A postscript to my post on the US and North Korea yesterday.
In a review of The State of Africa: The First Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith in the Financial Times (their Saturday magazine book review section is almost uniformly excellent), Paul Nugent writes:
"Some of of anecdotes are priceless. One of my favourites is the story of Richard Nixon flattering Mobutu in 1970: 'I find in studying your administration that you not only have a balanced budget but a favourable balance of trade and I would like to know your secret before meeting with the cabinet.'"
(Free registration may be required for the FT.)
If Mobutu is before your time, see here for why this is so sickening, or indeed look at the state of Congo today, courtesy of the CIA, with an estimated per capita GDP of $700.
Article comments
1 - wahoo
The peculiar manner in which knowledge about Africa is produced means that the output of raw information tends to outstrip the amount of critical reflection that goes on. As a consequence, we know more and understand less - something that has become increasingly apparent from the early 1980s onwards.
-- Martin Meredith
The peculiar manner in which knowledge about America is produced means that the output of raw information tends to outstrip the amount of critical reflection that goes on. As a consequence, we know more and understand less - something that has become increasingly apparent from the early 1980s onwards.
-- Me
2 - Natalie
Well I would have said all of the evidence indicates that this is entirely typical of US foreign policy, both during the Cold War and, even less excusably, afterwards.