RUSSIANS AND CUBANS IN AFRICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000100105-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2004
• Sequence Number: 105
• Publication Date: May 2, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

AITICLE A??EAREIi' THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
ON F- r 2 May 1978
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Russians and Cubans in Africa
By ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR.
In recent weeks Washington has resur-
rected the doctrine of linkage. Linkage
means that, if the Russians make trouble
in one area-Africa, for example-we will
seek to punish them by denying them
something in another area-say, the SALT
talks. Linkage began as a cherished theory
of the Nixon administration. It had little ef-
fect when applied. The Carter administra-
tion started by disowning it. Now the White
House, . though not the State Department,
appears to be sidling toward it, apparently
because it cannot figure out any other way
of reacting to the Soviet-Cuban assault on
Africa.
The doctrine presents an evident diffi-
culty. It implies in the case at hand that
we are doing the Soviet Union a great fa-
vor by trying to reach a SALT agreement.
But obviously the only reason we are en-
gaged in SALT talks at all is because we
believe the limitation of nuclear weapons
to be in our own interest. If we did not be-
lieve that, we had no business in holding
the talks. Arms control is a favor not just
to the Soviet Union but to ourselves as
well, and to all mankind. To say that we
won't conclude an arms control agreement
because we don't like what the Russians
are doing in Africa deserves precisely the
childish metaphors that spring to mind:
cutting off our nose to spite our face, or
threatening to go into the garden and eat
dirt. If arms control is in, our own interest,
as it plainly is, we punish ourselves quite
as much as we do the Russians in declining
to reach an agreement-
Linkage raises another question: Ex-
actly what kind of Communist threat is this
in Africa that we are getting so excited
about? A recurrent experience of the
American people is to discover that some
exotic locality of which they had not pre-
viously heard is vital to the natidnal secu-
rity of the United States. An unknown
place that had never before disturbed our
dreams suddenly becomes a dagger
pointed at the heart of something or other,
a capstone to a hitherto undiscerned arch,
the key to some momentous global conflict.
Yesteryear's Prophecy
A few years ago the high priests of na-
tional security told us that the communiza-
tion of Vietnam would be fatal to our world
position. In consequence we endured the
most disgraceful war in our history to
"save" Vietnam. Well, we lost the war,
and Indochina indeed went Communist.
What happened to our world position? To-
day.the Communist states are fighting sav-
agely` among themselves, as could have
been predicted, and the threat to American
security has not visibly increased.
Now that we are mercifully out of
Southeast Asia, the high priesthood, which
has a vested Interest in crisis, tells us that
Africa has become the key to our security.
In 1976 we were given to understand that
Angola was the crucial spot. In early 1978
everything suddenly turned on the Horn of
Africa. The Horn of Africa! Who among us
had everheard of the Horn of Africa six
months ago? Yet our national fate was
deeply involved, highest authority in-
structed us, in the outcome of a local con-
flict between Somalia and Ethiopia.
And all this, we are assured, is only the
beginning. The diabolical Russians and Cu-
bans are engaged in a monster plot to take
over all Africa. "We are witnessing the
most determined campaign to expand for-
eign Influence In this troubled region,"
Frank Carlucci, the deputy director of CIA,
tells the Senate Armed Services Commit-
tee. "since it was carved up by the Euro-
pean powers In the late 19th Century. . . .It
is my view that Moscow and Havana in-
tend to take advantage of every such op-
portunity to demonstrate that those who
accept their political philosophy can also
count on receiving their assistance."
Let us try to sort out some of these is-
sues. No one can doubt. that the Russians
are using the Cubans in a massive effort to
dominate Africa, nor that success in this
effort would create problems for the West.
But an Intention does not by, itself consti-
tute a threat. The serious question is: What
prospect do the Russians have for estab-
lishing a permanent presence in Africa?
Now Africa is a multitribal culture, pos-
sessed by its own traditions, absorbed in
its own problems, Indifferent to the outside
world, consumed by indigenous emotions of
nationalism and tribalism, immune to
Western ideas and institutions. It is safe to
say that communism is as irrelevant as
parliamentary democracy to the historic
patterns of African thought and behavior.
