Citing Prof. Kluzde clearly shows he was/is not conversant with the vast literature available on how the CIA operates.
It also show how ignorant he (Prof. Kludze) was/is about declassif ... read full comment
Dear Fordjour,
Dear Fordjour,
Citing Prof. Kluzde clearly shows he was/is not conversant with the vast literature available on how the CIA operates.
It also show how ignorant he (Prof. Kludze) was/is about declassified documents (Freedom of Information) and what they reveal about the CIA's roles in areas further from the US than Ghana is from the US.
He was/is not conversant about Congressional investigations into CIA operations around the world. It is also clear you are not familiar with "CIA" literature, declassified documents (which do even tell it all), Congressional investigation/revelations, etc.
Here are some few ideas for you:
1) Both John Stockwell, a former CIA agent and author of "In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story," and other ex-CIA agents (Christopher David Costanzo, Lindsay Moran, Henry A. Crompton, Floyd L. Paseman, Glenn L. Clarke, Melissa Boyle Mahle, John Kiriakou, Jack Devine, Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr., John Rizzo, etc) and influential other writers such as Richard Mahoney, John Perkins, Noam Chomsky, to mention but three, have given us tons of information (declassified, Congressional data, etc) and how the CIA operates around the world.
I hope you know the role the CIA played in South Africa (Apartheid, Angola, etc) where the CIA aided Jonas Savimbi in Angola and the Nationalist Government in South Africa.
You might want to read more about the Cuito Cuavana Battle (Angola, 1988) to know the role the CIA played in this battle. I don't think Angola is close to American than Ghana is.
You might also want to know that the Russian presence in Cuba (with advanced Russian surveillance technologies) was not what we had in Ghana during Nkrumah's time. The USSR had nuclear weapons strategically placed in Cuba ("Cuban Missile Crisis") and the Americans did not know it until later. Remember the CIA could not even foresee Sep. 11 happening, Oklahoma City Bombing (Timothy McVeigh), and so with the Boston Marathon Bombing and several other happenings within the borders of America.
Please, find time to read Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs to understand the secret negotiations that went on between Americans and the Russians in terms of protecting Cuba from American aggression, etc (see Prof. Peter Kuznick's/Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the United States").
Thus, distance is not a barrier to the operational reach of the CIA. I wonder why you should naively make distance a problem for the CIA. I will suggest to you to make time to read extensively those former CIA agents whose memoirs can enlighten you, particularly regarding Prof.
Kludze's abject ignorance about the operational activities of the CIA (see above) is deeply shocking indeed. I wonder which planet and century Prof. Kludze lives/lived. After all is said and done, declassified data have given the world powerful hints of the CIA's role (searching, plotting, collaborating, and guiding Ghanaians in Nkrumah's overthrow; Richard Mahoney goes deeper into these questions). A number of well-placed, influential political insiders, researchers, and scholars in the American system have written about this.
2) As for CLR James, one of Nkrumah's onetime mentors, the least said about him, the better. James was never fully acquainted with the political landscape of Nkrumah's political decisions as they enfolded. There were lot of things he did not understand or he got wrong with Nkrumah's political and constitutional decisions.
In fact, James' ignorance about certain happenings in the USSR when he lived there and his general disillusionment with the leadership of the USSR is one good example. In the case of Nkrumah, James’ physical and intellectual distance from the politics Nkrumah played and from Ghana’s general political history and constitutional politics explains part of his ignorance or misunderstanding of certain political happenings in Ghana.
For instance, James was ignorant of the fact that Nkrumah’s dismissal of Judge Korsah [THE GOLD COAST’S FIRST BLACK CHIEF JUSTICE] was based on a constitutional requirement. He should have informed Nkrumah first of his verdict before going ahead to make it public. [IRONICALLY, KORSAH WHO WORKED ON THE PDA ON BEHALF OF THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND AND THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL WENT TO ETHIOPIA IN THE WAKE OF NKRUMAH’S OVERTHROW, WHERE HE DISTANCED HILSEF FROM IT [THE PDA]]. Prof. Kludze’s presentation, which I read many, many years ago gives the wrong impression that the Governor-General did not want to see himself being associated with the PDA, so he left Ghana with a view to his not being associated with its passage.
Yet, Prof. Kludze did not tell his audience that the Governor-General gave his consent for the PDA’s passage, and that the Queen of England was aware of it! After all, was the PDA not a British idea introduced in India (and other places in the British Empire) to serve similar purposes as in Ghana? If it was bad and there was no justification for its passage, why did the Governor-General and the Queen of England not throw it out? Were KA Busia, RR Amponsah, and Modesto Apaloo, three leading Opposition members, not member of the parliament that passed the PDA? What did these three say in parliament when it was being passed?
