THE SITUATION IN GHANA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R002000190021-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 10, 2005
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: July 13, 1961
• Content Type: MEMO

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C E N T R A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A G E N C Y
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES
13 July 1961
STAF, MEMORANDUM 36-,61 (Internal 0/NE Working Paper - CIA
Distribution Only)
SUBJECT: The Situation in Ghana
1. Kwame Nkrumah's current visit to Moscow comes at a time
of unprecedented problems and frustrations for Ghana's President.
Faced with a series of disappointments and setbacks in his efforts
to assume leadership among the African states, Nkrumah has also
boon confronted at home not only with serious economic and
financial problems but with growing dissension and indiscipline
within his own Convention People's Party (CPP). Given his
consuming ambition and strong dislikes, Nkrumah's efforts to
deal with these problems are likely to lead to increasing friction
with Ghana's African neighbors and a new period of acrimony
toward the West, particularly the US.
2. Widely acclaimed in 1957 as head of the first black
African state to achieve independence after World War II,
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Nkrumah has since found his efforts to be the spokesman for
Africa increasingly challenged by other loaders as newer nations
have emerged: the President of Ghana now finds that he is
neither Prinnxs nor even priuus inter pares in the revised
hierarchy of leadership on the continont. Nkrumahts plans for
Pan-African political union have miscarried, with most of the
newer nations tending instead to emphasize economic cooperation;
his hopes for a federal linkage between Ghana and the Congo
foundered with the death of Lumumba; and his pretensions to be
leader of Africa's so-called "Casablanca radicals" have been
thwarted by the conflicting-claims of Nasser, Sokou Touro,
and Hassan II of Morocco. Even the vaunted Ghana-Guinea-Mali
Union has failed to acquire any firm political substance;
Ghana's partners, whUe quick to accept Nkrumah's financial
aid, have been chary of relinquishing sovereignty.
3. At home, Nkrumah has expurienced serious difficulties --
not from the once powerful tribal forces of the Ashanti confedera-
tion as anticipated -- but from within the ranks of his own CPP
and its affiliated organizations, which had hitherto appeared
to provide the very model of monolithic one-party government
in Africa, In recent months a group of so-called young Turks
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prominent in the Trades Jnion Congress and in youth and other
groups linked with the CPP has become increasingly assertive,,
denouncing the "old guard" leadership of the CPP as corrupt
and unconcerned with the welfare of the Ghanaian people and
demanding closer ties with the Bloc and creation of a socialist
state in Ghana. While careful to except Nkrumah himsolf from
consure, they have boon critical of the other old line loaders,
many of whom have grown fat and lazy in lucrative cabinet
posts, and have sought to limit the CPP hierarchy's control
over affiliates in such fields as labor, youth, and agriculture.
Naturally, the "old guard" loaders have fought back.
4. In the face of this threat to CPP unity, Nkrurnah
reasserted his own authority, first denouncing both sides in
April, later putting through a govurnmental shakeup in which
several cabinet officers were forced out, a number of ministries
were abolished or reorganized, and his own control over govern-
ment and party business was strengthened; inter alia, he assumed
the secretary-generalship of the CPP and took over presidential
control of the army and police. However, none of the basic
issues involved has been clearly resolved and both sides remain
uneasy. Nkrumah's actions have almost certainly disturbed the
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"old guard," which appears to have gotten the worst of the
government reshuffling. However, he has almost certainly
not gone far enough to satisfy the "young Turks," and despite
recent promises to institute a vigorous anti-corruption
campaign, it is unlikely that he will satisfy "young Turk"
and popular expectations on this point. Nkrumah has made very
little progress in making the TUC subj,,,,i, to CPP discipline,
and John Tettegah, a leading young Turk in the labor movement,
is continuing to do considerable political free-wheeling.
5. For the first time since leading his country to in-
dependence Nkrumah is also experiencing the unpleasantness of
some drop in public popularity. Despite continued efforts to
promote the cult of Nkrumahism, under which the name and face
of the Osagyefo (literally savior) are kept constantly before
the masses, the 1960 Presidential balloting showed that Nkrumah's
level of support in urban centers, where political sophistication
and activity is greatest, was iluch lower than in rural areas.
