Following Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing this year on August 25, 2009, African media outlet All Africa reported that, “Today Africa mourns the death of Senator Edward Kennedy because he is a Kennedy, because the Kennedys represented, no matter how dim it appeared, a glimmer of hope in a still colonial world.”[1] For many Africans, the Kennedy family symbolized a promise for change; a promise to give Africans a voice in shaping their own futures. President John F. Kennedy attempted to charter a new course for U.S. policy vis-à-vis Angola by supporting colonial independence from Portugal, a vision that he had set in mind long before running for presidency. However, clamor for independence from Washington caused a diplomatic rift with Portuguese leader António de Oliveira Salazar. For Salazar, it would be unfathomable to dismantle the Portuguese empire in Africa; Angola was an inherent part of the Estado Novo. Salazar would pressure Kennedy to quell his talk about decolonization by threatening Washington with non-renewal of the U.S. lease on the Portuguese Azores bases, a vital asset for Cold War operations. My thesis seeks to frame the negotiations between Kennedy and Salazar in a Cold War context. How was discourse about colonial rule and decolonization deployed by the United States, Portugal, the Soviet Union, and the “Afro-Asian states”? How did this correspond to Cold War alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Treaty? In this thesis, I explore the colonial ideology of the Estado Novo, the nature of Portuguese-American relations as NATO allies, and the debates on both sides by leading politicians and intellectuals about colonialism and the Cold War.

[1] John Otim. Africa: The Kennedys and the Continent. Pambazuka News, 10 September 2009.