benjirir, and Boulhaut. In Algiers, however, the United States vied unsuccessfully for the right to maintain three radio trans- mitters, which had been established in June 1943, and broadcast as United Nations Radio in Algiers throughout the remainder of the war. The lJnited States lost a potentially powerful communi- cations outlet in the coming cold war of words when French au- thorities contended that since the facilities were wartime measures their continued operation was no longer justified.

Viewing with apprehension the continued American military presence in their empire, the French, in a sense, already had suffered a blow to their prestige at the hands of the Americans due to the ease with which United States troops had occupied North Africa.6 Certainly, if the United States moved beyond its occasional expressions of sympathy for the aspirations of the colonized, French control in North Africa could be jeopardized. In October 1951, Rbne Pleven, commissioner for colonies in the Quai D’Orsay, addressed himself to this possibility in noting that “the United States has lent encouragement to Nationalist move- ments in colonial and semi-colonial nations of the Middle East and North Africa. . . to win over the Nationalists before the Rus- sians do.”7 Similarly, in May 1952, Pleven and a host of other

S l b i d . , May 21, 1947. See Leon Borden Blair, Western Window in the Arab World (Austin, 1970) for details of the “Port Lyautey Base Technical Agreement between the United States and the French Navy.” Blair, who served in Morocco as a technical adviser for the French Navy, a politico-liaison officer, and a liaison ofIicer on the staff of Crown Prince Moulay Hassan, provides the fullest account of the American military presence in Morocco.

On the base negotiations and the difficulties arising out of the construction of the facilities, which precipitated a congressional investigation, see Blair, Western LYindow, chap 7. I. William Zartman, “The Moroccan-American Base Negotiations,” Middle Eust journal 18 (Winter 1964): 27-40, mentions the discussions which led to the dissolution of American control. 0 1 1 the congressional investigation see US., Congress, House, Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, tnnestigalion of Military Public Works, Moroccan Air Eases Construction. 82nd Gong., 2nd sew, 1952, parts 4, 4.2.

6U.S., Department of State [hereafter cited as DS], Bulletin 15, no. 376 (Sep- tembcr 15, 1946): 507-8; 16, no. 405 (April 6 , 1947): 623; 16, no. 414 (June 8, 1947): 1134-35.

This idea particularly is expressed by Blair, Western Window. ‘Quoted in John Roderick, “French Blame the United States for Middle

East Troubles,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 30, 1951. See also RCne Pleven, “The Evolution of the Empire Towards the French Union,” address to the Annual Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, July 21, 1949, for his opinions on the effects of American “emancipation propaganda” on colonial peoples.

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Muslim Nationalism top-ranking French officials, including Premier Antoine Pinay, Minister of France Overseas Jean Letourneau, and the Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, invited Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Ambassador-at-Large Phillip C. Jessup to Paris for a discussion of Franco-American relations in North Africa. The meeting re- sulted in a free-wheeling French attack on “the attitudes of the American administration, the Congress, and the press toward French policy and conduct in North Africa.”*

Releasing “a good deal of pent-up resentment in the process,” Acheson recalled, “Pinay pronounced the indictment with passion and clarity.”B Particularly inflaming to the French was an al- leged sympathetic attitude toward Arab complaints voiced in the press and congressional discussions. This attitude, Secretary Ache- son explained, was made all the more galling considering “every- thing France had done to grant us air bases in North Africa.”lO French sentiments concerning American attitudes on the colonial issue in the Maghrib were even more clearly revealed on the oc- casion of another “lecture” before an American audience. On July 4, 1954, General Augustine Guillaume, resident-general for Morocco, 1951-53, and chief-of-staff for the French Army, chose to enlighten his American listeners on the ways of colonialism:

The Moroccan is xi01 your colonial ancestor. If you iriust choose a parallel, the Moroccan is your American Indian. We did not b u y Casablanca for a string of glass beads, and we did not coop the Moroccans up on reservations. We build along- side them, showing them by example the way of progress. . . . Do not criticize that which you do not understand.”

Such fears of American interference on behalf of the be- leaguered nationalist forces in North Africa were groundless. American policy was not designed to foment revolution or to encourage militant anticolonialism. In fact, in a detailed mem- orandum, “United States Policy towards Colonial Areas and Colonial Powers,” prepared by State Department officer Ridge- way Knight in April 1952, and solidly endorsed by jessup, a “champions of dependent peoples” category excluded the listing of the United States.12 Rather, Jessup disclaimed any American responsibility to “determine or control the timing of the attain- ment of independence by various dependent peoples.”

* Philip C. Jessup, The Birth of Nations (New York, 1974), 117. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York, 1969), 648-49.

lo Ibid., 618. l1 Quoted in Blair, Western Window, 163-64. Blair was present at the reception

12 Jessup, Birth of Nations, 112. when Guillaume delivered his lecture on American colonial ways.

Ibid.

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The Historian Despite such assertions, a visible increase in American e c e

nomic activities in postwar North Africa accompanied the con- tinued military involvement and contributed to the uneasy Franco- American association. The major thrust of American economic interests in North Africa, though, did not develop until after the achievement of Maghribi independence. Then, the rush for Mo- roccan and Tunisian phosphates and Algerian oil stimulated a dramatic increase in United States trade with North Africa.14 In the immediate postwar decade, however, the United States s u p ported the entrepreneurial activities of its nationals and protbgb, who were primarily involved in the sale of surplus war materials and the exploitation of a relatively untapped consumer market, as much to uphold existing rights in the Maghrib as to guarantee future commercial options.

