The Ambitious Ones

For a continent emerging into freedom, Africa has developed a high quota of power grabbers.

Some of Africa's most ambitious heads of state turned up in Casablanca last week at the invitation of Morocco's King Mohammed V. Scarcely out of swaddling clothes themselves, they share a compelling tendency to run everyone else's show. Their present purpose: to tell the world that they know better than the U.N. how to straighten out riot-torn, chaotic Congo.

Ignominious Tow. The conference did not begin with the kind of nourish the principals hoped for. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and his two satellites, Sekou Toure of Guinea and Mobido Keita of Mali, started a day late from the leafy Guinean capital of Conakry. Ferhat Abbas, President of the "provisional" F.L.N. rebel government of Algeria, took off from Spain in a chartered plane, but had to turn back because of mechanical difficulties. Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of the United Arab Republic and the canniest professional of the lot, was en route by sea in his official yacht Al Hurriyah (Freedom). Nasser, who claims leadership of Africa because Egypt guards "the northern gate of the continent," suffered mortification when he arrived without the two Egyptian corvettes assigned to escort him. Reportedly, they ran out of fuel and had to be ignominiously towed into a Spanish port.

Once assembled in Casablanca's ornate city hall, the leaders needed only nine hours to come up with "concrete solutions" to the Congo problem. All Dag Hammarskjold and the U.N. need do, they said, was spring Russian-backed Patrice Lumumba from jail and restore him as Premier, evacuate all Belgian armed forces, reconvene the Congolese parliament and completely outlaw any separatist movements like that in mineral-rich Katanga province. If Hammarskjold refused to accept their blueprint, they threatened to pick up their soldiers (some 6,500 men, or one-third of the U.N. force in the Congo) and go home.

No Rush. As if this were not enough, the conference also announced the creation of an African Council which will defend the entire continent against "aggression" from anyone. Other African nations were grandly invited to sign up for membership.

There was no rush to join. States as long independent as Ethiopia or as populous as Nigeria (40 million) are not eager to be camp followers of such newcomers as Ghana and Guinea. Similarly, the Casablanca conference made little appeal to the newly independent states of the French Community--one of which, Mauritania, fears attack by Morocco. Headed by Ivory Coast's President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, this group of nations prefers keeping their cultural and economic ties with France to adventures with Nkrumah or Nasser.

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