Evelyn Waugh remains the best guide to
the idiocy of the West trying to do anything
in an awakened Africa. To invoke Waugh, I
suppose, is to risk charges of frivolity or
worse, Such a reaction misses Waugh's es-
sential point. What he wrote about with
deadly accuracy in "Scoop" and "Black
Mischief" was the total irrelevance to Afri-
can mores of Western values, as proved
both by the Westerners who tried to im-
pose them and the Africans who tried to
adopt them. Communism and capitalism
are In the African view equally Western,
equally materialistic, equally rationalistic,
equally remote from a system of ancient
and irremediably tribal cultures.
When Mr. Carlucci says that the Rus-
sians are helping "those who accept their
political philosophy." he is kidding the:
Armed Services Committee, and no doubt;
himself too. Like all nationalists, black Af-
rican leaders fighting their private wars,
are delighted to con any outsider into help-
ing them. But the meaningless rhetoric
they offer Moscow in exchange does not
mean for a minute that they "accept" the
Communist "political philosophy." Nor do
their wars have anything to do with the
Cold War.
I remember an Anglo-American meet-
ing about the Congo in the early Kennedy
years. Some in the American government
had got it into their heads that the civil
war over Katanga would enable Moscow to
gain a bridgehead in the center of Africa
and that the West must act at once to pre-
vent this dangerous development. I noticed
that David Ormsby-Gore, the wise British
ambassador to Washington, was silent dur-
Ing the frenetic discussion. I asked him
later what he made of it all. He said, "I
really don't think we need get so agitated
about tribal wars in Africa. After all, every
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country has the right to its own Wars of
the Roses."
I do not suggest that we should regard
the Soviet-Cuban intervention with compla-
cency. Let us+denounce it fervently in all
the forums where men of international
goodwill gather together. But don't let's
take it all that seriously in our own coun-
cils. The Soviet Union does not have a hex
on Africa. Most Africans who have been to
Moscow cordially dislike the Russians as
racists. The Russian record in Africa has
been one of substantial failure--in Ghana,
in Guinea, in Somalia, in Egypt. Neither
Angola nor Ethiopia affords them any soil-
der footing than Vietnam afforded us. If
the Soviet Union wants to plunge into Its
own quagmire in Africa, I do not think this
need be a major worry for us. One thing is
quite certain: Africans have not got rid of
one set of white masters in order to re-
place them by another.
And Back Home in Cuba
As for Cubans, Castro's Imperial
dreams are heading him for the gravest
trouble at home. It is notable how little the
government-controlled press and television
tell the Cuban people about the Maximum
Leader's African adventures. Troops leave
for Africa in civilian, clothes and the
stealth of night. "The Cuban investment in
Africa," Hugh Thomas, author of the best
history of Cuba, reminds us, "is an enor-
mous one for a country of nine million peo-
ple. The burdens are being felt in Cuba it-
self"-a shortage of doctors; problems in
the schools and in harvesting the sugar
crop; rumors of desertion and even mutiny
in the Cuban army. Thomas asks: "When
will the discontent that many are feeling
because of a seemingly endless African
commitment, including deaths, merge with
irritation at the cost of the commitment?
Is the recent crime wave to which Castro:
drew attention (in a speech on Sept. 28) a-
symptom of this,"' If Castro continues` to
try to nail the African trophy on the wall;
he is likely to end up as popular in Cuba as
Lyndon Johnson was In. the United States.
in 1988, .
The odds are overwhelmingly against
the establishment of any permanent Soviet
or Cuban presence in Africa. In any case
those who would be most directly threat-
ened by It are the independent black
states. Why not let them deal with it in the
first instance? We should do nothing to
push them toward the Russians-for exam-
ple, by temporizing with regard to Rhode.
sia or South Africa-but we should not try
to pretend that we know better than they
do where their own interests lie. And let us
above all ignore the interventionist ha-
rangues of those who told us only a little
while back that our national security re-,
quired an all-out effort in Vietnam. If you
believe the doctors," old Lord Salisbury
sensibly said, "nothing its wholesome; if
you believe the theologians nothing is inno-
cent; if you believe the soldiers nothing is
safe." -
Let us recognize that our interests in
Africa are limited, that our wisdom about
Africa is even more limited and that our power to decide the future of Africa is-very
limited indeed. Let us be extremely cau-
tious about trying to settle African prob.
lems. that Africans will, and must, settle.-
for themselves,
Mr. ;Schlesinger is Albert Schweitzer
Professor of the Humanities at the City
University of New York, winner of Pulitzer
Prizes in history and biography and a
member of the Journal's Board of
Contributors.
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