In terms of present realities and subsequent possibilities, France feared an American attempt to move into the anticipated vacuum which would be created with the bankruptcy of French imperial policy. Such views did not recognize that the United States, in its quest for a postwar economic empire in the Maghrib, as else- where, preferred sure cooperation with the colonizer to uncertain allegiance with the colonized. The United States had always insiwd upon the protection of its commercial interests in North Africa and the insurance of its treaty rights and privileges. In- sistence on this position never wavered during the war years. T h e United States merely recognized the exigencies of the wartime situ- ation and consequently did not press the French on consular and capitulatory issues as vigorously as had been the case during the interwar period. American political and private interests were guaranteed substantially, in any event, by the presence of the United States military. With the significant reduction in Ameri-

*‘United States trade with North Africa, 1960-67, increased in value of total exports from $79.2 million to $136.1 million and in total imports from $12.4 million to $20.5 million. These figures, though, represent a foreign trade which is substantially smaller than that offered by North Africa’s leading trading partners, France, Great Britain, Italy, and West Germany. For example, American trade with Morocco in 1969 constituted only 7.5 percent of total Moroccan imports and less than 4 percent of Moroccan exports, as compared with the French figures of 30.5 percent and 35.1 percent respectively. Since the trade figures in the immedi- ate postwar decade - a period before the discovery of oil in the Algerian Sahara - were even smaller, i t is concluded that American economic interests in the Maghrib rested less in the pursuit of an existent market than they did in the assertion of various commercial rights primarily to secure an American presence for strategic and political purposes and, only secondarily, to reap specific economic gains should a lucrative situation develop. For statistical sources see U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of International Programs, Trade of the United States with Africu, World Trade Information series, no. 62-9, (Washington, D.C., 1962); Foreign Area Studies, Morocco (Washington, D.C., 1972); Algeria (Washington, D.C., 1965); Tunzsia (Washington, D.C., 1972).

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Muslim Nationalism tan military strength in North Africa, 1945-47, American consular officials often found their attentions directed to the familiar prewar task of upholding United States treaty rights. l6

The preference of North African consumers for certain Ameri- can products, particularly automotive equipment, and the con- tinued demand for other American goods even after the initial distribution of surplus war materials, posed a distinct challenge to French manufacturers and increased French suspicions that American aims in North Africa were not confined to the defeat of the Axis forces.16 A summary of the harshest French criticisms of American policy in Morocco is contained in “a letter purportedly written by a high French functionary in Casablanca during May, 1Y44.”17 This letter came into the possession of John Goodyear, the American charge! in Morocco, who reported i t “as an example of French sentiment in Morocco which possibly still exists to an unknown extent.” As Goodyear summarized:

I t will be noted that the writer of the letter derides Lend-Lease, calling it “a vast Utopia, a snare and a delusion,” that he accuses the Americans of infiltrating into the phos- phate industry in French Morocco and into the agriculiural industry, and that he is particularly bitter about the assign- ment of colored American troops in the bled.’* He says the Americans plan to make a colony of Morocco after the war.

‘This last point, the notion of an American colony in Moroc- co, was not a passing French fear. In addition to the military

Throughout the interwar period, 1919-41, although an American-North Afri- can policy developed as an adjunct to greater Franco-?lmerican affairs, the United States undertook a vigorous defense of its treaty rights in an effort to secure com- mercial privileges, to protect private investments, and to maintain economic options for the future. Applying a strict interpretation to the 1906 Act of Algeciras and the Moroccan-American Treaty of 1836, the United States frequently opposed any modification to those arrangements or any actions which jeopardized American consular or capitulatory rights. The policy statements and correspondence of Secretaries of State Charles Evans Hughes and Frank B. Kellogg and Maxwell Blake, consul-general in Morocco, 1922-40, as recorded in the Foreign Relations papers and the National Archives Numerical Files, are particularly noted.

lo A useful summary and analysis of French fears concerning American-Moroccan postwar policy, as expressed in the Moroccan press, is offered by Kenneth Campbell in the New York Times, May 21, 1947. Also see Blair, Western Window, 125.

l’ Goodyear to Secretary of State, June 20, 1945, NANF 711.81/2045. -The bled is a shortened reference to the bled al-siba (“areas of dissidence”).

A geopolitical term, the bled represents that area of Morocco where the local leaders recognize the religious leadership of the sultan but deny him temporal authority oier their internal governments. The bled al-siba, or “independent Morocco,” as defined by Charles-Andre Julien, History of North Africa, trans. John Petrie (New York, 1970). is in direct contrast to the bled al-makhzen, the area fuily obedient to the sultan. For an additional definition of the bled see Neville Barbour, Morocco (New York, 1966), 143.

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The Historian and economic activities which centered in Morocco, the increase of American exports to Tangier, the construction of government and privately financed radio stations, and American cultural in- vestnients - the establishment of American schools and United States Jnformation Agency libraries throughout the Maghrib - portended in French eyes an American commitment to North Africa which carried ;in undesirable air of permanence. l9

Neither were French apprehensions allayed by overt recom- mendations from non-American sources for the founding of a n American protectorate over Morocco. G . Kheirallah, €or example, of the Islamic Publishing Company of New York, who toured the United States during the war years lecturing on the subject of North Africa, was such an advocate. Kheirallah reported to Henry Villard, deputy director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs in the State Department, that “on no occasion have I omitted to put forth the necessity of a United States pro- tectorate over Morocco.” 2o Presupposing an expansive role for the United States in the postwar era, the publisher suggested that stra- tegic considerations demanded total American access to overseas bases. “Landleased bases are the orphans of chance and change,” observed Kheirallah. They could never compare with the advan- tages gained from a “self-sustaining continental position.” In glowing terms he continued:

Realism and self-interest commensurate with the stu- pendous responsibility assumed, call for a protectorate by the United States of America over Morocco. This step is no more of an imperialistic venture than the protectorate formerly assumcd by the United States over Cuba, Nicaragua, Santo Domingo, Haiti and many other regions far and near. From my intimate contact and correspondence with many Mo- roccans, I know that from the Sultan to the shepherd, they would welcome this boon with deep gratitude.

