American Committee on Africa -- Portuguese-American Committee on Foreign Affairs

8/11/2019 American Committee on Africa -- Portuguese-American Committee on Foreign Affairs

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COCHAIRMEN

Donald Harrington

A. Philip

Randolph

VICE

CH A

IRMAN

James

A Pike

PRESIDENT

Peter

Weiss

VICEPRESIDENTS

Sophia Yarnall Jacobs

Frank

C.

Montero

Hope R Stevens

SECRETARY

Farrell

J

ones

TREASURER

Nelson Bengs t on

(

partial listing

Sadie

T. M. A

lexander

Victor L.

Anfuso

Thurman

A

rno

ld

Stringfe

ll

ow Barr

Roger N. Baldwin

Richard Boll ing

Mr s . Chester Bowles

Van Wyck Brooks

James

B.

Carey

Marguerit

e Cartwright

Allan

Knight Chalmers

Max

Del son

Peter De

Vries

Charles

C.

Diggs

Jr

.

Harry

El1 Ierson

Fosdick

Lewi

s S.

Gannett

Carlton B. Goodlett

Arthur

N .

Holcombe

Elmer

J.

Holland

.

Mary

Louise H

ooper

Hubert

H. Humphrey

Martin

Luther King ,

Jr

.

Rayford

W.

Logan

Eugene J.

McCarthy

Robert

J. McCracken

John

A. M

ackay

Will Maslow

Al e

xander

Meiklejohn

Reinhold Niebuhr

F. D. Patterson

Cia rence Pickett

Sidney Poitier

Paul A.

Porter

A.

Philip

Randolph

I ra De A . Reid

Jackie Robinson

. Franklin D. fioosevelt

Robert

SI.

John

Francis

B.

Sayre

George

W.

Shepherd

Ralph W. Sockman

Edward

J.

Sparl ing

William

E.

Stevenson

C Sumner Stone ,

Jr

.

Rex

Stout

Norman Thomas

H oward Thurman

Mark

Van

Doren

J.

Wat,es Waring

EXECUTIVE

BOARD

James Baldwin

Daniel J .

Be m

s

tein

Win

ifred Courtney

James Fa rm er

Jo

seph Jablow

David D. Jones

Stanley D.

Levison

John V.

Murra

Victor

G. Re

uther

Cl

eveland Robinson

J

ames

H .

Robinson

Bayard Rus

t

in

William

X.

Schein man

Adelaide Schulkind

Hugh H. Smyth e

Percy

Sutton

DIRECTOR

George M Houser

DIRECTOR

Jam es R. R

ob in

son

PROJECTS DIRECTOR

H azel H Gray

DIRECTOR

Collin Gonze

STAFF

ASSOCIATES

Cat h

arine

R

ay

m

ond

Em ma Thomas

GENERAL

COUNSEL

Rob ert Delson

. , 17

.

-

MERIC N

C

801 Second Avenue New

ON FRIC

U 6

7263

Cable AMCOMMAF

DATE: February

15,

1962

TO National Committee Members

ROM George M Houser

SUBJ.: Portuguese-American Committee on

Foreign

Affairs

I hope

that

you

will

pardon

the

form

nature

of

this

communi a-

tion. I have

just returned

from spending several weeks in Africa,

principally in

an

area of northern Angola held by

nationalists

of

the

Union of the

Populations of

Angola. I am

enclosing

my

report

of

this t r ip

Upon my return there were

several

communications on

my

desk

from members of our National Committee, communications related to the

le t ter and material which apparently each of you had

received

from

an

organization

called the

Portuguese-American Committee on

Foreign

Affairs. I gather that each member of

the

National Committee has

received

this

material and

has

been told that our Committee

backs

Itcommunist goals in

Africa

and is some

kind

of a pernicious front

with which none of you should be associated. To

my

knowledge, no one

has resigned from our National Committee on the basis of this

infor-

mation.

Nevertheless,

I

feel that

i t is

important to

make at

least

brief comments on

this attack.

I

think that

you may be interested

in the letter which Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr sent to

the

Portuguese-

American Committee on Foreign Affairs on his receipt of this

material.

Just for

the

record, we have recently learned a

l i t t l e

bit

more about the Portuguese-American Committee on Foreign Affairs

through

a

report

filed

with

the

Department

of Justice

b,y

Selvage and

Lee, a public

relations

firm. Selvage and Lee is under contract to

a

consortium of

o r t u ~ e s e business

enterprises called

the Overseas

Companies

of

Portugal.

According

to

the Selvage and Lee report their

program involves

disseminating

and publicizing the accomplishments

of

Portugal

in i t s

overseas provinces and

the

distribution

through

al l available media of

facts to

combat

false

and

misleading

informa-

tion relating to

current

s tr ife

in Angola. In their report, Selvage


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emo

Page 2

and Lee

indicate

that

one

of

their employees is Dr. Martin T.

Camacho They also

indicate

that they

pay a

retainer fee

weekly to

Mr

Camacho

and

that

furthermore they pay

the

organization's

expenses

in maintaining an

office

and distributing material.

I point this out, not because there is anything wrong with a

public relations firm making a

contract

with any group with which they

wish

to

do

business, but

i t does help in making a judgement about the

credibility of material issued by such a public relations firm

i f

one

knows who is paying the

bill . The

American Committee

on

Africa re-

ceives b s o l u t e ~ none of i ts funds

from

any source

other

than

i ts

members

and

contributors in the

United

states.

