7. Specialist on repair of anti-aircraft guns. 8. Epidemiologist.

9. X-ray technician.

10. Otolaryngologist.

11. Four interpreters of English.

The special equipment consisted of armament and ammunition. The armament, all of which was reconditioned rather than new, included artillery, mortar, anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine guns, sub-machine guns and other items.

Contract 2813 may also have related to the arming and training of the Presidential Detail Department. The records contain only Annex 3 to this contract: it contains lists of spare parts for armoured carriers in the amount of 70,033 roubles.

Special Intelligence Unit

The Special Intelligence Unit was established early in 1963 by Ambrose Yankey who was in close touch with Nkrumah. By 1966 Yankey had recruited some 281 individuals, many of whom were officially classified as Informants Grade I, and Informants Grade II. Yankey was an illiterate and a social misfit. A fishmonger by profession, he grouped around him a host of relatives and fellow illiterates with little brains to their credit. These individuals were trained to spy on ordinary Ghanaians: they were to uncover plots and indications of dissension against Nkrumah among individuals and groups that were not covered by other intelligence and counter intelligence units.

Both the Presidential Detail Department and the Special Intelligence Unit must have benefited from instruction by specialists from the Communist countries. Available to these organisations were exhaustive lectures on the physical security of important persons. The local head of State, referred to in these lectures as the V.I.P., was obviously Nkrumah himself.

Department III, Military Intelligence

Department III, Military Intelligence, was not, as its name would imply, a part of the Ministry of Defence. Instead, its task was to make an independent check on the loyalty to Nkrumah of members of the regular armed forces. For this purpose, it maintained an interrogation centre at Burma Camp.

Department IV, Research Office

Department IV, Research Office, came under the Bureau of African Affairs.

Department V, Border Guards

Department V, Border Guards, was also entirely separate from the regular army. One of its functions was to facilitate border crossing by Freedom Fighters, and the other was to supervise the installations at Tema.

Russian Patrol Boats at Tema

The port at Tema was the base of operations for four Russian patrol boats, vessels that were attached to the Border Guards rather than to the Ghana navy which had no control over their movements, or any information about their activity. In a sense these boats were the sea-going arm of the National Security Service. With Russian crews these armed vessels cruised the coast of Ghana and carried arms to opposition groups in nearby countries.

Acting on orders from Nkrumah, the Ghanaian Ambassador in Moscow concluded Contract 4811,dated 21 April, 1964, with the U.S.S.R. This contract was for light patrol boats (368P), together with ammunition for their armament. Two were delivered in 1964, two in 1965, and four were to have been delivered in 1966. These boats were valued by the Russians at 2,121,169 roubles, but since they were used -and possibly outmoded-vessels they were offered to Ghana for 1,414,113 roubles. Supplementary Agreement 1 to the contract called for the delivery of two used spare engines for 35,000 roubles, while Supplementary Agreement 2 covered spare parts costing 110,830 roubles.

Contract 48811, also of 21 April, 1964, was for the services of Russian "specialists to render technical assistance on Soviet special equipment." These specialists were to man the patrol boats and to train Ghanaian crews in the operation. There is no record that local crews were so trained. Provided by contract with first-class board and lodging, the Russians were also paid monthly salaries of up to £135 from the funds available to Nkrumah. Although each such crew was to remain at Tema for three months, the records indicate that their stay was prolonged at the request of the Russians themselves.

Each crew consisted of a division commanding officer, a mechanical engineer, a captain, a steersman, a machine gunner, a radio ranger (radar) man, a radio operator, two enginemen, and three interpreters. It was not explained why each crew needed three interpreters. Annexes to this contract gave the names of Russian members of the crew.

BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS

The Bureau of African Affairs was established as a statutory government corporation by an Instrument of Incorporation signed by Kwame Nkrumah on 17 March, 1960. The Bureau replaced the former Office of the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on African Affairs, which was held for nearly two years by George Padmore, a West Indian who died in September 1959. Padmore had considerable influence with Africans from other countries, partly because of his long experience with African freedom and unity movements, and partly because of his long and close relationship with Nkrumah. Padmore had used his office as an investigative body, as a propaganda forum, and as a centre for exchanging views with other African leaders.

member of the African Nationalist Congress, planned to leave Ghana for Czechoslovakia and Cuba, but on the orders of the Bureau, the Immigration Office in Accra impounded his passport and prevented his departure. The passport of Philip Kgosana of the Pan-Africanist Congress was also impounded to prevent his leaving Ghana.

As a result of this kind of treatment, by 1963 few leading African nationalists remained in Ghana. Most of those who did stay on were opportunists tied to Nkrumah by dependence on him for small handouts of cash and occasional gifts.

