“American business can assist [African] hands:” the Kennedy administration, US corporations, and the cold war struggle for Africa

Abstract

While there has been significant historical interest in President Kennedy’s approach to Africa, historians have not considered in-depth how American economic aid to Africa became tied to the expansion of US business involvement on the subcontinent. A close examination of these issues reveals that the Kennedy administration saw the US Agency for International Development (USAID)’s economic aid programs as a critical mechanism for the resolution of America’s balance of export payments problems, and that Kennedy administration officials worked assiduously to bring American corporate interests to bear on questions of African economic development. This essay argues that the Kennedy administration promoted and fostered an environment that encouraged increased American business investment in Africa. This contention emerges from an analysis of the evolution of Kennedy’s views on Africa, including his support for African nationalist aspirations and for economic development and education, and their impact on administration policy. We examine sources from the Kennedy administration and from the papers of G. Mennen Williams, Kennedy’s Undersecretary of State for Africa and in so doing, we argue that the Kennedy administration fostered an approach to sub-Saharan African economic development that forged a robust relationship between government aid and American business investment. The Kennedy administration’s embrace of the principles of free enterprise heralded a major shift in US relations with Africa. This point is further underscored by our examination of the significant growth of US-headquartered multinational corporations’ investments in Africa during and immediately following Kennedy’s presidency.

Keywords:

• Kennedy
• Africa
• development
• business
• USAID
• foreign policy
• neoliberalism
• globalization

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank The Sixties anonymous peer reviewers; our colleagues Robert Cook and Clive Webb for their development of this special issue; the University of Sussex’s Centre for American Studies for its support for “JFK: A Fifty Year Retrospective,” at which this article was presented in an earlier formation; the University of Sussex’s School of History, Art History and Philosophy for supporting the archival research for this article; Tom Allcock for valuable suggestions; John Munro for his time and insightful feedback; Adriana Chira and Elizabeth Pingree for their research assistance; and Louis Hyman and the Economic Methods for Historians Workshop at Cornell University.

Notes

1. Williams, “New Patterns of African Trade.”, 666.

2. Ibid., 668.

3. Ibid., 670.

4. By suggesting that Williams’s commitment to Africa was guided more by his desire to push forward US corporate investment on the continent than it was by a commitment to African freedom, our analysis differs significantly from that offered by historian Thomas Noer in his recent biography of Williams. See Noer, Soapy.

5. On the trajectory and development of Kennedy’s interest in international affairs, see, for example, Dallek, An Unfinished Life.

6. Important studies of Kennedy’s presidency include Dallek, An Unfinished Life; Parmet, Jack; Parmet, JFK; Ling, John F. Kennedy; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days; Sorensen, Kennedy. Kennedy could be frank in his admission that foreign, rather than domestic, issues were his highest concern. As he remarked to Richard Nixon following the Bay of Pigs debacle: “it really is true that foreign affairs are the only important issue for a president to handle […] I mean, who gives a shit if the minimum wage is $1.15 or $1.25, in comparison to something like this?” (quoted in Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 24).

7. See Mahoney, JFK; Little, “New Frontier on the Nile;” Lefebvre, “The United States, Ethiopia;” Meriwether, “Worth a Lot of Negro Votes;” Muehlenbeck, Betting on the Africans; Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World; Romano, ‘No Diplomatic Immunity.”

8. In recent years, a substantial literature on the history of neoliberalism has developed. See, for example, Bockman, Markets in the Name of Socialism; Harcourt, The Illusion of Free Markets; Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism; Peck, Constructions of Neoliberal Reason; Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands.

9. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, xxi. For an example of Kennedy’s rhetoric concerning this fear, see Address to Democratic Party of Cook County, Chicago, 28 April 1961 in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961. Washington, DC: US Government, 1962, 340.

10. See John F. Kennedy, “The United States and Africa: A New Policy for a New Era,” remarks, second annual conference of the American Society of African Culture, New York, 28 June 1959, Pre-Presidential Papers, Presidential Campaign Files, 1960, Speeches and the Press. Speeches, Statements, and Sections, 1958–1960, Foreign affairs: The United States and Africa – A New Policy for a New Era, 4. Papers of John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, MA (hereafter Kennedy Papers).

11. Harry Truman, “Truman Doctrine” (speech, Joint Session of Congress, 12 March 1947). Avalon Project at Yale University Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/trudoc.asp.

12. See, for example, Borstelmann, The Cold War; Dudziak, “Desegregation;” Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights; Layton, International Politics; Plummer, Window on Freedom.

13. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, xx.

14. Between March 1957 and October 1960 18 sub-Saharan African nations were admitted as new members of the United Nations (UN). In addition, over the course of Kennedy’s presidency (1961–1963), a further five countries from the region also became new UN members. See http://www.un.org/en/members/growth.shtml (accessed 11 May 2014).

