The former French colony of Guinea declares its independence on October 2, 1958, with Sekou Toure as the new nation’s first leader. Guinea was the sole French West African colony to opt for complete independence, rather than membership in the French Community, and soon thereafter France withdrew all aid to the new republic.
It soon became apparent that Toure would pose a problem for the United States. He was fiercely nationalistic and anti-imperialist, and much of his wrath and indignation was aimed at the United States for its alliances with colonial powers such as Great Britain and France and its refusal to openly condemn the white minority government of South Africa. More troubling for U.S. officials, however, was Guinea’s open courting of Soviet aid and money and signing of a military assistance agreement with the Soviet Union. By 1960, nearly half of Guinea’s exports were going to eastern bloc nations and the Soviets had committed millions of dollars of aid to the African republic. Toure was also intrigued by Mao’s communist experiments in China.
