International records / Foreign Relations of the United States

152. Memorandum of Conversation

ou may know my policy, we are interested in Angola because the Soviets intervened 8,000 miles away and transformed the third largest faction into the largest. All of the surrounding African states are profoundly concerned with this development. Even Nigeria, which had to recognize the MPLA for basic domestic reasons, is concerned. A US collapse will have the profoundest effect in Africa. In Europe it will prove that the collapse in Vietnam was not an aberration. In China—where the President, who is not in the Foreign Service, two weeks ago told Mao that we would stand firm and induce them to c…