15. See, for example, Plummer, Rising Wind; Plummer, In Search of Power; Romano, “No Diplomatic Immunity;” Von Eschen, Race against Empire; Gaines, American Africans in Ghana; Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans; Horne, Black and Red; Horne, Mau Mau in Harlem?

16. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, xx. On the timing of nonalignment’s emergence, see Vitalis, “The Midnight Ride of Kwame Nkrumah.”

17. John F. Kennedy, “Imperialism: The Enemy of Freedom.” 2 July 1957. http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/jfk/congress/jfk020757_imperialism.html. Through the late 1950s, Kennedy became increasingly insistent and vocal in his belief that the future of Africa, in particular, was a vital interest of the USA. During that period, thanks in part to two key appointments, he was able to secure a better platform for articulating his message on Africa and for underlining and enhancing his reputation as a future international cold war statesman. First, in 1958, was a position on the influential Senate Foreign Relations committee. The second came when he was made Chair of that committee’s new subcommittee on Africa in May the following year. By the end of the decade, no other white American politician – except perhaps for Vice-President Richard Nixon – was as public in their concern with the future direction of the continent, than was John F. Kennedy. See Meriwether, “Worth a Lot of Negro Votes,” 744.

18. John F. Kennedy, remarks, African Diplomatic Corps, Washington, DC, 24 June 1960. Folder: “Luncheon in Honor of African Diplomatic Corps, Washington, DC, 24 June 1960,” 1, Box 910, Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Series 12.1. Speech Files, 1953–1960, Kennedy Papers.

19. John F. Kennedy, remarks, St Anselm’s College, Manchester, NH. 5 March 1960. Research Aids, John F. Kennedy Speeches, Kennedy Papers. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/Saint-Anselms-College-NH_19600305.aspx. As the work of James Meriwether has explored, Kennedy’s commitment to this project saw him become personally involved in efforts to fund air transportation to allow nearly 300 students from East Africa to go to study in American universities, after the US State Department had refused repeated requests from African American groups to fund the students’ passage. Kennedy was especially concerned because, at the time, the USSR already brought more students from the Third World to study at their universities than did the USA. The gap between the numbers of African students studying in Russian and American universities threatened to grow further when in February 1960 Soviet Premier Khrushchev pledged to bring thousands more to study at the recently established “Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia” in Moscow in future years. Deeply concerned by this development, the young presidential hopeful used his family’s charitable foundation to pay the transport costs of bringing the students over from East Africa. See Meriwether, “Worth a Lot of Negro Votes,” 749 .

20. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 155; Meriwether, “Worth a Lot of Negro Votes”, 738–9. Meriwether also argues that Kennedy’s identification with support for African self-determination in general – and with funding this airlift of African students in particular – were both likely to have been more important in winning him black votes in the 1960 presidential election than was his phone call to Martin Luther King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, in the wake of her husband’s imprisonment, which has assumed an unduly prominent place in conventional analyses of Kennedy’s victory.

21. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, xxi; Muehlenbeck, Betting on the Africans, 224. Kennedy’s personal style with African leaders, and his attention to detail, also helped create positive relationships with many of the regions’ new leaders. As one contemporary State Department official has recalled, African politicians often left the White House remarking how knowledgeable Kennedy was about African affairs and with the sense that Kennedy considered them his political equals, and had treated them as such. See J. Wayne Fredericks, recorded interview by Joseph E. O’Connor. 18 April 1966. JFK #1, transcript, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection. John F. Kennedy Library. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKOH-JWF-01.aspx.

22. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, xx.

23. See Zoe Hyman, “‘To Have Its Cake and Eat It Too:’ US Policy toward South Africa during the Kennedy Administration” in this volume. The problem of segregation within an international cold war environment also led the Kennedy administration to lobby, successfully, for the Maryland state government to pass a law in mid-1963 to desegregate Route 40, a highway in Maryland that was frequently used by African leaders and diplomats on journeys between the UN in New York and Washington, DC. The numerous incidences of African leaders dismayed at being barred on racial grounds from using restaurants and other services on Route 40 was a cause of real concern to the State Department, who argued that such incidences undermined the nation’s efforts to win the cold war. See Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 167–9.

24. Muehlenbeck, Betting on the Africans, 224.

25. On the Peace Corps, see Geidel, Peace Corps Fantasies; Rice, The Bold Experiment; Searles, The Peace Corps Experience; Zimmerman, “Beyond Double Consciousness.”

26. As Kennedy told a group of OCA volunteers who visited the White House in mid-1962, their organization was the progenitor of the Peace Corps. See John F. Kennedy, “Greetings of the President to Participants in Operation Crossroads Africa.” Remarks to Operation Crossroads Africa student volunteers, 22 June 1962. President’s Office Files, Speech Files. Kennedy Papers. See also Smith, Freedom’s Distant Shores, 37–52; Pittsburgh Courier, 8 April 1961, 37.

