State Department to bolster the argument: that the U.S. does not intervene in the internal affairs of. other countries and that its -‘hand.is never involved in sudden over- ‘turns like the one that occurred February 24 in Ghana.
But when the legal head of the Ghanaian government went unexpectedly to nearby Guinea where he was given a tremendous welcome as an éxile and victim of CIA machinations, the striped-pants crew in Washington panicked and threw decency to the winds. On March 4,. just eight days after the Ghanaian generals pulted their coup om état, the State Department recognized them.
- The speed of the move , said John We Finney, Washington. cor= respondent of the New York Times [March 5] was a "deliberate attempt to support the new Government against any bid. by the deposed ‘President, Kwame- Nkrumah, to reassert power."'
From the same source, one that obviously reflects briefing by “the State Department, we learn that Washington succeeded in acting with "deliberate slowness" in other recent military coups in Africa. The aim was "to avoid giving an impression that it was encouraging military coups." "But with Ghana the United States decided it could not wait the same discreet diplomatic period because of the threat by Mr. Nkrumah to return to Ghana to reassert his authority."
The State Department, of course, may have had good reason £0 fear the possibility of Nkrumah making a quick comeback; the Ghanaian generals have kept in daily contact with the American Embassy since they seized power.
In the lower part of Manhattan, the banking and stock~market moguls are also rallying behind the new military regime. The appeal made by Lieut. Gen. Joseph Ankrah March 3 for an immediate loan of $50,400,000 was at once given a sympathetic hearing in Wall Street.
"Such help, authorities here believe," said Brendan Jones, writing in the financial section of the March 6 New York Times, "will start with debt refinancing by the International Monetary Fund, of which Ghana is a member. Outstanding debts, chiefly short-term credits, will have to be consolidated and rescheduled on a long-term basis.
"If the plan is accepted as workable, and includes budget cuts and a halt to non-essential expenditures, the I.M.P. is expected to aid debt liquidation."
Although the members of Ghana's new military regime are not exactly habitués of the counting houses in lower Manhattan, they seem to have established a good credit rating there with remarkable
elt oe
ease: "Authorities here,".continues Jones, "generally consider the financial and economic officials of the new regime as capable and responsible. It is felt, consequently, that as they show a determination to restore Ghana' Ss financial health, other assistance will be made available in loans. an CO
Besides ‘the United “States, it is. ‘thought "probable" that. "Britain, West Germany and possibly Canada" will join in backing. Ghana's generals with a-good supply of funds. "It is expected also. that private investment may not be long in moving into Ghana once a different political orientation becomes evident.
-In other words , the sharks have smelled blood and are moving in swiftly to” assist in any way ‘they | can to "stabilize" the situa-:: tion. . rs
As for popular support for the new regime, ‘the moneylenders have not overlooked that. "Shortages of food have been recurrent in ‘sugar, flour and rice, and.an early end to the shortages is considered essential for the success of ‘the new Government. The United States, which last year turned down the Nkrumah Government's request for $100-million of Food-for-Peace aid, may soon be. expected to give favorable consideration to a new and more modest Ghanaian request.
On March 2, New York ‘Times correspondent Lloyd» ‘Garrison wrote from Accra: "Non- Communist diplomats could. scarcely contain their. delight with the turn of events." This could be. said with equal accuracy of the reaction of the State Department and.the New York: | banking world. As these. spheres view it, a country uncomfortably close to going noncapitalist has been pulled back. With a bit more attention it can be converted into a land that is really safe for the American dollar. Can there be any higher or.: worthier goal than that? a,
CONGOLESE GUERRILLA MOVEMENT STILL