His [James’] commentary on Ghana’s political history from the Gold Coast era right through the Nkrumah dispensation got many historical facts entirely wrong. I am here referring to his essay “The Rise and Fall Nkrumah” published in Molefi Kete Asante’s and S. Abarry’s edited volume “African Intellectual Heritage.”
Dr. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah has given James a devastating critique on his exegesis of Gold Coast-Ghana’s political history (see Chapter 2 “Critical Discourse On Kwame Nkrumah’s Life and Works” of Dr. Botwe-Asamoah’s book “Kwame Nkrumah’s Politico-Cultural Thought and Policies”). Fordjour, you should have read this book before quoting James. Dr. Botwe-Asamoah had to correct so many erroneous claims and factual errors in James’ “The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah.” Put simply, James got a number of facts about Ghana’s political history on Nkrumah wrong.
Then also, the late Dr. Ronald Walter, one of America’s leading historians, provided another critique of James’ work on Nkrumah, etc., in his work “Pan-Africanism in the Diaspora: An Analysis of Modern Afrocentric Movement.” Finally, you have Dr. Molefi Kete Asante taking Eric William’s “Capitalism and Slavery” to task, a book resulting from Williams’ doctoral dissertation at Oxford University, of which James contributed by tutoring Williams while he took his PhD (see the New York Times article ‘C.L.R. James, Historian, Critic and Pan-Africanism, Is Dead at 88” and Dr. Asante’s essay “The Ideology of Racial Hierarchy and the Construction of the European Slave Trade”; Dr. Asante presented this paper at a UNESCO sponsored international conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Dec. 1998).
These are the kinds of scholarly works you should have read before authoring your piece. Why? Because they provide critical information to weaken your citation of James as an authority on Nkrumah! Furthermore, Dr. Botwe-Asamoah takes on other scholars like the late John Henrik Clarke and Robert July, both of whom misrepresent several components of Ghana’s political history. Clarkes, for instance, got several epochal moments in Ghana’s history from 1482 to 1957 wrong.
On the other hand, Fordjour would have done us a great favor by telling why James was deported from the US and why he chose to appeal his deportation rather than to go back to his country! Answers to these questions have a telling impact on Nkrumah’s “dilemma” with the East-West dichotomy, his work on American racism (Jim Crowism, etc), and American workers. Nkrumah encountered similar problems with the British.
For instance, the Americans (security services) alerted Nkrumah (and his activities (Marxist ideas)) to the British before he left America (for England). The British (security services) in turn alerted Nkrumah and his activities to the Colonial Government in the Gold Coast before Nkrumah left for the Gold Coast. They secretly followed Nkrumah until he boarded his ship (and even included in their telegram to the Colonial Government that Nkrumah had accepted the invitation to serve as the UGCC’s Secretary General). This goes to show you the interest Western intelligence outfits (American and British and later the French) had in Nkrumah and his nationalist/Pan-Africanist, and why traitors like Danquah, Afrifa, Kotoka, etc., would collaborate with them [Western intelligence outfits] to destroy Nkrumah and Africa).
Why do I say this? Declassified records and other Western records make it abundantly clear that Nkrumah’s political agenda threatened Western strategic interests in Africa! This is what Robert W. Komer, a National Security Council staffer, told President Lyndon Johnson:
“The coup in Ghana is another example of a fortuitous windfall. NKRUMAH WAS DOING MORE TO UNDERMINE OUR INTERESTS THAN ANY SINGLE BLACK AFRICAN “(our emphasis; se declassified DOCUMENT 260 and historian Paul Lee’s essay “Documents Expose U.S. Role in Nkrumah Overthrow”).
James defense of the theory that Forbes Burnham assassinated Walter Rodney is another good. However, it is possible that Burnham may have been the brain behind Rodney’s assassination but the evidence, to date, remains inconclusive. And the fact that James mentored Rodney is not enough reason for him to conclude otherwise without evidence sustained by forensic science.
In summary, your piece leaves out a platform of critical analysis of essential aspects of Ghana’s political history based on scholarly works, pre-independence and post-independence documents, declassified records from Russia, America, and Western Europe (Britain precisely), and tons of constitutional works. There are serious gaps in your narrative because of your “limited” grasp of postcolonial theory and of other knowledge systems (pertaining to Ghana’s political history, imperialism and colonialism, Afrocentric theory, social Darwinism, statecraft, political economy, patriotism, ideology, African/World History, sociology or revolution and of knowledge, etc) bordering on some of the larger questions my critique raises, directly and indirectly!
I say this on authority because your article does not take a holistic approach to the study of Ghana’s political history, of which the central issues you raise in your article are my primary concern. Thus, I will not say more. You may also have to study the corpus of works on how the CIA operates, acquaint yourself with Congressional investigations into CIA activities (some of which have filtered into the public arena), and declassified documents (American specifically/Freedom of Information), etc. American declassified documents do not reveal a lot but at least they give the world enough to start with.
