The Quiet Ones

To hot, rainy Monrovia last week came 16 heads of government and four senior ministers from 20 independent African nations. The occasion: the African Heads of Government Conference, the largest African summit meeting ever held.

Though the host and chairman was President William Tubman of Liberia, the man chiefly responsible for the conference was Felix Houphouet-Boigny (pronounced hoof-K>^ boyn-yee), 55, President of the flourishing Ivory Coast. A physician and plantation owner who served for 13 years in the French Assembly before his country became independent, Houphouet-Boigny is a sharp contrast to the rabble-rousers who make most of Africa's news, and he is slowly gaining respect as a leader who recognizes that shrill demagoguery is no solution to Africa's ills. Months ago he conceived the idea of a conference of all African leaders, with the modest aim of soberly exploring their common problems. As it turned out, the delegates who came to Monrovia represent a majority of independent Africans --some 95 million of free Africa's 186 million citizens. Significantly absent were the five obstreperous Casablanca powers: the U.A.R., Morocco, Guinea, Ghana and Mali (the Congo and South Africa were not invited). Originally, Guinea's Sekou Toure and Mali's Mobido Keita accepted. But Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, who destroys everything he cannot lead, talked them both out of going.

Chosen: the West. As chief of by far the most populous country represented. Nigeria's Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa did most of the talking. The participants agreed on their "unswerving loyalty'' to the U.N. They censured the arrest of Katanga's Moise Tshombe in the Congo, nuclear testing, South Africa's racial policies. They laid the groundwork for technical and economic cooperation, scheduled a second meeting in Lagos later this year. But as Houphouet-Boigny planned, the conference was primarily an initial, amiable stab at getting acquainted.

Houphouet-Boigny has already modeled his hopes for Africa in miniature in the "committee of Brazzaville," the economic union of twelve former French West Africa states set up last month (TIME, April 7). Speaking for those states, Houphouet-Boigny says: "We have chosen, frankly, the West. We do not wish to engage in war; we do not wish to have the enmity of any group. But we know how to choose our friends: those who will not impair our liberty." Houphouet-Boigny would ultimately like to see the same sort of solidarity emerge from the Monrovia nations. "Our hope is that Africa will become a huge Switzerland."

Houphouet-Boigny is well aware of the wreckers. "We see the Russian efforts on our continent at the moment, encouraging a policy of hate and war between Africans. If we are naive enough to sever relations with the West, in the end we will be invaded by the Chinese, and the Russians will impose Communism on us."

To the U.S., which has tended to open its cold war purse strings in areas where it was scared rather than where it was confident, Houphouet-Boigny's inference is plain: the West would do well to watch --and encourage--Africa's quiet ones.

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