Containing nationalism and communism on the 'Dark Continent': Eisenhower's policy toward Africa, 1953--1961

Twenty-two African colonies gained their independence during the U.S. presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, from 1953 to 1961. The beginning of North and sub-Saharan Africa's watershed transition from colonialism to independence, in the midst of a deepening global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, forced the Eisenhower Administration to revise America's African policy in recognition of the new era beginning in African and world affairs. The implementation of Eisenhower's policy had tremendous implications for the future of U.S.-African relations, the formulation of policy toward Africa by succeeding presidential administrations, and America's relationship with the larger Third World.; The policy toward North and sub-Saharan Africa which the Eisenhower Administration formulated and implemented was largely a failure. It undermined America's short- and long-term objectives for the continent and ended prospects for the creation of a mutually-beneficial U.S.-African relationship during the Cold War. Washington's heavy-handed efforts to preclude communist infiltration, contain the spread of nationalism and block independence, and keep the continent in the "Free World," alienated large segments of Africa and drove them away from the West and toward the communist bloc. By 1961, a communist threat---which had not existed in 1953---had manifested itself on the continent, precipitated in large part by the United States and the policies of America's allies, the European colonial powers. Similarly, Eisenhower's efforts to create a strong, friendly relationship with the "new" Africa was crippled by Washington's support for the colonial status quo, its Cold War myopia which viewed African nationalism as a threat, and its refusal to interact with Africa on African rather than Cold War terms. America's relationship with Africa for the next thirty years, based on the policy paradigm created under Eisenhower, would be determined by the dictates of Cold War imperatives.