Your article and Prof. Kludze’s paper/speech/presentation clearly demonstrate both of you two are out of tune with the operational reach of the CIA (as well Western/Russian/Japanese/Chinese/Indian intelligence outfits).
Finally, read the following piece on the website of the U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective” (Title “Ghana 1966”):
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At the time of independence from Britain in 1957, the Ghanaian leader, Kwame Nkrumah, enjoyed moderately friendly relations with the U.S. However, his position on the Congo crisis of 1960 led to a noticeable chill on the part of Washington. By the early fall of 1961, Kennedy was telling one of his top State Department officials that he had “given up” on Nkrumah, who was see as having taken an “ugly lurch to the left” in both foreign and domestic policy. A short time later, Kennedy asked for a report, to be prepared “on a rush basis,” about “Ghanaian subversion in Africa”; this seems to have led to a decision to offer military training to junior officers, in addition to the “very helpful contacts” already in place with “moderate pro-Western” groups. However, at this point the chances of a coup were assessed as slim, leaving no choice for the moment but to put up with what the U.S. ambassador called “a badly confused and immature person,” i.e., Nkrumah. Such news was not welcome to top officials, who repeatedly asked the CIA about the prospects of the country's top general “to take over the government” and proposed “a well conceived and executed action program” of economic and diplomatic pressure designed to “induce a chain reaction eventually leading to Nkrumah's downfall.” The action program was approved, but, as the CIA director pointed out, the generals did not appear inclined to do anything and were, in any case, closer to the British. This made it relatively easy for Johnson to assure Nkrumah that the CIA was not “carrying on subversive activities in Ghana.”
Over the next year, the security forces, who were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Nkrumah, were cultivated by both the U.S. and the British. By February 1965, the CIA was receiving word of coup plotting, an issue raised explicitly by the U.S. ambassador with the CIA director the next month. In May, Johnson's national security adviser was informed that a pro-Western coup by “key military and police figures” might soon break out, with the added information that the “plotters were keeping us briefed, and State thinks we're more on the inside than the British. While we're not directly involved (I'm told), we and other Western countries (including France) have been helping to set up the situation by ignoring Nkrumah's pleas for economic aid. ... All in all, looks good.” Nothing, however, happened, which led to younger officers (the ones trained in the U.S. ) “Chafing” over their superiors' failure to act. Eventually, after several more plots were put together (the CIA being duly informed of each), the military and police finally overthrew Nkrumah when he was on a trip to China. The CIA was said to have played a vital role in the coup (the station chief was promoted and given a medal) and was rewarded by the Ghanaians by being permitted (for a fee) to fly sensitive Soviet military equipment to the U.S. Following a fulsome letter to Johnson by the leader of the coup (“you can depend on me ... to support your democratic principles. ... Following your example, we can re-educate our children to admire the glories of real democracy. ... I look forward to keeping you informed personally ...”), aid began to flow and, as we saw in chapter three of the book, the country become a full-fledged U.S. client.1
1) Kennedy in conversation with Ball, 21 September 1961; Rostow to Kennedy, “The Volta Project,” 2 October 1961; Office of West Coast and Malian Affairs, State Department, “Ghanaian Subversion in Africa,” 12 February 1962; NSC paper, “Ghana: Assessment Since Volta,” 13 June 1962; Mahoney in conversation with Kennedy, 19 November 1963; all FRUS 1961-1963 , vol. 21: docs. 232, 235, 244-5, 253; also docs. 230-1, 234, 246-7; Rusk in discussions with McCone, 6, 11 February 1964, in McCone, memorandum for the record, 11 February 1964; Trimble to Williams, 11 February 1964; Johnson letter to Nkrumah, in State to Accra, 17 March 1964; Komer to Bundy, 27 May 1965; memorandum for Helms, “Recent OCI Reporting on Ghana,” 25 February 1966; Ankrah to Johnson, 24 March 1966; all FRUS 1964-1968 , vol. 24: docs. 236-7, 246, 253, 257, 261; also docs. 238, 248-9, 251-2, 256; Stockwell (1978: 84, 201n); “C.I.A. Said to Have Aided Plotters Who Overthrew Nkrumah in Ghana,” New York Times 9 May 1978; Gleijeses (2002: 133); Boateng (2002). The 1964-1968 FRUS volume has only a small number of CIA documents, and no documents from any source for the key periods of April 1964 to March 1965 and November 1965 to February 1966.
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Thanks.
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 9 years ago
So what exactly is your point?
Is it that the CIA overthrew Nkrumah, much against the popular opinion at the time? And that none of what Lawyer Asante Fordjour is saying about Nkrumah is true?
