Diplomatic training and the transfer of sovereignty in Ghana
Commemorative stamp over printed to mark Ghana’s independence (Source: Colnect)
In 1957 Ghana gained full independence as a sovereign state within the international community, becoming the first African former colony to do so. Its emergence rapidly accelerated moves towards formal decolonisation across Africa This is where the roadmap towards independence within the late British Empire in Africa was first worked out. For our study, this means that the beginnings of Ghana’s diplomatic service are worthy of particular focus. Here, we argue that training raised late colonial anxieties about security in defence of a fading racialised imperial world order.
From the early 1950s, the Gold Coast was governed by an elected legislative assembly, led by Kwame Nkrumah, which progressively took responsibility for all internal affairs. At the time, this process was widely lauded as a successful exercise in the gradual achievement of responsible self-government and taken as evidence of the enlightenment of British imperial rule. However, Defence and External Affairs were the last functions of state to be formally handed over, remaining under the leadership of British civil servants appointed by the governor until the formal transfer of power. Perhaps tellingly, it was Nkrumah personally who first fulfilled the office of Minister for Foreign Affairs upon independence. The singular importance of control over foreign policy and diplomatic activity lies in their direct underpinning of sovereign power – power that was hitherto (with)held and wielded by the imperial metropole. So-called ‘Africanisation’ proceeded gradually, over years, in other sectors of government and policy such as education, agriculture, internal security and justice. In contrast, preparing Ghana’s external affairs personnel for independence was a fraught exercise, and one held back until the very last minute, when a date had been set for independence. Concerns about security were repeatedly raised by British officers charged with overseeing the training of Ghanaian diplomats, often in ways that belie the racial logics of empire, and which delayed and constrained trainees’ placements.
In early 1953, the Gold Coast government requested that one of their junior officers, Mr. J.H.D. Dickson, “an English administrative officer” [1], visit the Foreign Office in London for a period of training in matters of protocol. The request came through the Colonial Office, whose officers explained that whilst “the external relations of the Gold Coast are still of course the responsibility of Her Majesty’s Government”, the European-run Ministry of Defence and External Affairs was having “to perform an increased range of quasi-diplomatic duties”[1]. Examples given include having to host an increasing number of foreign diplomats, including an incoming Indian Commissioner, and receive foreign visitors, such as the Liberian president. As a result, the Ministry was being “asked to advise the Governor and (largely African) cabinet on the ceremonial connected with events of international importance”[1] and needed trained personnel to turn to. The ethnic and national identities of the different actors described are clearly significant, and signalled throughout the correspondence. Mr. Dickson’s presence at the Foreign Office does not appear to raise any security concerns beyond a routine request to sign the Official Secrets Act. He was granted access and was invited to ask whatever questions he had to various officers. However, the questions Mr. Dickson brought to Whitehall appear to have come as a surprise, in that they “went considerably beyond the mere procedural and protocol matters”, anticipating “the progressive transfer of responsibility for the external affairs of the Gold Coast”[2] when this had not yet been decided. His questionnaire appears to have been censored, as “to have turned him loose [on the Foreign Office, CRO and High Commissions in London with this list of questions] would have been very risky, and have led to all sorts of wrong conclusions being drawn here”[2]. The only form Dickson’s training could take, therefore, was technocratic and apolitical. The process of selection, travel, access and learning would have necessarily excluded a non-White trainee, despite the need for advice coming from the majority African cabinet receiving other African and Asian officials. Confined to procedure, with a careful avoidance of the appearance of any transfer of power even at its most symbolic, the training did not anticipate any future needs of the Gold Coast.
The following year, the Gold Coast Government agreed with London that it would select a ‘nucleus’ of future heads of mission for training. The Government requested that these individuals be attached to British and Commonwealth embassies and high commissions for placements. Lengthy deliberations between Whitehall officers about the perceived risks of accommodating these African cadres demonstrate the enduring racial logics that still held in this late imperial moment. Firstly, despite the express wishes of the Gold Coast Government, the idea of sending an African to Washington was resisted by British diplomats, given the “social difficulty” they might encounter due to the colour bar on the one hand, and the likely use of their presence to spread anti-British propaganda on the other. Similarly, an attachment to the Monrovia embassy was partly refused on the grounds that it was "not large enough to provide any worthwhile experience for Gold Coast trainees. There might also be political objections, either because the Liberians tried to corrupt the trainees' British allegiance or on the other hand because the Liberians showed their jealousy of an emergent Gold Coast”[3]. In September 1954, an interdepartmental meeting agreed that trainees should be placed in politically ‘safe’ missions such as in Canada or Australia, and “posts in the Iron Curtain and NATO countries and newly independent countries”, and “posts where a colour bar existed or there was a notoriously smart society”[4] should be avoided. These deliberations had taken months, delaying the placements of these Gold Coast cadets to late 1956, after they had spent a year studying at the LSE from 1955.
However, though the training of Gold Coast’s first diplomats was delayed and constrained by Whitehall officials, the British diplomatic personnel were quite certain that they would provide the training and not anyone else. The archives record their concern that Germany or the USA might try to “capture the Gold Coast intelligentsia”[5]. According to interviews with these first diplomats recorded by Scott Thompson, they were the “heirs to the Western tradition in diplomacy” (1969, p20) owing to their training in Britain. This was not Nkrumah’s choice – his wariness of the British civil service is well-documented, and we know from Avinash Paliwal’s recent work that he instead solicited Nehru’s India for the training of various personnel, including setting up Ghana’s external intelligence agency. In sum, British anxieties about security and personal loyalties prior to independence meant that the training of Ghana’s foreign service was delayed and constrained. Through this tutelage, increasing independence was held in tension with the need for training.
[1] CO 544/402 F.D. Webber to D.V. Staines 31st March 1953
[2] CO 544/402 T.B. Williamson to E. Norton Jones, 18th September 1953
[3] FO 371/108182 M.G. Smith to A.F. Morley, 24 April 1954
[4] FO 371/108182 10th September 1954 Attachment of Malayan and Gold Coast Foreign Service Trainees to United Kingdom Posts Overseas, Meeting Notes
[5] FO 371/10812 7th September 1954 “JGW”, Africa Dept.