America-Angola: A Case Study of American Foreign Policy Toward the Third World
Author:
David Hatchett
Degree Date:
January, 1983
Committee Chairperson:
J. Congress Mbata
Call Number:
Thesis DT 3.5 1983 H361
Description:
v, 160 leaves; 28 cm.
Abstract:
The 1970's saw a series of crushing American political and military setbacks in the Third World. In 1973 and 1974, the Arab oil producing countries imposed an embargo against the United States and Western Europe over America's support for Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In 1974 nationalist insurgents overcame the American-backed Portuguese colonial regimes in Mozambique and Angola. In 1975 one of the cornerstones of American foreign policy toward Southeast Asia was removed when the rightwing government of South Vietnam fell to leftist insurgents. In 1976 the factions aligned with the United States and South Africa were defeated in the Angolan civil war. In 1978 and 1979, the basis of American foreign policy in Central America and the Middle East was shaken when the Somoza regime in Nicaragua and the Shah of Iran fell to popularly-supported movements for social change.
The striking similarity in nearly all of these circumstances was that the United States government supported forces for conservatism against mass-based reform movements. This has characterized American foreign policy toward the Third World since the end of World War II. This thesis seeks to determine some of the reasons for this policy tendency by examining American foreign policy toward Angola from 1969 to the present. This will include a survey of the history of American foreign policy toward Angola, an analysis of the factors which influenced the development of this policy, and an analytical assessment of this policy as it relates to the general thrust of American foreign policy toward the Third World.