Please kindly contest in s ... read full comment
So what exactly is your point?
Is it that the CIA overthrew Nkrumah, much against the popular opinion at the time? And that none of what Lawyer Asante Fordjour is saying about Nkrumah is true?
Please kindly contest in substance anything said in this article that is patently false or flawed, and stop spewing literature listings which nobody will read.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago
Dear Fordjour,
I forgot to mention one important point:
Could you give your readers a run down on CLR James' track record on his position as an adviser to Eric Williams, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago? ... read full comment
Dear Fordjour,
I forgot to mention one important point:
Could you give your readers a run down on CLR James' track record on his position as an adviser to Eric Williams, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago? You may want to share your surprises, or otherwise, with us once you undertake this assignment!
Answer(s) to this question could also have placed you in a better position to evaluate James' overall political psychology on matters related to political economy, statecraft, political constitutionalism, etc., in the case of Nkrumah!
In other words like I implied in my earlier response to you, a holistic approach to a man like James' political psychology was all you needed to cite him as a reliable (or unreliable) witness on your case!
Thanks.
Kwadwo 9 years ago
Under this repressive political climate created by the messiah, any role played by the CIA in the coup was insignificant. Freedom loving people were not going to endure repression for long regardless of development projects ... read full comment
Under this repressive political climate created by the messiah, any role played by the CIA in the coup was insignificant. Freedom loving people were not going to endure repression for long regardless of development projects undertaken by the Messiah.The coup was inevitable even if the CIA had a hand in it, Francis. Please also be reminded that not every thing the CIA does is bad if you study intelligence. The agency has prevented horrible things from happening and America has enacted laws to curb the excesses of the agency.
Asante Fordjour 9 years ago
Dear Kwarteng,
..But for the alleged Soviet-Cuba support and the reader, I wouldn’t have responded.
[1] Yes, in military action planning and execution, proximity makes little oddity but could provide a stable, reliable ... read full comment
Dear Kwarteng,
..But for the alleged Soviet-Cuba support and the reader, I wouldn’t have responded.
[1] Yes, in military action planning and execution, proximity makes little oddity but could provide a stable, reliable and accurate canon-folder.
[2] So I’m tempted to argue that it was the patriotic Cubans but not the 24-hr monitored Soviet surface-to-air missile that was mounted on the Atlantic that shielded the Cuban Revolution from the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs [17 April 1961] invasion at Playa Girón (Girón beach), which was repelled within 72 hours by Cubans.
[3] Perhaps, we may need some revolutionary history. We are not going on the drawing board because we are refreshing our memories on what we all know already. Suffice to say however that by early 1961, the US had broken diplomatic relations with Cuba. Some of the causes as we all might have been tutored, being when the U.S. State Department persuaded its refineries in Cuba, to refuse to refine Soviet crude oil which the new revolutionaries in Cuba responded among others, by nationalizing the refineries.
[4] The Fidel-Che-led Cuban rebellion which fomented between July 1953 and 31 December 1958 and eventually overthrew the US-supported Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959, and having in its stead a revolutionary socialist state , notwithstanding all it said controversies, is credited by its critics with its ability of creating social equality and economic system which in the words of Che, ought to function through a cultural transformation- el hombre Nuevo- a new human being guided by moral values rather materialism.
[5] It is rather unfortunate- Dear Kwarteng, that in your explorations and response to this article, you decline to address the more pressing problems that the Osagyefo was confronted- the “old comrades”, who as the president sought to indicate, having satisfied themselves with the first revolution (the independence/liberation from colonialism, became stacked with the second phase- the social construction.
Perhaps, the 24 February 1966 successful putsch triumphed because the then ordinary Ghanaians, unlike in the case of the Cuban whose leader had always been in olive-green fatigue uniform, were not ready to sacrifice their lives for the “veranda boy or girl” whose lifestyle had become an insult to their toils.
……
francis kwarteng 9 years ago
Dear Fordjour,
All errors in this response, grammatical or otherwise, are solely mine!
I have addressed those concerns elsewhere. Other leading scholars, researchers, and historians in both Ghana and the West (America a ... read full comment
Dear Fordjour,
All errors in this response, grammatical or otherwise, are solely mine!
I have addressed those concerns elsewhere. Other leading scholars, researchers, and historians in both Ghana and the West (America and in some cases Britain) have dealt with a number of these issues. That is why I did not go into them! A number of these cases are already public knowledge! Besides, contemporary scholarship replaces most of the speculations and conjectures Prof. Kludze's presentation made. In fact Prof. Kludze makes light of serious happenings without evidence!
There are so many things Prof. Kludze said about the PDA and pre-independence/post-independence on terrorism, violence, armed insurrection, and assassinations on Nkrumah that are directly (and indirectly) contradicted by the historical records.
