The Foreign Service Journal, September 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2022 43 FOCUS ON ENGAGEMENT WITH AFRICA KENNEDY, NIXON AND THE COMPETITION FOR MR. AFRICA, 1952-1960 Gregory L. Garland retired from the Foreign Service in 2019 and currently works as a foreign policy analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation’s Biological Policy Staff Office. He served as the deputy chief of mission in Bamako and Praia. Other postings included Dakar/Bissau, Herat, Maputo, Conakry, Luanda, Mexico City, Tijuana and Warsaw. Washington assignments included the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs, research fellow at the National Defense Intelligence College, and media and outreach coordinator in the State Department Bureau of African Affairs. O ne of the more curious episodes in the history of American foreign relations was the competi- tion for the unofficial title of Mr. Africa between two future presidents: Senator John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Vice President Richard M. Nixon. These two ambitious men jumped at opportunities to associate themselves with the continent at a time when it attracted little interest from the Cold War–focused foreign affairs establishment. Though their concerns were domestic, Kennedy and Nixon were the first American politicians of national rank to prioritize Africa. They drew widespread attention to Africa with compel- ling visions of positive engagement based on national interest. John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon were the first American politicians of national rank to prioritize Africa— more than half a century ago. BY GREGORY L . GARLAND In hindsight, these two young men and future presidents were modern-day policy pathfinders, pioneering the long, often convoluted, and still unfinished process of bringing the continent into the mainstream of American foreign policy and political debate. Domestic Calculations Domestically, the two men competed for Black support. Republican Nixon especially needed those votes in industrial states that had trended Democratic. He had the political winds to his back. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, led by Nixon’s fellow California Republican Chief Justice Earl Warren, invigorated a pro–civil rights image for the GOP, reinforced by President Dwight Eisenhower’s force- ful response to the Little Rock integration crisis in 1957. Nixon successfully cultivated support from Black celebrities, notably baseball’s Jackie Robinson, another Californian. Indeed, Nixon could take justifiable pride in his civil rights record. Honorary member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his service in Congress, he was the first prominent member of the Eisenhower administra- tion to endorse publicly the Brown decision. He also backed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In 1960, he worked with New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to include a strong civil rights plank