[Marxism] Media Note: Release of Foreign Relations Volume by U.S. State Dept.

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Included in this item which was just released electronically by
the State Department yesterday, the same day it announced Cuban
acceptance of the US assessment team offer, is this latest volume
of State Department historical documents. Among them is an entire
chapter regarding hijackings from the U.S. to Cuba, US responses
to Cuban efforts to put a stop to such hijackings, and so on.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e1/c15655.htm
====================================================================

Media Note
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
October 27, 2005
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/55705.htm

Release of Foreign Relations Volume

The Department of State released today Foreign Relations of the
United States, 1969-1976, Volume E-5, Documents on Africa, 1969-1972,
as an electronic-only publication. This volume is the latest
publication in the subseries of the Foreign Relations series that
documents the most important decisions and actions of the foreign
policy of the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald
Ford. Volume E-5 is the third Foreign Relations volume to be
published in this new format, available to all free of charge on the
Internet. Approximately 25 percent of the volumes scheduled for
publication for the 1969-1976 subseries, covering the Nixon and
Nixon-Ford administrations, will be in this format.

This volume documents the foreign policy of the Nixon administration
toward Sub-Saharan Africa, 1969-1972, with the exception of Southern
Africa, which will be covered in a Foreign Relations print volume to
be published later. The largest chapter in this volume deals with the
challenges faced by the Department of State and the Nixon
administration during and after the Nigerian civil war. The principal
issue was how to channel humanitarian aid to Biafrans, without
undermining the U.S. policy of non-intervention in the civil war.
Included in this chapter are documents that illuminate President
Richard Nixon's personal views on the humanitarian crisis there. The
second largest chapter is on the Horn of Africa and U.S. relations
with Ethiopia and the Somali Republic. The United States became
increasingly identified with Emperor Haile Selassie's Government and
U.S. relations with the pro-Soviet Union Somali Republic deteriorated
markedly. The chapter on Burundi highlights another humanitarian
crisis: the large-scale massacres of civilians condoned by the
Burundi Government in late 1972. The Department of State and the
Nixon administration were slow to realize the nature of this tragedy.
Given a policy of non-intervention, and the fact that the massacres
were drawing to a close when the tragic nature of the events were
brought to its attention, the Nixon administration decided that
realistically there was little that it could do to ameliorate the
situation. The downward spiral of U.S. relations with Uganda and its
erratic President, Idi Amin, is covered in a separate chapter. Zaire
and its President Mobutu, who was then considered by Washington a
staunch friend in a key central African country and a relative
success story in Africa, has its own chapter. U.S. relations and
policy toward other sub-Saharan African countries not mentioned
above, if significant, are covered in the first chapter on general
African policy.

The volume, including a preface, list of names, abbreviations,
sources, annotated document list, and this press release, is
available on the Office of the Historian website
(http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e5). For further information
contact Edward Keefer, General Editor of the Foreign Relations
series, at (202) 663-1131; fax (202) 663-1289; e-mail
history@xxxxxxxxxx

2005/991



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