Dear Editor,
I did not know Dr. Jagan well. I met him back in the late 60’s when I was preparing for a high school debate and another half a dozen times at social events in the mid-eighties. As to his flaws, I defer to his brother Derek (who I knew well) who felt that Dr Jagan was “too honest” and too trusting to be a politician. He gave several examples on both counts. Jagan was a victim of American imperialism. Kennedy’s decision to remove him was a political calculation by an insecure first term President with an eye on re-election. That’s it, and attempts to theorize and psychoanalyze are pointless. Was Kennedy flawless? Apologists for American imperialism always blame the victim. In the case of Jagan they usually jump to the communist refrain. Just cold war politics, they say. Let’s be clear: Jagan was not removed because the Americans genuinely believed he was a communist or posed a threat to the US. The British and their own intelligence agencies told them otherwise. Kennedy was told that Jagan was “assertively nationalistic,” had no ties, and received no support from the Soviet bloc. His supporters were not communists and will not accept a communist government. The African community in Georgetown will rise up if he moved in that direction. But Kennedy was like a little boy with a new toy, still learning how it works.
In a memorandum dated March 8, 1962 Arthur Schlesinger, Special Assistant to Kennedy, felt compelled to tell the President that “the American and British governments are spending more man-hours per capita on British Guiana than on any other current problem!” When Schlesinger made that observation Kennedy was in office for barely a year. That level of engagement would continue for the duration of his presidency and beyond. Why? During the US election campaign in 1960, John Kennedy positioned himself as a foreign policy hawk. He criticized the Eisenhower administration’s handling of Laos, Vietnam and Cuba and suggested that they had gifted emerging states in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to the communists. His “youth and inexperience” was an issue during the campaign but he won the election by the slimmest of margins. He entered the presidency scarred by attacks and anxious to refurbish his image.
In office, he suffered a number of major failures early in his presidency. He did nothing when the communist guerillas invaded Laos. His much anticipated meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna did not go well. He was outmatched and appeared weak. His tough talk did not stop Soviets from building the Berlin Wall. He ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion to remove Castro from power. It was an embarrassing failure that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis which brought America close to military confrontation with the Soviet Union on this side of the Atlantic. He made significant concessions to the Soviet Union to end the crisis. He was failing. In February 1961, less than one month into the Kennedy Presidency, US State Department officials visited Sir Ralph Grey, the Governor of British Guiana to discuss Jagan. The governor told them Jagan was not a communist and the colony was in pretty bad shape. Foreign companies, including Reynolds, made and repatriated huge profits but did little to improve the lives and circumstances of the general population. Foreign aid was required and the British supported Jagan’s request for much needed economic assistance from the US. Kennedy promised to assist but vacillated. He was concerned about the effect on the tough image he was trying to create abroad. Providing aid to BG might be seen as helping Jagan but withholding aid might open the door for the Soviets to help BG; much like Cuba. With Burnham willing, he defaulted to regime change.
Editor, the villain in this story was not only Kennedy, but also his successors. That fact cannot be understated. For almost 30 years, successive US administrations, Democrats and Republicans, didn’t care a hoot about democracy and cared even less about the suffering their policies inflicted on the people of British Guiana. Lest we forget, over 100 people died in the disturbances engineered by Kennedy himself. Seven American administrations were acutely aware that the future of British Guiana under Burnham was not “bright:” That politics for him was all about personal power, and by extension, his political ambitions. They described him in vile terms but they all held their noses, propped him up and lied about it. They also knew that Jagan was the “ablest leader” in the country and was “infinitely preferable to Burnham:” that he was in politics for the people. In 1953, Winston Churchill used communism as an excuse to overthrow the newly elected government in British Guyana. MI5 files reveal that was a lie concocted to get US approval. A young lawyer named Forbes Burnham accompanied Jagan to the UK and India and informed the world that they were not communists. In 1964, the ghost of Winston Churchill rose, and the US, with help from the British and active participation from the said Forbes Burnham, removed Jagan and installed Burnham as leader of British Guiana.
Sincerely,
Milton Jagannath