Even what happened to Nkrumah’s couple of so friends under the PDA are normal happenings in revolutions and nation-building in cases where a new country assumes freedom as happened in Ghana.
Go around the world (including the West) and examples abound (you can look into the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, etc. Spread your research tentacles to Latin America and Asia and examples abound there! In Latin America, for instance, you will get to learn the active role the CIA played in most of revolutions and civil/political wars there!
The CIA brought the murderous dictator Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile and others like him in Latin America, just as Israel (Mossad), America (the CIA), and Britain (M-15) brought Idi Amin to power (see American writer Andrew Rice’s book “The Teeth May Smile But the Heart Does Not Forget: Murder and Trial in Uganda” for additional information!).
Have you read Seymour M. Hersh’s May 9, 1978 New York Times article “CIA SAID TO HAVE AIDED PLOTTERS WHO OVERTHROW NKRUMAH IN GHANA”? You might want to read about Seymour as one of America’s respected investigative journalists when it comes to matters of the military and security (FBI, CIA, etc). You might also want to check out the piece “South Africa: Liberating Mandela’s Memory” for information on how the CIA aided Apartheid South Africa’s security) to nab Mandela (and his subsequent sentence to 17 years in prison; see The New African Magazine, Dec. 18, 2013)! You might also want to watch Amy Goodman and Gamal Nkrumah discuss US declassified documents and those involved in Nkrumah’s overthrow (Democracy Now, March 6, 2007).
That is why I did not give much weight to what Prof. Kludze and what your other sources have to say! Like I said to you, there is an entire library of historical records whose assessment you did not include in your article. I can understand because this is a complex issue your little article cannot exhaust, at least not for a platform like Ghanaweb!
What is more, your analysis and resources do not sufficiently, if at all, make powerful arguments for Danquah’s (and others) innocence! Overwhelming evidence from Ghana’s political history trump yours! Powerful elements within the Government, like Chief of Staff General Paley, and the CPP internal government worked on a number of these high-profile cases. This also explains why I did not take many of assertions serious!
Therefore, let us not stretch non-existent evidence to make up for the political failures of unpatriotic men like Danquah, Obetsebi-Lamptey, Busia, S.G. Antor and their ilk. We also need to distance Nkrumah from the PDA associate it with Ghana’s security services, the Queen of England and the Governor-General! Nkrumah had nothing to do with the PDA! In fact the closest person you can get to is Krobo Edusei, who borrowed the PDA directly from the Indians (and indirectly from the British)! Your assertions are not GENERALLY serious!
Yes, one or two Nkrumah "friends" may not have been treated right yet doubt still hovers today as to whether they were not quality. For instance, there is a lot of evidence that puts a lot of questions on Adamafio's involvement and what his subversive statements (and collaborations with Busia and other terrorists) may have played in the Kulungugu bombing!
And yes, the Soviet-Cuba support is not alleged as you claim. I referred you to Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs (and declassified documents from both the US and Russian ends).
Then you claim you "attempted to say" but not what the historical says. Then again I am not so much interested in what one was tutored as what declassified records (American-Russian, Nikita's memoirs and the memoirs of American leaders/diplomats who were involved in handling the Cuba-Soviet-America relationship; I have given you other sources where you can get some of this information, including the names of ex-CIA agents whose memoirs shed light on some of these topical controversies as well as American professors, movie director(s), writers, and such who have written extensively on these questions by relying on declassified records)! This is where you have to go for your information.
Now you are referring to Cuban patriotism. Anyway, were you by chance inferring that people like Danquah, Busia, Kotoka, Afrifa, S.G. Antor, Obetsebi-Lamptey, Modesto Apaloo, RR Amponsah, Sgt. Ametewe, Awhiatey, etc., were unpatriotic? Have you any idea Russians played in repelling the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs? And have you any idea how many Cubans, including some members of the inner circle of Fidel Castro’s political structure, tried but failed to assassinate Castro on so many occasions, as happened in Nkrumah’s case? Have you any ideas what secret negotiations went between the Americans and Fidel Castro (see Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s article “JFK’s Secret Negotiations with Fidel,” Inter Press Service (News Agency), March 16, 2015. This is what Kennedy, Jr. wrote:
“DURING THAT CRISISS, JFK AND SOVIET LEADER NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, BOTH AT ODDS WITH THEIR OWN MILITARY HARDLINERS, HAD DEVELOPED A MUTUAL RESPECT, EVEN WARMTH, TOWARDS EACH OTHER. A SECRET BARGAIN BETWEEN THEM HAD PAVED THE WAY FOR REMOVING THE SOVIET MISSILES FROM CUBA – AND U.S. JUPITER MISSILES FROM TURKEY – WITH EACH SIDE SAVING FACE…” (our emphasis; recall that the USSR placed nuclear warheads in Cuba in response to America first placing nuclear warheads in Turkey). YOU MIGHT ALSO WANT TO KNOW THAT OTHER AMERICAN LEADERS SINCE PRES. JOHN F. KENNEDY HAD BEEN IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS WITH CASTRO OVER A RANGE OF ISSUES. This is why I keep harping on the fact that your knowledge on Cuba-Russia (USSR)-America is seriously stunted (no offense). Please read the rest of Kennedy, Jr.’s essay!