These talks have always elicited unstinted approval by the listeners. I hopc that you do not think ine a braggard i f I say that at timcs the approval seemed to be like an ovation. Not once did I reccive from my audiences an unfavorable criti- cism or comment.

Kheirallah implied that his modest proposal was hailed with enthusiasm by both Moroccans and Americans, who accepted

Arno Dosch-Flcurot, “Tangier Seen as Base for United States Radiocasts,” Christinn Science Jfonitor, July 5, 1947; Dosch-Fleurot, “United States Influerice in Tangier Reflected in Land Boom,” Chrislian Science Moni tor , February 9, 1950; Dce arid Tom Hardie, “Triumph for Tangier’s American Schoolmarm,” San Frczwisco Chronicle, February 17, 1953; and Harrison Neglay, “Why They Love Us i n Tangier,” Collier’s 131 (May 16, 1953): 68-73.

2” Kheirallah to Villard, letter, June 7, 1943, NANF 711.81/17.

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Muslim Nationalism without reservation his allusions to an active postwar world role for the United States and the material compensations which those efforts merited. Since a favorite device of the Muslim nationalists in their attempts to dislodge French control was to coddle the iSntericans and British, in particular, with flattery and images of support, it is possible to detect in Kheirallah’s words a certain subtle cleverness at work. In this case, however, such a view quite frankly does not apply.

Kheirallah’s simplistic and, in fact, spurious interpretation of Anierican diplomatic history is only matched in its naivete by his outrageous appraisal of North African indigenous sentiments. The Moroccan totally ignored the simultaneous radicalization and streiigthening of the Muslim nationalist movement in the war period. In contending that the North Africans were willing to accept American authority, Kheirallah implied that to change the flag of the colonizer was to eradicate the oppression of colonialism. Such logic was as far removed from genuine Maghribi nationalist thought as de Gaulle’s contention at the Brazzaville Conference of 1944 that civilization for the North Africans was only possible within the French colonial order.21

Kheirallah may have based his views on the momentary interest of Sultan Muhammad ben Youssef in a new protectorate scheme for Morocco and an erroneous evaluation of the American response to such a proposal. In early 1943, Villard informed Secretary of State Hull that Thnmi al-Glawi, pasha of Marrakech, apparently had been authorized by Muhammand to test American and British opinion on the notion of a joint temporary protectorate over Morocco. The pasha explained that since “the French were no longer in a position to act as the protecting power in Morocco . . . [and] Morocco was not yet ripe for independence,” a joint pro- tectorate plan would be both necessary and welcome. 22

Both Britain and the United States, however, rejected the proposal immediately. Vi!lard noted an American intention not “to disturb the existing French set-up in Morocco at this time . . . .” Although British Consul-General Barclay in Rabat acknowledged that the Allies “might gain short-lived propaganda success in the

De Gaulle pledged that his government would effect a program of full assimi- lation for its colonial empire. He explained:

The objectives of the civilizing work accomplished by France in the colonies reject all idea of autonomy, all possibility of an evolution outside the French bloc of the Empire. An eventual constitution, even in the distant future, of self-government in the colonies is rejected.

See Blair, Western Window, 101; de Gaulle, The War Memoirs, trans. Richard Howard, 2 vols. (New Yolk, 1959), 2: 250.

za H. Earle Russell, consul at Casablanca, to Secretary of State, telegram, Apnl 15, 1943, NANF 881.00/2536A.

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The Historian Moslem world” through a formal displacement of French author- ity, neither the United States nor Great Britain wished to destroy or undermine French prestige in Morocco or to provide an issue which “could only contribute materially to Axis propagan- da. . . . ” 2 3

As the intensification of the respective North African national- ist movements in the postwar decade dramatized, advocates of a continued, though modified, protectorate system grossly misrepre- sented Muslim thought. In contrast to Kheirallah and his Ameri- can audience and those like al-Glawi who had helped the French establish their rule in Morocco and who “owed most of their wealth and prestige to the Protectorate,” 24 the more radical North African leadership clearly recognized that the creed of self-determ- ination was incompatible with the deed of subjugation. A more accurate assessment of Muslim perceptions of the American role in North Africa - one which seriously questions Kheiraliah’s credibility as a spokesman for Moroccan indigenous sentiments and partially explains the rapid transfer of leadership in the Moroccan nationalist movement to the activist Dr. Abdelkrim Khatib after the Sultan’s exile in 1953 - is offered in a brief, yet sobering, statement by an American news correspondent in the Mag hr ib :

The North African Arabs do not feel that we [the United States] were their “liberators” as we tried to convince them that we were. They only know that we were the “liberators” of their hated enemies, liberating the French so that they could continue to misuse the Arab.25

Even the manner in which the most serious Franco-American conflict in North Africa during the crucial postwar decade was set- tled clearly revealed the absence of any American threat to French domination in the Maghrib. In late 1948, American business inter- ests in Morocco, organized as the American Trade Association under the leadership of Colonel Robert Emmet Rodes, commander of the American Legion Post in Casablanca, protested French discriminatory trade practices in Morocco and petitioned the State Department to protect American treaty rights. 26 The crisis height-

58 Villard to Secretary of State, memorandum, April 17, 1943, NANF 881.00/2528. p 4 Clement Henry Moore, Politics in North Africa (Boston, 1970), 76. 26 Jack D. Bock, “French vs. Moslems,” Christian Science Monitor, September

30, 1952, 12. ZUSee Luella J. Hall, The United States and Morocco, 1776-1956 (Metuchen.

New Jeisey, 1971), 1042-44; and Blair, Western Window, 155-57. Contemporary accounts include Thomas F. Conroy, “Treaty Procedure is the Subject of Suit,” New York Times October 23, 1949; and Conroy, “Morocco Violates Treaty in War on American Traders,” Saturday Evening Post 222, no. 51 (January 28, 1950): 10.

