The Old Man Dies at Last

"What will happen when the Old Man goes?"

From the day in December 1963 when Kenya achieved its independence from Britain, the life of that magnificent East African nation has seemingly revolved around this single question. Last week Jomo Kenyatta, President of Kenya and perhaps the last of the grand old men of the African nationalist movement, died in his sleep at his resthouse on the Kenya coast. On the evidence last week, it appeared that the nation he had founded would be able to carry off that rarest of African political events, a peaceful transition of power.

At 12:30 Tuesday afternoon, the Kenya radio calmly announced that the President had died nine hours earlier and that Vice President Daniel Arap Moi, 54, would be sworn in immediately as Acting President for 90 days. The public reaction seemed curiously muted, in part because any discussion of the presidential succession had long been regarded as treasonable. But more than that, there was a sense of uncertainty at every level. Government officials discreetly asked friendly embassies about the protocol for a state funeral. As a shy domestic servant explained the sudden loss, "It's like going on a ship from the shore; you don't know what is out there. And you know, I have never been on a ship."

The aged warrior--who was probably in his early 80s, though his exact age was never known--had presided over the bloody transition to independence, and for 15 years had held his country's fractious tribes together. Under Mzee (the Old

Man), the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s, once regarded by the outside world as a reversion to the terror and bestiality of the African past, came to be viewed as a war of independence. Kenyatta himself, who had been denounced by a British colonial governor as "a leader to darkness and death," became as the ruler of his new nation a symbol of reconciliation without rancor. As a special mark of respect, the British government announced that Prince Charles would represent Queen Elizabeth II at Kenyatta's funeral this week.

Shortly after that, the process of selecting a new President will begin. Two factions within the ruling party, the Kenya African National Union, may enter candidates; both groups are more or less dominated by Kenyatta's politically powerful tribe, the Kikuyu. The first includes the Kenyatta family and its political cronies, whose power is tribally based. The strongest member of the group is former Foreign Minister Njoroge Mungai, 52, who was also Kenyatta's cousin and personal physician. But the handsome Mungai lost his parliamentary seat in 1974, largely because of his reputation for high living, and thus is not eligible to run for President. That leaves Mbiyu Koinange, 71, a longtime friend and colleague of Kenyatta's, as the faction's most eligible candidate.

The second group, headed by Acting President Moi, is made up of politicians and business leaders who are mainly Western educated. Their power is derived from their wealth and urban business connections. Moi, a hard-working but color less politician, is actually a member of the minority Kalenjin tribe. But he is strongly supported by two competent Kikuyu members of the Kenyatta Cabinet, Attorney General Charles Njonjo, 58, and Finance and Economic Planning Minister Mwai Kibaki, 46.

At week's end, Moi appeared to have the edge. As a non-Kikuyu, he could gain the support of many minority tribes; with the help of Njonjo and Kibaki he would attract many of the Kikuyu, particularly if he were to name an able Kikuyu as his Vice President and heir apparent. Since all political factions were committed to the appearance of a constitutional transition, it seemed improbable that the country's nonpolitical army would choose to intervene. "Calling in the military," observed a Western diplomat in Nairobi, "is the very last thing anybody wants to do."

Whatever happens, Kenya will not likely be led again by so dominating a man as Kenyatta. He was at least a generation older than most African leaders, and he was working for uhuru (independence) before some of them were born. If in the end he was unable to control corruption and permitted younger colleagues to struggle among themselves over the succession, he also gave Kenya a stability and prosperity that most African states would envy.

Through it all, Kenyatta remained something of an enigma. He changed his reputation at least as often as he altered his name--from Kamau wa Ngengi to Johnstone Kamau, then Johnstone Kenyatta and finally Jomo Kenyatta--as he grew from a herdboy to a mission-school pupil, from a Nairobi water-meter reader to a political activist. His career was shaped by the crucial facts of Kenya life: the lust for land by his Kikuyu tribesmen, and the character of the settler community that was determined to fight to preserve Kenya as a white man's country.

He spent 15 years in voluntary exile in London, and in 1929 and 1932 made side trips to the Soviet Union. To the British Foreign Office at the time, he seemed "a harmless individual if left alone, but apparently susceptible to outside influences." To his friends he was something of a dandy. He loved English suits and was equally adept at wheedling credit out of landladies and getting bright young girls to help him with his writing; eventually he married a 32-year-old Englishwoman, Edna Clarke. In 1935 he played a bit part in an Alexander Korda film, Sanders of the River, with his friend Paul Robeson. He was so deeply affected by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia that he broke through a police line to embrace Haile Selassie when the exiled Emperor arrived at Waterloo Station in 1936.

While studying at the London School of Economics, Kenyatta wrote Facing Mount Kenya, describing the life and customs of the Kikuyu in a golden, pre-European past. The book contained a photograph of a bearded Kenyatta carrying a spear and wearing a blue monkey cloak slung over his shoulder--all fabricated to make him look more like a tribal elder than a Western student. He was, as British Author Elspeth Huxley once observed, "a showman to his fingertips."

In 1946, leaving his wife and infant son Peter behind, Kenyatta returned to Kenya to work for African self-rule. He soon emerged as the strongest of the colony's black political leaders, and within a few years was caught up in the controversy over the Mau Mau. After a series of terrorist murders in 1952, the colonial government ordered his arrest and charged him with being the mastermind behind the Mau Mau organization. He was convicted in a sort of political show trial and sent off to nine years of detention and restriction.

In the meantime, the slaughter only grew worse. Whites turned their farmhouses into fortresses; blacks who cooperated with the settlers lived in terror of Mau Mau revenge. In the end, only 32 white civilians and 167 members of the security forces were killed by the Mau Mau during the seven-year emergency. But 11,503 guerrillas lost their lives, as did 1,819 Africans who remained loyal to the colonial government.

By the time Kenyatta was released in 1961, Kenya was only two years away from independence, and Mzee was clearly the man to lead it. "I know why I was imprisoned and I have no bitterness," he declared in 1963, and he proceeded to turn Kenya into the kind of multiracial state he had long envisioned. He encouraged foreign investment, promoted land development, education and public health.

But he often turned a blind eye to corruption, particularly among the Kikuyu new elite. His own holdings, and those of his fourth wife, Mama Ngina, 48, multiplied enormously. Together they controlled Nairobi's lucrative gambling casino, plus coffee and sisal plantations, manufacturing concerns, downtown office buildings and coastal resorts. His government's reputation was further damaged by the political murders of Planning Minister Tom Mboya, once regarded as a possible successor to Kenyatta, and Kikuyu dissident Politician Josiah M. Kariuki. Both men died under circumstances that have never been fully explained.

Kenyatta could also be brutal in dealing with official misbehavior--even other people's corruption, if he thought it excessive. Two years ago, he summoned an assistant minister to his office. "Come sit by me, close," said Kenyatta. "Now what is your name?"

The startled minister stated his name. Kenyatta rapped the minister across the ears with his heavy walking stick. "Now," said Kenyatta smiling, "what is your name again?" The minister repeated it. Again the old President struck him hard across the head. "And what do they call you in the street?" the President asked.

"Mr. Ten Percent," muttered the hapless minister; it was a nickname he had earned for his habit of taking kickbacks on government projects. Kenyatta raised his cane and whacked the man twice again. "No more," demanded Mzee. And there was no more.

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