In spite of the large sums spent by the Bureau it was always in debt, and its director sent a stream of appeals to Nkrumah asking for additional funds. In one year the Bureau estimated it would need £120,000 for its general expenses, but even this amount proved to be insufficient. Ghana Airways and the Black Star Line lost very large sums through their relationships with the Bureau. The Bureau was bringing Freedom Fighters and African leaders in and out of Ghana by air and it issued vouchers to the concerns mentioned against air tickets. At one point the Bureau owed Ghana Airways £70,000 and the Black Star Line £10,367 for these passages and these debts were never settled. Almost anyone who was in the favour of Nkrumah or of the Bureau could come to Accra by a first class flight: Oginga Odinga was issued two round trip tickets from Nairobi.

A. K. Barden was dismissed as Director of the Bureau on 10 June, 1965, and was succeeded by the Deputy Director. When the long discussed reorganisation of the National Security Service took place on 1 October, 1965, the Bureau lost some of its personnel and some of its departments. Theoretically, the importance of the Bureau declined sharply after the reorganisation, but its Director was not prepared to accept this situation as will appear in later pages.

The new organisation of the Bureau for African Affairs comprised four departments. The department for Administration included both functional and operational branches, with the operational branch in charge of the African Affairs Centre. The functional elements were those of the Press Branch, Accounts Branch, Security Branch, Welfare Branch and Transport Branch. Administration also maintained the Research Library and a Linguistic Section and had officers in charge of Protocol and Publicity.

African Affairs Centre

The African Affairs Centre was opened in 1959 in a group of structures adjacent to the airport at Accra and soon thereafter came under the Bureau of African Affairs. These structures included Blocks one to five, houses 1 and 2, two Sawaba Houses, a Cameroun House, an Ethiopian House, an Administration building, a foreman's residence, a great hall, a diningroom and a kitchen building. The Centre housed Freedom Fighters from all Africa. At times there were as many as 170 men and women in residence: in February 1966 there were 136 residents.

The Bureau headquarters in Maxwell Street included the Freedom Fighters' offices for five illegal African political parties.

The Freedom Fighters were recruited from many African countries, both dependent and independent. Many people were recommended by enemies of African governments, people who were in touch with the Bureau. Some were sent tickets for travel to Accra, some were actually picked up at airports by planes from Ghana, and some made their way to Ghana as best they could. Upon their arrival in Accra they were turned over to the Bureau by the immigration authorities.

As soon as they were assigned a place to sleep at the African Affairs Centre they were interviewed by members of the Bureau. Each person had to fill out a lengthy personality report form; his photograph was taken and he was given an identity card. However, he was not allowed to leave the grounds of the Centre without special permission. The Bureau investigated the background of each arrival, since Nkrumah was very concerned lest other African countries send in agents to work against him. The Bureau also kept careful watch on the correspondence of the Freedom Fighters. The letters they wrote to other countries were collected by the Bureau, opened and read then entered in a register which listed the names of writers and of the addressees and when they were posted.

The principal task of the Bureau in relation to these Freedom Fighters was to decide what to do with them since many of them were illiterate, possessed no special skills, and had been unemployed before coming to Accra. In fact, a great many of them found their way to Ghana in search of free food and lodging.

As the training camps were opened, a steady stream of Freedom Fighters was sent to take

the courses-the first of such courses was given in December 1961. Others were sent to the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute. Still others who were judged to be too ignorant or whose backgrounds gave grounds for suspicion were deported from the country. Others lived at the Centre for years, becoming increasingly unruly, while awaiting decisions as to their fate. For example, some so-called "Sanwi nationals" who arrived in Accra in 1959 were not assigned to training camps until 1964.

Most of those individuals who went through the training camps and those who attended the Ideological Institute were sent out of Ghana as soon as the courses were over. At the time they left the country the Bureau sent their names and photographs to the immigration authorities with orders that they were to be placed on the list of prohibited immigrants. It was explained that this action was taken so that none of them would give up their aim of achieving the independence of their countries and try to return to Ghana. This was a cynical way to treat former guests of Nkrumah-he had stated that all Freedom Fighters were his personal guests-who might well try to seek refuge in Ghana if they failed to carry through some plot in their own countries. (See Appendix C).

It was the duty of the Bureau to maintain a steady influx of Freedom Fighters into Ghana and members of the staff prepared annual estimates covering how many should be recruited and at what cost. The estimates went to Nkrumah for his approval. Potential recruits were identified at conferences held in Africa, such as the Freedom Fighters' Conference held at Accra in May and June 1962. This conference was attended by 200 selected delegates from other countries whose travel expenses were paid by the Bureau, as well as by others who were in residence at the Centre, at the training camps and at the Ideological Institute.

Constant appeals were directed to the Freedom Fighters to prepare to sacrifice themselves for socialism and Nkrumaism, defined as "African in context, but Marxist in form." Some such appeals were delivered by means of the periodical published by the Bureau and entitled Freedom Fighters which came out every week. Other appeals came at special meetings, such as the African Freedom Day Celebration held at the Centre on 25 May, 1964. At this celebration they were informed that: "(President Nkrumah has directed that) Freedom Fighters

from independent countries would be given political asylum in Ghana and so it was left to them to prove that they were indeed militant nationalists."