27. John F. Kennedy, “Statement by the President Announcing a Peace Corps Project.” 16 May 1961. In Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, 378.

28. Pittsburgh Courier, 8 April 1961, 37.

29. Ibid.

30. Heath, John F. Kennedy and the Business Community, 88.

31. Ibid., 90.

32. Memorandum, K.R. Hansen to President John F. Kennedy. 2 April 1962. National Security Files, Carl Kaysen, Folder: “Balance of Payments, Subjects: Agency for International Development, April–September, 1962.” Box 362, Kennedy Papers.

33. These proposals came somewhat reluctantly on the part of USAID officials. They noted their concerns about whether reducing USAID’s cash flow to developing countries, “can be done without jeopardizing the effectiveness of the foreign aid program.” Ibid., 1a.

34. Dick Cooper and Karl Shell to James Tobin and Robert Turner. 20 June 1962. National Security Files, Carl Kaysen, Folder: “Balance of Payments, Subjects: Agency for International Development, April–September, 1962.” Box 362, Kennedy Papers.

35. On Kennedy’s efforts with regard to Latin American modernization, particularly through the Alliance for Progress, see Taffet, Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy; Scheman, The Alliance for Progress; Rodman, Sanctity vs. Sovereignty. On Kennedy’s use of the US military in Bolivian modernization, see Field, “Ideology as Strategy,” and Field, From Development to Dictatorship.

36. Heath, John F. Kennedy and the Business Community, 108.

37. A note in the USAID papers refers to a file that includes materials, “regarding the recruitment of business ‘tycoons’ for service with AID,” which indicates that USAID recruited successful business leaders to join its own staff. See List, US Agency for International Development. 7 January 1964. Folder: “Agency for International Development.” Box 181, Attorney General Papers, Series 7. John F. Kennedy Library File, Robert F. Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, MA.

38. Williams, “The United States and the New Africa,” 690.

39. Ibid., 691.

40. Ibid, 692. Williams noted that the United States’ contribution to African development was modest compared to European and multilateral sources, with France’s annual $600 million contribution more than doubling the USA’s $233 million in economic assistance to Africa in 1962. He pointed out that the USA’s assistance figure did not include Egypt, nor did it include contributions to the UN for economic rehabilitation in the Congo and its contributions to the Export–Import Bank and Food for Peace programs.

41. Ibid., 692.

42. Ibid.

43. Harlan Hadley to G. Mennen Williams, 7 June 1961. Folder: Private Investments in Africa, Box 15-N, G. Mennen Williams Papers (hereafter Williams Papers), Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

44. Williams to Hadley, 9 June 1961, in ibid.

45. Statement of F. Taylor Ostrander, Assistant to the Chairman, American Metal Climax, Inc., New York, in “A Proposal to Stimulate Responsible Private Investment in Africa: Testimony Presented to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa. 87th Cong. 1 (1961). Statement of F. Taylor Ostrander, Assistant to the Chairman, American Metal Climax, Inc., New York. Folder: Private Investments in Africa, Box 15-N, Williams Papers.

46. Ibid., 2.

47. Ibid., 3.

48. Ibid., 4.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, “US Business in Africa,” 15–16 April 1963. Folder: International Labor Relations, Box 8-N, Williams Papers.

52. Vernon, Sovereignty at Bay, 17.

53. Lohr, “Raymond Vernon.”

54. Vernon, Sovereignty at Bay, 24. On trends in transnational corporations and development, see also Rugraff et al., “How Have TNCs Changed in the Last 50 Years?”

55. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, 289.

56. Williams, “New Patterns of African Trade,” 668.

57. See Arthur D. Little, Inc., The Economics of a Cocoa Processing Plant; Arthur D. Little, Inc., Recommended Action; Arthur D. Little, Inc., Energy in Nigeria.

58. Williams, “New Patterns of African Trade,” 668.

59. Ibid., 667, and International Business Machines, “IBM in Nigeria.”

60. Singer Company, Singer Company Annual Report, 1965, 32.

61. Singer Company, Singer Company Annual Report, 1963, 32.

62. Ibid., 12.

63. The development of African structural dependence on Europe and the United States is detailed in historian and activist Walter Rodney’s classic How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, especially 22–5.

64. Vernon, Sovereignty at Bay, 13.

65. See Barack Obama, remarks, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 30 June 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/30/remarks-president-obama-university-cape-town.

66. For a detailed briefing paper on the US–Africa Leaders Summit, see US Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, “US–Africa Leaders Summit;” Schneidman et al., “Emerging Opportunities.”

67. US Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, “US–Africa Leaders Summit.” For more detail on AGOA, see US Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, “African Growth and Opportunity Act.”

68. Cadei, “Revving American Relations with Africa.”

69. US Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, “US–Africa Leaders Summit,” 16. For more detail on “Trade Africa,” see US Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, “Trade Africa Initiative.”

70. Opuko, “Political Dilemmas,” 25.