Source: U.S. State Department Online Archives
Date: January 28, 1969 AD
Title: Memorandum for the president
Author: Henry Kissenger
“Biafra (3, 000 sq. miles, 4-6 million). Colonel Ojukwu — 35, British-trained, erstwhile playboy — presides over the popular support and military morale of a people convinced that defeat means extinction. The Ibos are the wandering Jews of West Africa — gifted, aggressive, Westernized; at best envied and resented, but mostly despised by the mass of their neighbors in the Federation. They have fought well (by African standards) against heavy odds; their cynical public relations use of the starvation has been brilliant.”
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Featured Image: Presidential adviser Henry Kissinger briefs newsman on the upcoming state visit of Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev in Washington, Thursday, June 14, 1973. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty)