ABSTRACT
The United States (US) approach to Africa fits into two distinct phases: the precolonial period, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt in the Second World War and ending with the 'Year of Africa' in 1960; and the post-colonial phase from 1960 onwards. From the time that Americans entered the war, Roosevelt urged his European allies to recognize that the days of their empires were numbered. Angola was judged to be a disaster of Henry Kissinger policy by most US pundits, by the Congress of the day and by the Carter administration not only because the policy failed but also because the civil war and secret US intervention were held to have been encouraged by the secretary of state. Kissinger had ignored the advice of Africanists in the State Department - men like Ambassador Nathaniel Davis - to view Angola and its implications in African, rather than in global terms.
