Foreign Relations: Mission to Africa

As U.S. Attorney General and as ace political troubleshooter for the New Frontier, Robert Francis Kennedy, 35, has been far more conspicuous for his tough mind, razored tongue and tireless energies than for his diplomatic techniques. Yet last week Bobby turned up in morning coat in the Ivory Coast Republic on Africa’s western bulge—and scored a nice diplomatic success.

President John Kennedy had dispatched Brother Bobby to the Ivory Coast as a gesture of friendship to one of Africa’s most European-minded rulers: President Félix Houphouet-Boigny. The Ivory Coast was celebrating its first anniversary of independence after more than a century of French rule. Arriving in Abidjan, capital of the New Mexico-sized nation of coffee and cocoa plantations, Attorney General Kennedy was met at an airport reception with red carpet and tribal dances. Manfully (since he facetiously says that it took him eight years to complete second-year French in school). Bobby Kennedy delivered a graceful speech in French. (He was helped by phonetic notes on words like “ann-day-pon-dons” and “Hoo-fwet Bwa-nyee.”

Prized Possession. At the first chance, Bobby and wife Ethel, the sprightly mother of seven, ducked away from the protocol circuit to tour the Ivory Coast’s back-country villages with the same nice-to-see-you smile and handshake that had served his brother Jack so well in the 1960 campaign wilds of West Virginia. Bobby enthusiastically applauded a tribal stilts dancer, was offered another village’s prized possession—a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. Cried Bobby: “Vive la Côte d’lvoire!” Replied a tribesman in perfect English: “Very good!”

Then Bobby and Ethel Kennedy returned to join the representatives of 49 other nations for the two days of ceremonial dancing and feasting in Abidjan, where a brand-new presidential palace gleamed in marble glory above cool fountains and wide terraces. There, G. Mennen (“Soapy”) Williams, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, made some sort of diplomatic fashion history by appearing in cutaway coat and green polka-dot bow tie. There, too, Bobby announced the U.S. gift to Houphouet-Boigny of a beige, two-engined Aero Commander plane. (The Ivory Coast’s President is scared of flying, but he appreciated the sentiment.) Bobby, Ethel and their entourage watched bare-breasted girls performing a “Dance of Joy” under eucalyptus trees, saw a three-hour parade that included 2,000 extra men drafted into the Ivory Coast army just for the occasion. At dinner, the guests sat on gold chairs, ate to the luxurious clatter of gold knives and forks, listened to Chopin on hifi.

Problems & Progress. But it was at a potentially damaging press conference before critical African reporters that Attorney General Bobby Kennedy scored most clearly. Asked a badgering (but inevitable) question about the “inhuman and intolerable conditions of the Negro” in the U.S. South, Bobby forthrightly admitted that problems exist, but the “most important thing is that the U.S. Government and the vast majority of the people are trying to do something about it.” He noted that Negroes “hold important posts in government; there are Negro ambassadors around the world, Negro judges, mayors, representatives in the U.N. We are making progress. But monsieur, we will continue to have problems.”