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Muslim Nationalism ened for Rodes’s group when, in June 1949, the United States temporarily agreed to allow France a free hand in regulating American imports, provided the same criteria for regulation were applied to all foreign goods.

Contending that the State Department was working more for the interests of France than for those of Morocco or the United States, the American-Moroccan trade interest group initiated an effective lobby in Congress. They particularly urged Congress to withhold $3.2 million in Marshall Plan aid appropriated for Morocco until France ceased to violate American commercial and capitulatory treaty rights. Faced with the possible application of the Hickenlooper Amendment, which allowed the President to withhold credits from any country with dependent territories where American treaty rights were being violated, France moved for final clarification of the nature of American rights in Morocco. In October 1950, France instituted proceedings against the United States in the International Court of Justice.

In the case of the “Rights of Nationals of the United States in Morocco,” decided in August 1952, the Court upheld the American contention of “economic liberty without any inequality” in Morocco based on the American-Moroccan Treaty of 1836 and the Algeciras Act of 1906.27 In thus ruling, the Court declared that France did not have a privileged economic position in Morocco - a decision which implicitly recognized Moroccan sover- eignty. However, the Court did not relieve the United States of responsibility to Moroccan laws to which the United States had not granted prior approval. The most serious of these laws in- volved currency regulation and the fixing of the Moroccan franc to the French franc, a measure which insured French merchants a virtual monopoly of Moroccan trade.

Although the United States had apparently won its initial test before the United Nations Court, American legal success could not dislodge the practiced controls of the French colonial order in Morocco overnight. And, despite the issues involved, as Jessup concluded, “the net result of the litigation on Franco-American relations was not politically very significant. . . .”28 The United States had compelled France into a showdown on the capitulations issue more in respect of its traditional position than in anticipation of undercutting French dominance in Morocco. In the final analysis, United States adherence to the principles of self-deter- mination, the open door, and the maintenance of established treaty

United h’ations, International Couxt of Justice, Report of Judgements, .4dvisory Opinions and Orders, 1951 (New York, 1951). 178-213. The active reporting of Court developments in DS, Bulletin, July 1951-October 1952, is quite helpful.

e8 Jessup, Birth of Nations, 133-34.

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The Historian rights dimmed in importance before an American resolve to forge amicable relations with France, to confirm the strategic advantages of that association, and to favor the position of the colonizer - a position apparently rich in immediate material benefits and con- sonant with Americaii priorities, if not American ideals.

JVorkirig to establish and confirm its economic and military interests in North Africa, the United States soon interpreted the importance of these interests in a much larger context. As elements of traditional policy of upholding its rights and advancing its material interests, the American activity in North Africa after the Second World War constituted a legitimate and limited commit- ment. American interpretations of the nature of communism and the objectives of Soviet foreign policy, however, colored the re- 9ponse of the United States to the intense nationalist upheavals throughout the Third World and elevated even America’s most limited interests to a plane of impassioned involvement and defense. Communism and nationalism, simultaneously and inde- pendently, commanded major roles in the postwar world. Yet, for the United States, a monolithic definition of the former and an ahistorical perception of the latter often confused the forces as being inseparably linked and thus subject to American suspicion and opposition.

Coinmunism was never a major factor in the prewar Maghrib. Especially in hlorocco and Tunisia, the incipient nationalist movements of the 1920s and 1930s had, in fact, rejectcd Marxist theory. Rather, both the Istiglal and the Neo-Destow, the major political organs for Moroccan and Tunisian nationalism respec- tively, endorsed the egalitarianism of Muhammad and the human- ism of Voltaire and Rousseau. The nationalist leadership in these hluslim states championed bourgeois movements which held little fascination for the ideals of international communism. Although the Neo-Destour; in particular, adopted an organizational form whic h ranged from local party cells to regional federations and, finally, to a National Congress which elected a central Political Bureau, its rela tionship to the Communist party was purely schematic, not ideological.

American observers, though, both public and private, generally failed to perceive the substantive differences between North Afri- can nationalism and communism which the similarities in organi- zational structure xarcely concealed. Vice President Richard Nixon warned that “Africa is a priority area for the international communist movement.”29 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles approved the shipment of an arms parcel to Tunisia in late 1957 ancl explained that the weapons were to be used strictly “for de-

Nixon, The Emergence of Africa (Washington, Public Services, 1957), 4.

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Muslim Nationalism fensive purposes” in order to stem any Communist offensives in the area. 30 On another level, Margaret Biddle, a free-lance writer for Look and Flair magazines, commented that the Sultan of Morocco was “playing the Russian game. . . [in] protecting Com- munism . . . and impeding French legislation.”31 She observed that the vast majority of Muslims in Morocco were united in their desire “to disavow the Communist Party and the Zstiglal Party which are working together.” Biddle further added that the Moroccan natives “do not feel they are a part of the Arab world. . . .” The only true Muslim, apparently, was a good French- speaking Christian who daily celebrated the secure and benevolent ways of the French Protectorate.

In Algeria, where the Communists maintained a more visible posture, Americans particularly confused national political devel- opments with foreign ideological controls. The Communist pres- ence in Algeria was never synonymous with political dominance. On the contrary, although the Algerian Communist party (PCA), formed independently from the French Communist party (PCF) in 1935, did exercise a nativist policy in seeking to recruit Arab and Berber members, it never became the spokesman for Algerian interests per se. Despite PCF financial aid for the Etoile Nord Africaine (ENA), Messali Hadj and other leaders of this genuine Algerian nationalist organization admitted no commitments to Marxist ideology. And even though the ENA was organized along Marxist lines, i t did not lose its Algerian identity. The European rharacter of the Communist party, Marxist atheism, and the fre- quent association of the Communists with French colonialist poli- cies all influenced Algerians to favor Muslim leadership and Muslim political parties. 32

“Dulles, Press Conference, November 19, 1957, U.S., 1)s. Bulletin 37, 110. 963. pt. 2 (December 9, 1957): 920.