One thing distressing about the

attack

of the Portuguese

American Committee

on

Foreign

Affairs

is

that

nothing

substantive

is

stated. The American Committee on Africa is attacked because i t

ubacks communist goals in Africa. But there is no examination of

what

the issues in Africa

or

in

African-American

relations are,

no

analysis of what the Soviet

position is ,

no comment on any statements

or on any literature which our Committee has issued, and nothing at

all is

said

about statements by American

state

Department repre-

sentatives or our Mission to

the

UN

on the

question of Angola and

especially no reference is made to the report of the

U N

Sub-commis

sion on Angola with

whose findings

our Committee has

generally

agreed.

Our

Committee has published pamphlets

written

by scholars in

the

field of African affairs including some on Mozambique and Angola. Our

position

is backed up by almost all

serious students

of African

affairs

that

Portuguese

rule

in

Africa has

laid

the

seeds

for

i t s

own destruction through

i ts

political repression of the great mass of

people i t s economic

exploitation,

i t s forced

labor

system and i t s

particular

form

of

racism which does differ from

the

apartheid pat-

tern

of

South

Africa,

t r

instance,

but is

nevertheless racist.

We

have taken

the position

that the way should

be

paved

for

Portuguese

colonies in Africa to become independent although we have never tried

to put a timetable on the achievement of

this

objective.

The

Portuguese-American Committee along with Selvage and

Lee

has undoubted

ly distributed millions of copies t atrocity pictures of what hap

pened

on March 15th,

but with no

analysis of

events leading up

to

that date. Our Committee has never made any excuse for

the atrocities

which were committed by the Africans other than explaining the

bitterness

which

the

Africans

do

teel

towards

the

Portuguese.

The

Portuguese-American Committee however has never made any comment on

the wave of mass

terror against

the Atricans by the well-armed

Portuguese both

on land and in the

air.

We should feel highly honored that the Portuguese-American

Committee on Foreign

Affairs

practically gives us

credit tor

molding

American

policy

towards

Africa.

NatUrally any

organization

hopes

that

i t

can have some influence from time to time. I trust that our

activities

and our statements have not been e n t i r e ~ unnoticed by

those

who

do form government policyo The Porttguese-Amerioan Committee

makes


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Page

i t

seem almost pernicious to have engaged in

discussions

with G.

Mennen Williams,

for

example. We carryon

activities no

different

from thousands

of

other

groups

that

are

interested

in

public

policy

in

the United States. .

The Portuguese-American Committee, undoubtedly

taking

i ts

information from elsewhere, says some rather unfortunate

things in

order

to make i t

seem that

the communists have had a

role

in

the re-

volt n Angola.

As

the report on rrry t r ip indicates, and I think I

can speak with sane authority

since

I

was

just in Angola, I

saw no

evidence

of

any communist influence on the

revolt. The

U.N. Sub

commission concurs in

this

observation. The le t ter which the Portu-

guese-American Committee enclosed with the material

sent

out,

supposedly written by Holden Roberto, the President

of the

U.P.A.,

is

an obvious forgery. I t doesn't even have his correct

signature

on i t Roberto has never visited Moscow. The fi rst time he was

even

in

any

part of Eastern

Europe

was

when he

attended

the Belgrade

Conference

last

September. He

travels

regularly on a Tunisian

pass-

port, and persistently has refused to do business with the Eastern

bloc countries. I have

personally

known him

ever since 1954 when

he called on

me at the

Union Mission House

in Leopoldville.

He him

self

is a product of

British Baptist

missionary work

n northern

Angola and

in

the Congo.

Frequently

the final refuge of someone holding an untenable

position is to attack the opposition as tlconnnunistic. The A.C.O.A.

cannot

take this attack

by innuendo seriously, and

therefore

I

shall

make

no

effort to

answer

the

smears

against

some

of

our

Board

mem-

bers. Suffice i t

to

say that

any

examination of the positions of

A.C.O.A. would

find

them at wide variance with the Communist position

on key questions such

as

the Congo, for example.

We

certainly have

had no Communists on

our

staff or Board.

If

the Portuguese-American Committee on Foreign Affairs had

taken

the trouble to get in

touch with our Committee

some

of

their

small factual

errors

could have been

cleared

up quite easily. They

call

our publication

Africa Speaks instead of AFRICA

TODAY

They

call Mr. Hope Stevens

an

Associate Executive

Director

of the

o ~

mittee

and

Homer

Jack a former Executive

Director,

both of which

are wrong, although the mistake is not important.

They

say that

Frank Montero

recently

visited

Mozambique which he has never done.

Ordinarily

we would ignore irresponsible attacks made by

committees such

as

Camacho's. But I thought

i t

important

that

some

comments should be made to

various

members of our National Committee

since

a number had written

in to

us.

If

there are

s t i l l

questions

which you would like to have answered

of

a more specific nature,

please le t me know.

Obviously, I have not dealt with every

point the

Portuguese-American Committee has tried to make, because this did not

seem

necessary.

But I would be

glad to make

comment on any

question

that

members

of

the

National

Committee would

like to raise

after

reading the report on my

recent

t r ip .

American Committee on Africa -- Portuguese-American Committee on Foreign Affairs

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