Please also read the book “BACK TO CUBA: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND HAVANA” (Authors: William LeoGrand/Peter Kornbluh). This is what Steve Inskeep, a reviewer of the book, had to say:
“FOR FIVE DECADES, THE OFFICIAL US POLICY ON CUBA WAS ONE OF SILENCE. BUT THE REAL US RELATIONSHIP WITH HAVANA INVOLVED SECRET NEGOTIATIONS THAT STARTED WITH PRESIDENT KENNEDY IN 1963, WEVEN AFTER HIS EMBARGO AGAINST THE NATION…IN FACT, NEARLY EVERY US ADMINISTRATION FOR THE PAST 50 YEARS HAS ENGAGED IN SOME SORT OF DIALOGUE WITH THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT…”
I have read aspects of this book (mostly based on declassified records, etc) and you will be amazed what it reveals (I will not go into this; this is another well-researched that should help you grasp what I have been saying). Have you any idea any secret dialogues (that have since been declassified) that went on between the USSR and America (for America to stay off the case of Russia) after such devastating failures such as the Bay of Bigs?
Clearly your response shows a total lack of intimate knowledge of the subject matter! Let me give you another good but unrelated, if indirect, example: Have you any idea how America secretly negotiated China out of the Angolan crisis, for instance? You may want to contrast this with what went on behind the scenes between China and America in the Indochina Wars (particularly the Second). I will not go into details, but you might as well read Michael Pillsbury's book "The Hundred Year Marathon" for declassified data to what actually in these secret negotiations! You will learn what the Chinese got in return. This is the reason I asked you to familiarize yourself with the literature on CIA operations.
Also try to read more of the scholarship produced by members of the SOCIETY FOR HISTORIANS OF AMERICAN FOREIGN RELATIONS. You might understand some of the issues I have been raising here and in my first response! Visit the website of America’s National Security Archive at the George Washington University if and when you have the time!
And as for the USSR and the West, particularly America, etc., you might want to lay your hands on anything the late Dr. Antony Cyril Sutton wrote (his books). His scholarly works should serve as excellent backgrounds to the relationships between American and the USSR. Please do this and we can revisit the topic! You need to get abreast of the near-limitless scholarship on Cuba-America-USSR.
In other words, they should open your eyes to things you may not have previously known! Therefore, I will not tell you more. Make time and do the research, for I have given you enough here and in my previous response for you to start with! I could give you more research resources but let this suffice for now!
Finally, you might want to read the New York Times article:
Title: C.I.A. To RELEASE DOCUMENTS ON DECADES-OLD MISDEEDS (Scott Shane):
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The Central Intelligence Agency will make public next week a collection of long-secret documents compiled in 1974 that detail domestic spying, assassination plots and other C.I.A. misdeeds in the 1960s and early 1970s, the agency’s director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, said yesterday.
In an address to a group of historians who have long pressed for greater disclosure of C.I.A. archives, General Hayden described the documents, known as the “family jewels,” as “a glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency.” He also directed the release of 11,000 pages of cold-war documents on the Soviet Union and China, which were handed out on compact discs at the meeting, in Chantilly, Va.
In a defense of openness unusual in an administration that has vigorously defended government secrecy, General Hayden said that when government withholds information, myth and misinformation often “fill the vacuum like a gas.” He noted a European Parliament report of 1,245 secret C.I.A. flights over Europe, a number interpreted in some news articles as the number of cases of “extraordinary rendition,” in which terrorism suspects were flown to prison in other countries.
In fact, General Hayden said, the agency has detained fewer than 100 people in its secret overseas detention program since the 2001 terrorist attacks. He said the questioning of those detainees, which in some cases has involved harsh physical treatment, had produced valuable information, contributing to more than 8,000 intelligence reports.
“C.I.A. recognizes the very real benefits that flow from greater public understanding of our work,” General Hayden said at yesterday’s meeting, a gathering of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. But he also complained about “an instinct among some in the media today to take a few pieces of information, which may or may not be accurate, and run with them to the darkest corner of the room.”
