The Politics of the Independence of Kenya

Abstract

Although Iain Macleod is fully entitled to the credit for breaking the constitutional deadlock over Kenya by clearing the path to African rule, his subsequent actions were dictated by fear of British public opinion. He felt unable to risk the Governor's threat to resign if he were to be stopped from calling Jomo Kenyatta ‘a leader to darkness and death’. Macleod's stonewalling over Kenyatta's release resulted in sending the African majority party into opposition and allowing the minority party to insist on its own embarrassingly complicated constitution. The situation looked so desperate by 1962 that, fearing another Congo, Harold Macmillan wanted to ask the UN to take over control of Kenya. At the last minute two men, Jomo Kenyatta and Malcolm MacDonald, saved Britain and Kenya from a great imperial fiasco.

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