Big Daddy's Breakfast

Two months ago, Uganda's mercurial President General Idi ("Big Daddy") Amin Dada packed off all the members of his Cabinet for 30 days of "vacation." They were exhausted, he said, and needed a rest. Then he extended the enforced leave for another 30 days, announcing that the ministers' permanent secretaries would run things in their absence. Last week the eleven surviving ministers--five others had been fired, one quit in disgust, and another, Amin's brother-in-law, submitted his resignation by letter--filed into the presidential palace in Kampala for a 6 a.m. command breakfast. Those who showed up late, Big Daddy curtly announced, would be court-martialed.

It soon became clear that Amin had more than military discipline, or scrambled eggs, on his mind. Radio Uganda brightly described all hands as "looking happy and fresh after their two-month leave," but their smiles soon faded. Big Daddy made the mildly ominous announcement that not only would the ministers not return to their old jobs right away but that "some won't return at all, and 98% of those who make it will not go to their former ministries." Amin added that the permanent secretaries had done "very well" in the ministers' absence and "provided brilliant ideas that I did not often get from you." While he pondered a permanent government reorganization, the secretaries would continue to serve as acting ministers. They would also use the ministers' official cars. "We will get other cars for you," he told the Cabinet.

Amin saved his most extraordinary performance of the week for later. After dismissing his chastised guests, he composed a rambling cable to Richard Nixon, who had ordered a phase-out of U.S. aid to Uganda in response to the expulsion of the country's Asians. "My dear brother," Amin wrote, "it is quite true that you have enough problems on your plate, and it is surprising that you have the zeal to add on fresh ones." Amin then ticked off some of the "problems": racial strife in the U.S., Viet Nam, the ITT fiasco in Chile, and, of course, Watergate: "At this moment you are uncomfortably sandwiched in that unfortunate affair." Big Daddy signed off with a heartfelt benison from one hard-pressed statesman to another: "I ask almighty God to help you solve your problems."

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