These "political refugees" included many members of parties in other African States that had been declared illegal and banned because they planned to use, or were already employing, force in order to overturn elected governments. In a number of cases the Bureau welcomed representatives of more than one party from a single African country, and even from rival factions within one party. "Refugees" also included members of legal parties who were to be sent back to their countries to act as agents for Ghana within these parties. Nkrumah instructed the Bureau to identify the most militant of these refugees and granted them audiences.

For each country of Africa the Bureau set up a special file entitled, "Revolutionary Movement," e.g. Togoland Revolutionary Movement and Cameroun Revolutionary Movement. Within each file was maintained a record of the parties, groups and individuals. Thus, the general file for Togo included material on the Union Democratique des Populations Togolaises and the file on Cameroun material on the Union des Populations de Cameroun. Separate folders were kept on the Action Group of Nigeria, the Dynamic Party of Nigeria and the Northern Youth Movement of Nigeria. For Uganda the Uganda People's Party was favoured, while in Niger it was the Sawaba Party and in Malawi the Malawi Congress.

The presence in Accra of rival factions of some of these revolutionary movements proved to be very embarrassing to Nkrumah. Bitter rivalry led to actual fighting within the Union des Populations du Cameroun and some members had to be thrown into jail: both sides appealed directly to Nkrumah for his support.

The case of a so-called State of Sanwi was somewhat similar. Nkrumah had the idea that it would weaken the Government of the Ivory Coast to agitate for a miniscule State called Sanwi said to be located in the heart of the Ivory Coast. So a Mouvement de Liberation Sanwi was brought into being by Nkrumah and a certain Fattah Elleingand named as its President. Soon however, other "Sanwis" thought it would be pleasant to live in Accra at the expense of Ghana, and they tried to move in on Elleingand. The most fantastic of these individuals was one who sent letter after letter

to Nkrumah, with the signature S. M. Amon Ndouffou III, Roi de Sanwi.

The cost of maintaining the African Affairs Centre mounted steadily. In 1959 it was £50,890, in 1963 £100,000 and in 1964 £127,000. These sums were far less than the planned programme for 1966 which was estimated at £544,055, and an additional £30,034 that the Bureau still owed for bringing Freedom Fighters to Accra by air. This more costly programme - never put into effect included large sums for uniforms, weapons, ammunition-and explosives for large groups that were to be sent back to their countries of origin as well-equipped fighting units.

Press Branch

Propaganda was an important function of the Bureau, and it maintained its own extensive printing and publishing facilities in a one-storey building within its main compound on Maxwell Road. More than 60 people were employed. There Kofi Batsa, head of the Press Branch, and the nominal editor of a newspaper, The Spark, had his office. The Spark, the leading Bureau publication, was published weekly. Its Marxist editorials accurately reflected the ideological orientation of Batsa, and of the actual editor of The Spark, a Nigerian, Samuel G. Ikoku, who used the pen name of Julius Sago. Batsa had been trained in Communist propaganda methods and was from 1954 to 1960 the representative in Ghana of Ceteka, the Czechoslovakian news agency.

The periodicals published by the Bureau of African Affairs were as follows:

76-267 O - 72 - 3

Control of The Spark was temporarily removed from the Bureau of African Affairs sometime in early 1964, a fact which caused the Bureau's Director, A. K. Barden, to complain bitterly to Kwame Nkrumah, in a letter dated 20 May 1964, that Nkrumah's decision to remove control of The Spark from the Bureau had caused him,"embarrassment and numerous difficulties", and he expressed the hope that "Osagyefo will reconsider his decision". In fact this happened, but only after Barden himself was removed as Bureau Director in June of 1965. Within a matter of months, the Bureau was reorganised and Koti Batsa resumed his control of the Press Branch.

The Spark and L'Etincelle (which also means "The Spark"), took their names from Iskra (Russian for "Spark"), Lenin's underground Bolshevik newspaper of the early 1900's. According to testimony given on April 15, 1966 before the Commission investigating affairs pertaining to the government of Kwame Nkrumah by Mr. C. D. K. Adjei, formerly a Principal Executive Officer in the office of the exPresident, the Bureau of African Affairs spent a total of £66,000 on the weeklies. The Spark and L'Etincelle and the quarterly, Pan Africanist between July 1965 and February 1966.

L'Etincelle, although it contained French translations of some material from The Spark, also carried original material of its own.

These publications were published and printed in Ghana, but the Bureau also began an expensive publishing venture in London in October 1964, with the founding of a monthly, pro-Nkrumah review called Africa and the World. As its editor, Nkrumah chose Douglas G. Rogers, an Australian with a suitably pro-Communist background. At the time he was invited to work for Ghana, Rogers was editor of Pan Africa, a fortnightly published in Kenya under the sponsorship of Oginga Odinga, then Vice-President of Kenya. Africa and the World was to be funded with £24,000 paid to an ostensibly private corporation Panaf Publications Ltd. the stock of which was issued in the following proportions: 50 per cent to Emmanuel Ayeh-Kumi, