White Malice (2) Kwame Nkrumah

Ghana was one of the first colonies in Africa to gain independence. Kwame Nkrumah was the first Prime Minister of the newly independent nation, but he became of target for the CIA. Susan Williams explains what happened in White Malice.

In October 1965, Nkrumah Published Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of imperialism. The book launched a powerful attack on the workings of American capitalism in Africa, supported by a mass of factual detail. “Africa’s possession of industrial raw materials”, argued Nkrumah “could if used for her own development, place her among the most modernised continents of the world without recourse to outside sources”. Instead, this was prevented by the greed and dishonesty of US capitalism. American interest in the Congo, he insisted, was motivated by very substantia! investments, which were frequently hidden by “engaging leading personalities in United States political affairs”.

Nkrumah was correct claim was correct about US hypocrisy. For example,

Adlai Stevenson “representing his government at the UN” Nkrumah wrote, “presided over the firm of Tempelsman & Son, specialists in exploiting Congo diamonds”.

The US government was incensed by the book. A stiff note was sent by the State Department to Nkrumah, and American aid to Ghana was instantly cancelled (White Malice p.493).

In the early morning of Thursday 24 February 1966, Nkrumah was overthrown in a military coup dubbed ‘Operation Cold Chop’ by its instigators. While the Ghanaian president was in Beijing, on his way to Hanoi with proposals for ending the war in Vietnam, the military and the police toppled Ghana’s civilian government. Major General Charles V Barwah who was in command of Ghana’s army, was woken frorn his sleep by the arrival at his house. He was asked to join the coup, and when he refused he was shot dead in front of his wife and children (White Malice p.494).

State corporations were privatised, and many state-run projects were abandoned. Foreign multinationals, which had been held firmly at arms length by Nkrumah, swiftly took control of much of the production sector (White Malice p.496).

John Stockwell put the CIA firmly at the centre of Nkrumah’s ouster in an extensive footnote in his memoir. The Accra station, he noted, was given a generous budget, and maintained intimate contact with the plotters as a coup was hatched (White Malice p.497).

The CIA got rid of one of the best leaders that emerged in Africa, because he would not go along with US control of African economies.