81 Riddle’s commcnts are included in an article which was found in a letter from James S. Lanigan, an assistant to Averill Harriman, to Matthew J. Donnelly. July 13, 1951, in Harry S. Truman Papers, 203-C, Marry S. ‘Truman Library, Independencc. Missouri.

52 Alf A. Heggoy, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Algeria (Bloomington, l972), 9-10. 246. Also, on the Algcrian nationalist movement in particular see David C. Gordon, T h e Passing of French Algeria (London, 19fi6); David and Mavina Ottoway, Algeria: The Politics of a Socialist Revolution (Berkeley, 1970); William B. Quandt, Xe7~oluttoti and Leaduship: Alperia, 1954-1965 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); and Heggoy, “The Origins of Algerian Nationalism in the Colony and in France,” T h e nlicslim FVo~ld 58, no. 2 (April 1968): 128-40.

Other useful surveys of North African nationalism in gcneral and for reference to the specific states of the Maghrib include Richard M. Brace, Morocco-Algeria- Tuttisin (Eitglewood, Cliffs, 1964); Lorna Hnhn, North Alrica: Nat ionohm l o Nation- hood (Washington, 1960); Allal al-Fasi, The Independence Movements in North Africa, trans. Hazcm Zaki Nuseibcth (New York, 1970); Neville Barbour, A Survey

51

The Historian During the Second World War the opportunities for Com-

munist advancement in North Africa continued to be limited. The Allied occupation, beginning in November 1942, certainly did not threaten the right-wing nature of protectorate and colonial politics. The surest guarantee against Communist penetration in North Africa, however, was the Muslim community itself. Ferhat Hached’s Union Generale Tunisianne d u Travail (UGTT), for example, undercut the potential of the Communist party for at- tracting young Tunisian workers. And in Algeria, the uncertain commitment of the Communists to decolonization and their tacit acceptance of French actions in the May 1945 Setif massacres insured the formal dissolution of ties between the Algerian nation- alists and the PCA.

The proletarian nature of Messali’s nationalist wing and the procedural lessons which the Algerians borrowed from the Com- munis t party raised suspicions among American government offi- cials in the Maghrib. T h e roots of American misunderstanding of the role of the Communist party in Algeria thus stemmed from the false perception of the nature and organization of the Algerian nationalist forces during the war years. The United States saw the shadow of Communist influence in the nationalist movement as a rising, not a fading force. American diplomatic agents warned that the Communist party in Algeria sought the dissemination of Communist propaganda throughout North Africa. 33 Contending that the Communists sought to establish a base of operations in Algeria through their support of indigenous demands for imme- diate independence, State Department officers in the Maghrib propagated a convenient myth concerning Communist influence which fed the paranoia of policymakers in Washington. 34

American foreign policy in North Africa, particularly as the Cold War heightened in the early 1950s, reflected quite accurately the ambivalence which straightjacketed American foreign policy in general. United States policymakers, affected with an insecurity founded on misunderstanding, identified a nonexistent threat as the justification for military expansion in North Africa and the __ of North West Africa (New York, 1959); Jacques Berque, French North Africa: The Alaghrib Between Two World Wars, trans. Jean Stewart (New York, 1967); John P. Halstead, Rebirth of a Nation: The Origins and Rise of Moroccan Nationalism, 1912-1944 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967); Douglas E. Ashford, Political Change in Morocco (Princeton, 1961); Dwight Ling, Tunisia: From Protectorate to Republic (Bloom- ington, 1967); and Nicoia A. Ziadeh, Origins of Nationalism in Tunisia (Beirut, 1963).

81 Russell to Secretary of State, letter, September 20, 1943, NANF 881.00/2643: and Russell to Secretary of State, letter, November 2, 1944, NANF 881.00/11-244.

34Cole, consul at Rabat, to Secretary of State, telegram, April 10, 1944, NANF 88 I .OO/ 2848.

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Muslim Nationalism shelving of self-determinationist commitments. Although even such an ardent leader of the anti-Red jihad as Vice President Nixon conceded that Communist domination in the Maghrib was “not a present danger,” there were few in high places who con- tended that preparation against an anticipated Communist offen- sive was not in the best interests of the country.35

The pervasive “Cold War psychology” of the day outlined the interrelationship between American strategic requirements and North African political stability. This stability was threatened by the impasse between French intentions and Muslim nationalist ambitions. As explained by Ambassador Jessup: “The continuing blandishments of the Communists left open the possibility that the nationalists in French North Africa, although basically non- Communist, might as a last resort risk collaboration with the Communists if they felt it was hopeless to fulfill their aspirations by other means.”36 Following a similar line of reasoning, Deputy Under-Secretary of State Robert Murphy, speaking before the Zionist Organization of America in June 1954, remarked, “Soviet Communism - or Communist imperialism - affects every major problem of foreign policy.”37 T h e implications of such a statement were disturbing: communism was the root of all evil and it was synonymous with a particularly repulsive form of imperialism. Whether or not communism was overtly present, the State Depart- ment could be sure that its agents always were lurking somewhere nearby.

Secretary Dulles offered an interesting opinion on the question of communism vis-i-vis colonialism when challenged to explain American policy during the Franco-Algerian conflict. Three years into the Algerian struggle for national liberation, Dulles declined to brand France reactionary in her conduct of colonial matters. “If anyone is interested in going after colonialism,” the Secretary remarked, “there are a lot better places to go after it than the case of France in Algeria.”38 Dulles identified “the most evil mani- festation of colonialism . . . [as] the denial to people of the oppor- tunity to have governments of their own choosing.” Yet, he assigned a distinct anti-communist priority in his criticisms of colonialism. Dulles did not consider that colonialism, whether exercised by the commissar or the capitalist, imposed a destructive colonizercolonized relationship which could not be graded on a scale of subjective acceptability. As the United States had done,

Nixon, Emergence of Africa, 4. Jessup, Birth of Nations, 114-15.