Moreover, while he received 88 per cent of all votes cast, these
represented only 47.5 per cent of those available, since only
54 per cent of the total electorate voted.
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6. NkrumahIs troubles are compounded by economic difficultiou.
World cocoa prices are at the lowest level in yoars, and cocoa
(armors, are further irritated by the allocation of Marketing
Board funds to general economic development programs rather
than to the alleviltion of their special difficulties. Moreover,
even the broader economic pro prams have misfired to the point
that in the four years since indopondence the government has
squandered a financial patrimony of 5250 million through ill-
advised development schemes, and the construction of pro-
possessing government buildings, and lavish living by offi.3ials.
Current indications are that Ghatiats reserves will have run
out by 1962 and that the Nlcrumah government will be in dosperato
need of budetary support from abroad, as well as financial
aid for existing development programs.
7. Even if these short-term. financial problems are over-
come, any further decline in world cocoa prices over the next
year would lead to growing farmer 'is content and, by reducing
the funds available for pursuit of economic development, would
the CPPIs
add to the disgruntlement of/young radicals. Such circumstances
would almost certainly encourage more active criticism from
opposition groups in the Parliament, the army and the basically
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conservative civil service, all of whom t.i,u irritated by Nkrumah'c
flamboyance and extravagance and (notably in the case of the
army) by Nkrumah's adventurous policies iz, the Congo and elsewhero.
8. Given Nkrumah's great authority, we thiu!s it unlikely
that any serious attempt. to aunt him, either by political or
military opponents, will develop durin,r the next six months
to a year. Nevertheless, he is now and will probably continue
to be sufficiently vulnerable to criticism to make any prospect
of recouping his fortunes abroad especially attractive. During
his current visit to the Soviet Union and other Bloc countries,
Nkrumah will almost certainly seek large scale financial aid
in exchange for Ghanaian cocoa, a commodity which would probably
be reexported in view of its limited market in the Communist
area. In return for augmcntod Bloc assistance, Nkrumah
also may offer assurances of a more pro-Communist neutralist
foreign policy, as well as accept grunter Bloc guidance on
tochncial development programs. In addition, he is probably
interested in slipping Ghanaian aid to revolutionary exile groups
to
from Portuguese Africa and/somo of the more moderate independent
African states such as Togo and the Ivory Coast, and may seek
Soviet assistance in providing arms to such groups.
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9. The President proba':dly hopes that any agreements ho
concludes with the Bloc will not further upset Ghana's already
troubled relations with the West. However, there is an even
chance that further tightening of Ghanaian-Soviet economic ties
will unhinge US plans for, the constiiiction of a major darn on
the Volta River. While the project has been on the planning
boards for many years and the IBRD and a consortium of US in-
dustrial concerns have brought ftecuosions With the Ghanaian
Government to neap conclusion, they are deeply disturbed by the
looming financial and political crisis in Ghana, as well as
that country's anti Western foreign policy orientation. Any
sudden lurch by Nkrumah in a more clearly defined pro-Soviet
direction could lead the US group to further delay or to drop
its plans for the Volta. There is at least an even chance
such action would lead Ghana to emulate Nasserts conduct in
similar circumstances and pursue this major project with Bloc
aid. The Soviet Union has clearly indicated its interest in
providing such support.
10. A successful visit to the Soviet Bloc would also
strengthen the position of the CPP "young Turks" at home.
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Nkrumah will continue to seek to curb their influence, and may
ultimately succeed in bringing the various affiliated or-
ganizations under CPP control. But a combination of disillusion-
ment among his former conservative supporters and opposition
from army elements and the Parliament might compell him to
accept an alliance with the loft. Under such circumstances,
Ghana would probably experience a period of considerable internal
instability, with a struggle for power erupting outside CPP
precincts and broadening out throughout the nation.
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