ABSTRACT
In 1959 and 1960, the issue of Kenya’s future evolution got bound up with the political and strategic issues involved in Britain’s move to rapidly dismantle her colonial empire. Iain Macleod’s policies vis-a-vis decolonization are sometimes discussed in terms of his personal sincerity and liberal humanism. Macleod perceived Britain’s major assets as her experience, her strength of leadership and her moral standards. Macleods policy can be characterized as an attempt to make a virtue of what he perceived as necessity. Decolonization would be imbued with the high moral purpose that had similarly been given to colonialism itself. Many analysts of decolonization in Africa especially those who adhere to the dependence perspective, have argued that the strategy just outlined was applied in Kenya and was a magnificant success. A major goal of colonial initiatives after the Declaration of Emergency had been to create an alternative political leadership among the Kikuyu to that of Kenyatta and the “Mau Mau-tainted” politicians.
