Eisenhower,Nkrumah and the Congo Crisis

Abstract

Ghana achieved its independence from Britain in March 1957. The gist of this article is that Ghana started off on cordial terms with the USA, but by September 1960 this relationship was close to rupture, with Washington charging that Ghana was taking too much after the Soviet Union. It is, however, argued that the circumstanes leading up to the chilling of USA–Ghana relations in 1960 were more complex, and that the clear point of departure was the Congo crisis. Almost from the onset, the USA and Ghana had substantial differences over the crisis, and the more the crisis deepened, the more the gulf between the two widened.