“Murphy, Address, June 24, 1954, quoted in New York Times, June 25, 1954. SDulles, Press Conference, July 2, 1957, US., DS, Bulletin 37, no. 943, pt. 1

(July 22, 1957): 143.

53

The Historian and would continue to do, Dulles blindly affirmed that the agent of colonialism and the political philosophy it represented deter- mined the relative malevolence or benefit of the institution. Another version of this theory, the conviction that the democratic United States could succeed where colonialist France had failed, likewise affected the American commitment in Vietnam.

Convinced that “the so-called colonial powers represented on the continent of Africa are our friends and allies in the worldwide contest between the free and Communist w0rlds,”3~ the United States naturally opposed any denouement in the decolonization process which suggested a lessening in the anti-Red crusade. Yet, disclaimers concerning a negative American influence in the Third World - “the last thing we would wish would be to try to remake it in our exact image”*O - paled before simultaneous assertions condemning the immorality of Third World neutrality and the error of these states in exhibiting something less than 100 percent pro-Americanism. 41 Although American foreign policy spokesmen implied that it was the African people themselves who strove to avoid Communist domination, it was evident that the United States engaged in a suggestive diplomacy which attempted to con- vince the Africans what they should strive to do. Deceptively stated, the United States reiterated what the Africans themselves allegedly believed and appeared to speak primarily for African interests rather than its own self-interest. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs George V. Allen summarized this approach accurately:

The United States, as a nation, has no selfish interests in Africa, except the preservation of our own security, which we consider, in present world circumstances, inextricably bound up with the kind of future the African countries desire for themselves. 42

In other words, the United States would endorse a native African policy as long as that policy was compatible with American aims. Since an integral element of colonialism is the suppression of the colony’s freedom of choice and self-determination of policy and action, then it is a difficult task, indeed, to disassociate the

*“korge V. Allen, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Address beforc the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Philadelphia, April 21, 1956, IJ.S., DS, Bulleirn 34, no. 879 (April 30, 1956): 717.

4UMu1phy, Address, June 24, 1954, quoted in New York Times, June 25, 1954. Uulles, Address before the Commencement Exercises of Iowa State College,

” Allen, Address, April 21, 1956, U.S., DS, Bulletin 34, no. 879 (April 30, 1956): Ames, Iowa, June 9, 1956, US., DS, Bulletin 34, no. 886 (June 20, 1956): 1001-2.

717.

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Muslim Nationalism policy which Allen endorsed from the policy which he described as having been rejected.

For the nationalists of the Maghrib, the search for official American support of their aspirations was largely disappointing. Too often they confronted a United States which implemented policies and defined positions in direct contradiction of announced principles. The ideal of self-determination particularly suffered. “There is no slightest wavering in our conviction that the orderly transition frvni colonial to self-governing status should be carried resolutely to a completion,” declared Dulles. 43 Yet, in almost the same breath, he defended the politics of evasion, which the United States regularly practiced in the UN on the Moroccan and Tuni- sian independence questions, as part “of a reasoned conviction that precipitate action would, in fact, not produce independence but only a transition to a captivity worse than present dependence.” In the face of such remarks, Farid Zeineddine, the Syrian repre- sentative to the UN, bluntly concluded: “On the whole, the reaction of the United States was unsatisfactory.” 44

North African nationalist efforts to enlist American support for their cause did not dissipate completely despite the disappoint- ing American response and a growing realization of the futility of outside leverage. Habib Bourguiba demonstrated Tunisian ex- pectations of sympathetic American action when he visited the United States in December 1946.45 Received by Lois Henderson, head of the Africa and Near East Division of the Department of State, Bourguiba gained a cordial, but inconclusive, interview with Dean Acheson a t the Saudi Arabian Embassy. Although Bour- guiba contacted all of the United Nations delegations in an attempt to make them aware of Tunisian nationalist activities and griev- ances against French rule, he did not obtain the support he had envisioned. Yet, convinced of the necessity of maintaining a nationalist propaganda agency abroad, he cooperated with the Moroccan Allal al-Fasi in establishing the Maghrib Office in New York in 1947 to advance the concept of North African liberation.

Bourguiba returned to the United States in late 1951 with

uI Dulles, Address before the Annual Convention of the CIO, Cleveland, Ohio, November 18, 1953, quoted in New York Times, November 19, 1953.

United Nations, First Committee, “Remarks of Zeineddine on &he Algerian Question,” OFcial Recoids (AlC.l/PV. 915), November 30, 1957,267.

Accounts of Bourguiba’s activities in the United States unfortunately are limited. Although theie are no noted reports on his 1946 visit, the 1951-52 trip received extentled coverage and prompted several anticolonialist editorials. See New York Tirnus, September 3-23, 1951; Nation 174, no. 4 (January 26, 1952): 71; Andrew Roth, “Tunisian Tinder Box.” Nation 174, no. 6 (February 9, 1952), 126-28; and Christian Century 68 (September 19, 1951): 1067.

55

The Historian Ferhat Hached.48 The independent course of the UGTT and its recent association with the anticommunist International Confeder- ation of Free Trade Unions merited the Tunisians an invitation to attend the American Federation of Labor national conference in San Francisco (September 1951). At the convention they sealed a pact of friendship with the American union, but, more impor- tant, they gained access to a legitimate American and interna- tional forum for the expression of their nationalist aspirations. The Tunisian search for allies abroad expanded with the establish- ment of the Tunisian Office for National Liberation in New York in early 1952. Headed by Bahi Ladgham, permanent delegate of the Neo-Destour to the UN, the office operated, in fact, as a center for all North African nationalists. 47 Publication of the pamphlet series Free Morocco, April 1953-June 1955, by the Moroccan Office of Information and Documentation, further aided in the dissem- ination of nationalist literature and ideas.

