In 1960 the Republic of Ghana was formed, the same year that Kwame Nkrumah was elected president. Nkrumah saw Ghana as the "Star of Black Africa." Nkrumah advocated centralization, both political and economic. Constitutional safeguards against authoritarianism were abolished, political opposition was stifled, and eventually Nkrumah was declared president for life. By the mid-1960s, Ghana had become a one-party state under a powerful president.
In 1966 Nkrumah was overthrown and a military government assumed power. But neither military nor civilian governments during the next fifteen years were able to deal successfully with the host of problems that Nkrumah had left behind him.
This collection of U.S. State Department Central Classified Files relating to internal affairs contains a wide range of materials from U.S. diplomats, including:
- Special reports on political and military affairs
- Studies and statistics on socioeconomic matters
- Interviews and minutes of meetings with foreign government officials
- Full texts of important letters, instructions, and cables sent and received by U.S. diplomatic personnel
- Voluminous reports and translations from foreign journals and newspapers
- Countless translations of high-level foreign government documents, including speeches, memoranda, official reports, and transcripts of political meetings and assemblies
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