Though the 1974 documents will not be released until Monday at the earliest, a research group in Washington posted related documents on the Web yesterday, including a 1975 Justice Department summary of domestic break-ins and wiretaps by the C.I.A. that may have violated American law. Also included were transcripts of three conversations in which President Gerald R. Ford was informed by aides of those activities by the agency.
In one of the conversations, Henry A. Kissinger, then serving as both secretary of state and national security adviser, denounced the efforts of William E. Colby, director of central intelligence, to push an aggressive investigation of the agency’s past transgressions.
Mr. Kissinger said the accusations then appearing daily about agency misconduct were “worse than in the days of McCarthy,” and expressed concern that they would intimidate C.I.A. officers, so that “you’ll end up with an agency that does only reporting and not operations.”
“What Colby has done is a disgrace,” Mr. Kissinger said, according to the transcript, posted along with the others by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (nsarchive.org).
“Should we suspend him?” Mr. Ford asked.
“No,” Mr. Kissinger replied, “but after the investigation is over you could move him and put in someone of towering integrity.”
A year later, Mr. Ford replaced Mr. Colby as director with George Bush.
In the 33 years since the nearly 700 pages of “family jewel” documents were compiled at the orders of Mr. Colby’s predecessor, James R. Schlesinger, much of their content has become known through leaks, testimony or partial disclosure. Most notably, the documents were described by government officials to Seymour M. Hersh, who reported on them in articles in The New York Times beginning on Dec. 22, 1974. The first article described “a massive, illegal domestic intelligence operation” that had produced C.I.A. files on some 10,000 Americans.
But the documents’ release next week may offer new details of a period of aggressive, and sometimes illegal, C.I.A. activities, directed particularly at American journalists who published leaked government secrets and activists who opposed the Vietnam War. The release also appears to signify a shift in attitude at the agency in the year that it has been led by General Hayden, a history buff who holds two degrees in the field from Duquesne University, where he wrote a thesis on the Marshall Plan.
Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, which obtains and publishes collections of once-secret government records, said the step announced yesterday might be the most important since at least 1998, when George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, reversed a decision to release information on cold-war covert actions. “Applause is due,” Mr. Blanton said.
But Mr. Blanton took issue with General Hayden’s assurance that the current C.I.A. was utterly different from the pre-1975 institution. “There are uncanny parallels,” he said, “between events today and the stories in the family jewels about warrantless wiretapping and concern about violation of the kidnapping laws.”
The six-page 1975 Justice Department summary, of C.I.A. actions that some officers of the agency had reported as possible illegalities, included the 1963 wiretapping of two newspaper columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott, who had written a column including “certain national security information.”
The document said those wiretaps had been approved after “discussions” with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara. A C.I.A. report described them as “very productive,” picking up calls of 12 senators and 6 members of the House, among others.
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Thanks.
Asante Fordjour 9 years ago
[1]From all that you have culled here, I think respectfully, that they also have their own counter-arguments also published elsewhere if you wish to know. I understand but I'm sorry, I’m not here for any ideological tussle- ... read full comment
[1]From all that you have culled here, I think respectfully, that they also have their own counter-arguments also published elsewhere if you wish to know. I understand but I'm sorry, I’m not here for any ideological tussle- for we all have our beliefs and taboos- So I desire not to dispossess the reader of his/hers thoughts: what we have sought doing here is to provide readers with the other side of the coin
[2.1] For example, that the newly constituted "Special Court" for Kulungu trial was branded with a new Chief Justice- one Mr. Justice J. Sarkodee-Adoo as the sole member, sitting with, as Dr Ako-Adjei remembers- a jury of twelve young-men, recruited from the Kwame Nkrumah ideological College.
[2.2] That the second trial was conducted partly in public in the Supreme Court Buildings in Accra and partly in camera at the Castle Osu, Accra. But the public and the Press were excluded from the trial in camera.
[2.3] That “During his summing up the Chief Justice- Mr. Justice Sakordee-Adoo wept bitterly and openly,” Dr Ako Adjei recorded in his autobiography.
[2.4] That “The African Dream that he was amazed to see the Chief Justice weeping bitterly "with tears streaming down his cheeks.” It must be noted that on Monday 9th December, 1963, the Court, that sat from Friday 9th August 1963 through to Monday, 28th October 1963, acquitted the old comrades on all charges. [5]
[3] The article seeks to inform that intellectually, the time has come for the Ghanaian to come to terms that Nkrumah, including those who came in the name of liberators, behaved like a human beings just like any other person like you and I- and that they were as our history tells us were fallible.
[4] The knob of responses, it seems to me, seek to suggest that if Soviets [missiles] had been in Ghana on time CPP would not have been probably, kicked out from power on the 24th day February 1966.
Truth is- at time, there were Russian soldiers and intelligence community in town. How then, could you logically, indict your opponents as CIA agents in the Nkrumah’s putsch but wish to persuade them to believe that the Osagyefo who could have relied on the Soviets as was in Cuba, was not part of the KGB?