The United States was neither totally calloused to Third World disappointment and frustration nor insensitive to the specific colonizer-colonized conflict in North Africa. Yet, while the Ameri- can voting record in the UN provided a clear target for criticism,‘*

Both the Truman and Eisenhower presidential libraries contain important materials relative to the support for the Moroccan-Tunisian nationalist movements registered by American and North African interests alike during the postwar decade. The Eisenhower Library contains a greater volume of papers relating to North African topicq, although the bulk of these holdings refer to the World War I1 experience and are listed primarily with the Mark Clark Papers. Telegrams and letters to the White House and State Department from such diverse groups as the NAACP, Post War World Council, United African Nationalist Movement, Italians for Tunisia, Methodist Peace Commission, American Association for the United Nations, and the National Affairs Committee of the City Club of Chicago urgcd the United States to support UN consideration of the North African issues. Calling upon the United States, for example, to “ally herself with the 500,000,000 African peoples, . . . to gain the confidence of the African peoples of the world, . . . [and] to make a commitment to the African Nationalist leaders here and in Africa for the liberation of their homeland,” these group petitions often were 5upplemented with letters from individual American citizens and correspondence from such Muslim organizations as the Committee for the Freedom of North Afric.1, World Muslim Conference, and the Moroccan and Tunisian National Movcmertt offices in New York. The quote included above is in James P. Lawson, piesident, United African Nationalist Movement, to the President of the United Ttates, telegram, March 11, 1951, Harry S. Truman Papers, 203-G, Truman Library.

4T On specific Tunisian nationalist activities in the United States, 1945-52, see Secretary of State for Infoimation, Government of Tunisia, Etudes et Documents: Ley lielottons TuniswU.S.A. (Tunis, 1959), 70-72; “Tunisia and America,” Carthage: Tunrsrnn Qwzrterly Review 8 (May 1967): 67; and Wilfred Knapp, Tunisia (London,

48 When the United States finally acceded to Arab-Asian proposals in mid-1952 to include the Moroccan and Tunisian questions on the UN agenda, the State Drpaitment rommitted itself only on a procedural issue, not a substantive one. The

56

1970), 132-33.

Muslim Nationalism the critics of American policies in North Africa, in numbers too few or too insignificant to effect an attitudinal change on the part of the State Department, were also trapped in the paranoid style of the Cold War, which tended to overshadow any valid points they made regarding the abandonment of traditional ideas.

When Representative Jacob Javits of New York, for exampIe, expressed doubts over American abstentions in the UN on the Tunisian crisis, he merely afforded Secretary Acheson with another opportunity to define the American record. Acheson applauded both the aspirations of the Tunisian people and the reformist spirit of the French government. “It is our view that the French were not opposed to the discussion of a reform program leading to the goal of autonomy which is what the Tunisians desire,” he explained. 4B As Dulles later would contend, Acheson essentially advised the colonized to strive for their liberation within the limits established by the colonizer - a formula of evolutionary change which implicitly worked to the benefit of the colonialist forces.

Senator Lister Hill of Alabama and George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, particularly questioned the apparent abandon- ment of the principle of self-determination by the United States in the North African nationalist crises. Both men, however, left no doubt that their criticisms stemmed less from a commitment to Muslim independence than they did from a fear that the diver- sion of several hundred thousand French troops to North Africa and the diffusion of American arms to both sides in the decoloniza- tion conflict would seriously weaken the strength of NATO forces in Europe against the larger menace of communism. “American interests can only be imperiled and not helped,” concluded Hill, when “the important strategic interests of the United States in North Africa” are threatened by the current instability.60 I n a similar vein, Meany declared:

United States did not waver in its support of France’s ability to handle North African matters. Although Acheson maintained that American support of French policy in the Maghrib was conditioned upon the enactment of a reform program. the continued repressions. treaty violations, and warfare throughout North Africa reduced French pledges before the UN and the United States to a pathetic farce. Failing to disavow itself with French policy, the United States risked guilt through association with the French way. See Acheson, Present at the Creation, 648-49 and Jessup, Birth ot Nations, 136-37.

4D Javits to Acheson, letter, April 18, 1952; Acheson to Javits, letter, May 1, 1952, US., DS, Bulletin 26, no. 673 (May 19, 1952): 799.

60U.S., Congress, Senate, “Remarks of Senator Hill on Affairs in Tunisia and the Role of the United Nations,” 82d Cong., 2d sess., April 8. 1952, Congressional Record 98: 3673-74.

57

The Historian i \ ’e of the RFL-CXO protest vigorously even a single Ameri-

can helicopter or any other military equipment designated for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the defense of free Europe, being used against the Algerian national libera- tion forces. 5l

T h e occasional questions raised by Javits, Hill, Meany, and others merely served as a prelude to the most heralded criticism of the American position on the Maghribi decolonization crisis which John F. Kennedy, the junior senator from Massachusetts, raised in July 1957, Terming “man’s eternal desire to be free and independent . . . [as] the most powerful single force in the world today . . . ,” Kennedy envisaged an inevitable struggle between that force and its “great enemy,” i m p e r i a l i ~ r n . ~ ~ For the United States, Kennedy instructed, “the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism.” He continued:

I am concerned today that we are failing to meet the challenge of imperialism. . . . It has repeatedly been appealed for discussion to the United Nations, where our equivocal remarks and opposition to its consideration have damaged our leadership and prestige in that body. . . . It has affected our standing in the eyes of the free world, our leadership in the fight to keep that world free, our prestige and our security. . . . No, Algeria is no longer a problem for the French alone nor will it ever be again.53

Admitting a reluctance “to appear critical of our oldest and first ally,” Kennedy, nevertheless, chided France for adhering “to the same rigid formulas” which continued to impede meaningful negotiations. H e admitted “tremendous obstacles” in the Algerian thrust €or self-determination, yet he expressed confidence in the attainment of “a solution which will recognize the independent personality of Algeria and establish the basis for a settlement inter- dependent with France and the neighboring nations.” T o this end, Kennedy proposed a resolution which strongly urged the United Slates to place its influence behind such efforts.

