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Le Quotient Politique Vrai

which Lt.-Col. Ojukwu and his supporters were committed to a secessionist policy even before the notorious massacre of Ibos in Northern Nigeria in September 1966; the effect of Soviet support for the federal government upon British policy; the motivation of De Gaulle's support for Biafra in September 1968 at the apparent expense of French economic interests; the explanation of the federal government's long toleration of humanitarian relief flights into the secessionist enclave. With prudent modesty, Kirk-Greene prefers to claim less authority for his carefully considered narrative than it may actually command. Its freshness and dedication to significant detail will enable the attentive reader of these tightly packed passages to relive the political events of those grim years. Yet Kirk-Greene wisely cautions future authors to expect large gaps and misleading signposts in his and other current histories for two very good reasons: the inaccessibility of essential archival materials and the lack of detachment on the part of contemporary historians. Furthermore, his is a specifically political study; he makes no attempt to write a military history. Nor does he present more than a cursory account of the trials and accomplishments of the beleaguered Biafrans. Following Weber, it may be said that objective scholarship consists in the attempt to recognize and combat one's biases. If this work falls short of excellence, it may be because Kirk-Greene, who candidly avows his wholehearted commitment to the federal government's cause, fails to combat that bias in his narrative of events. The traces of his partiality are especially obtrusive in Volume Two, where all who questioned the British policy of military support for the federal government, including The Times, The Economist, Lord Brockway, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, are put down as having been misguided or wrongheaded. Yet Kirk-Greene endorses the dubious parallel drawn by federal Nigerian spokesmen between the American and Nigerian civil wars. He is alert to the flaws of Biafran propaganda but far less critical of the Nigerian vintage. Curiously, he suggests an analogy between the elusive "quick-kill" strategy favored by the federal Nigerian (and British) government and the American decision to drop an atom bomb on Hiroshima. Kirk-Greene suggests that anything short of a decisive Nigerian victory would have endangered the long-term political stability of Africa. His viewpoint appears to equate the interests of the African people with the national interests of their existing states. This is also the ruling principle of the Organization of African Unity, which never deviated from its commitment to the federal Nigerian cause. This conception was challenged by Nyerere, Kaunda, and others during the Nigerian civil war. It will surely be challenged again under conditions which are less trying for principled Pan-Africanists.