Kenneth 9 years ago
Your argument is getting a bit infantile.To suggest that the presence of Russians in Ghana negates the argument of the CIA deal and their agents who were paid to destabilize Ghana must be the height of dishonesty.
Your argument is getting a bit infantile.To suggest that the presence of Russians in Ghana negates the argument of the CIA deal and their agents who were paid to destabilize Ghana must be the height of dishonesty.
Prof Lungu 9 years ago
We honestly can figure out what Asante Forjour is trying to say by parading Professor Kludze.
READ Kludze courtesy Fordjour: "... Those who today, do not revel in the repeal of the Preventive Detention Act, continue to ... read full comment
We honestly can figure out what Asante Forjour is trying to say by parading Professor Kludze.
READ Kludze courtesy Fordjour: "... Those who today, do not revel in the repeal of the Preventive Detention Act, continue to say that it was the American Central Intelligence (C.I.A.) which rescued Ghanaians from dictatorship..."
OUR COMMENT: What kind of thought process does that one come from? Revel in the Repeal? Reminds us of Mitch Romney and his "severely conservative" predisposition. Why would anyone want the PDA today, when the conditions for a PDA do not exist?
THEN Kludze courtesy Fordjour: "...If the C.I.A. was powerful enough to do this in far away Africa, one wonders why it could not overthrow the communist regime only 90 miles off the American shores in Cuba…”
YOUR: "...distance is not a barrier to the operational reach of the CIA. I wonder why you should naively make distance a problem for the CIA..."
OUR COMMENT: We agree with you Francis Kwarteng. It does not make sense when the world was, even back then, was travelling at the speed of sound. And why would Russia go through Cuba when Sarah Palin told we can actually see Russia from Alaska. In short, it is all about the defense of one's ideology and self interest, and most significant, utilizing others to achieve the goals in your national interest, at least cost, and as surreptitiously as possible. And sa you say, our Professor Kludze, from the selective citations, did not know fully the context, or the history. In fact, the US had tried and failed, in the Bay of Pigs, on 17 April, 1961.
THEN THIS "counter argument" FROM WHOM WE CANNOT TELL: "... The counter argument had been that unlike Fidel Castro of Cuba, in the Republic of Ghana, ‘Nkrumah strove to follow the advice of his mentor- George Padmore, who lies buried in Christianborg Castle to pursue a social[construction]revolution without waiting to consolidate the national revolution?’
OUR COMMENT: What does all that mean? Or did Professor Kludze and Fordjour miss GIL SCOTT-HERON memo that the peoples Revolition Will Not be Televised? Fsct is, Nkrumah was engaged on all those fronts, Social, National, Pan African and International.
And for our "modern day man of God" be cited talking about "security of the Ghanaian", as if it even makes elementary sense in the singular.
So, sorry!
Nuff of our time on this Kludze- contraption of "He saids"!
Dear Fordjour,
Dear Fordjour,
Citing Prof. Kluzde clearly shows he was/is not conversant with the vast literature available on how the CIA operates.
It also show how ignorant he (Prof. Kludze) was/is about declassif ...
read full comment
So what exactly is your point?
Is it that the CIA overthrew Nkrumah, much against the popular opinion at the time? And that none of what Lawyer Asante Fordjour is saying about Nkrumah is true?
Please kindly contest in s ...
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Dear Fordjour,
I forgot to mention one important point:
Could you give your readers a run down on CLR James' track record on his position as an adviser to Eric Williams, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago? ...
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Under this repressive political climate created by the messiah, any role played by the CIA in the coup was insignificant. Freedom loving people were not going to endure repression for long regardless of development projects ...
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Dear Kwarteng,
..But for the alleged Soviet-Cuba support and the reader, I wouldn’t have responded.
[1] Yes, in military action planning and execution, proximity makes little oddity but could provide a stable, reliable ...
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Dear Fordjour,
All errors in this response, grammatical or otherwise, are solely mine!
I have addressed those concerns elsewhere. Other leading scholars, researchers, and historians in both Ghana and the West (America a ...
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[1]From all that you have culled here, I think respectfully, that they also have their own counter-arguments also published elsewhere if you wish to know. I understand but I'm sorry, I’m not here for any ideological tussle- ...
read full comment
Your argument is getting a bit infantile.To suggest that the presence of Russians in Ghana negates the argument of the CIA deal and their agents who were paid to destabilize Ghana must be the height of dishonesty.
We honestly can figure out what Asante Forjour is trying to say by parading Professor Kludze.
READ Kludze courtesy Fordjour: "... Those who today, do not revel in the repeal of the Preventive Detention Act, continue to ...
read full comment
We honestly can't figure out...