Although filled with passages which contributed to the develop- ment of an aura of liberalism about Kennedy, the speech failed tests of liberal credibility and ideological depth. T h e Senator’s words and the enlightened approach they allegedly upheld were based, in fact, on a rather deceptive and limited commitment to

New York Times, September 5 , 1956. 63 U S , Congress, Senate, “Remarks of Senator Kennedy on the Algerian Crisis,”

85th Cong., 1st sess., July 2, 1957, Co?zgressionaZ Record: 10780-88. Kennedy, Facing Facts on Algeria (Washington, 1957), 3-4.

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Muslim Nationalism full self-determination. Despite his rhetorical identity with the cause of Algerian nationalism, Kennedy’s primary concern with the conduct of American foreign relations focused on the strength of the nation’s anticommunist policy. A cold warrior and counter- revolutionary par excellence, Kennedy was more concerned that the use of American arms and the deployment of French troops against the Algerian rebels would weaken N A T O forces in Europe than he was with the legitimate aspirations of the Algerian people.

His Senate speech fairly bristles with such concerns -an em- phasis conveniently overlooked by those who would ascribe to Kennedy an attitude which was, a t best, contrived. T h e following passage reveals the real Kennedy, the stained-glass liberal caught u p in the politics of the Cold War:

The war in Algeria, engaging more than 400,000 French soldiers, has stripped the continental forces of NATO to the bone. It has diluted the effective strength of the Eisenhower doctrine for the Middle East, and our foreign aid and informa- tion programs. It has endangered the continuation of some of our most strategic airbases, and threatened our geographical advantages over the Communist orbit. f t ] . . . has steadily drained the manpower, the resources, an the spirit of one of our oldest and most important allies - a nation whose strength is absolutely vital to the Free World.

As Lister Hill and George Meany had emphasized earlier, Ken- nedy asserted that the crime of the French counterinsurgency pro- gram in Algeria was not so much the opposition to legitimate nationalist forces as i t was to the use of American arms targeted for NATO and the diversion of material and ideological attentions and energies away from the central issue at hand, the containment of the Soviet Union and communism. Kennedy certainly recog- nized the vitaIity of the AIgerian liberation movement and, per- haps, the inevitable achievement of Algerian independence. Yet, i t was not a movement he could champion without reservation. I n calling for an end to the Algerian conflict, Kennedy encour- aged the cause of the colonized on one hand and responded to the American national security interest on the other. He demon- strated, in curious fashion, the occasional compatibility between the principle of self-determination and the fulfillment of the national interest. However, born out of the expediency and the demands of the Cold ’CVar, the bond was brittle and temporary. I n the presidency, John F. Kennedy would not hesitate to unfurl the banner of counterinsurgency, to reveal the confined scope of his liberal vision, and to oppose the very forces which he sup- posedly endorsed in 1957.

Even the most valid aspects of the criticisms raised by Kennedy 59

The Historian and others did not move the United States to a realistic assessment of the North African situation and its voting record in the UN. Moreover, and more basically, they hardly induced an introspec- tive appraisal of American interests and ideals. Throughout the postwar struggle for independence in the Maghrib, the United States continued to wave the banner of self-determination but cau- tioned against its accomplishment; State Department spokesmen applauded the aspirations of North African nationalists but bland- ly assured France of the wholehearted and solid support of the United States for French policy in the Maghrib; American offi- cials expressed understanding of North African suspicions towards Western colonialism and its agents, yet they found it incongruous that the Muslims did not join the global crusade against com- munism with the same vigor which characterized the American effort. “The attitude of these uncommitted peoples is full of paradoxes,” observed Under-Secretary of State Murphy. 64 Murphy, however, failed to note that the apparently paradoxical style of the colonized, which he freely criticized, was partly a product of the colonial policy of assimilation - the molding of the colon- ized in the image of the colonizer.

And, as always, Dulles maintained the offensive against both his policy critics and the Communist devil. Lest the absence of an influential Communist party in certain Third World areas fool the United States “into dropping . . . its guard before the peril is really past,” the Secretary of State continued to recommend an aggressive mutual security program to achieve “the common

Yet, as unilaterally defined by the United States, “the common good’ necessitated a policy of upholding the status quo and opposing uncertain political change. Decolonization, then, threatened to disrupt the status quo. Although the force of this movement was undeniable, as its development was inevitable, the United States and the colonial powers gambled that its progress could be controlled. Orderly evolution, as opposed to violent revolution, formed the basis of American decolonization policy. And, as has been the case so often, the simplicity of this doctrine created uncompromising extremes. For the colonized to reject any plans of graduated self-determination proposed by the colon- izer was to preach heresy.

At best, the United States frequently affirmed that it endorsed a “middle-of-the-road” policy on colonial questions. This policy itself, however, was inherently colonialist. Under its aegis, self- determination was defined not by those who aspired to it, but by

Murphy, Address, June 24, 1954, quoted in New York Times, June 25, 1954. Dulles, Address before the National 4-H Congress, Chicago, November 29, 1954.

quoted in New I’ork Times, November 30, 1954.

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Muslim Nationalism those who recoiled from it. If the United States had not possessed an ideological and material stake in the decolonization process, a “middle-of-the-road” attitude might have been diplomatically practical. Even so, it never was practiced. The direction in which the United States perceived the Cold War to be headed dictated a limitation of the commitment, not the rhetoric, of self-determin- ation. The United States defined its interests along reactionary and apprehensive lines, and a universal, unqualified commitment to self-determination could not spring from such seed.

61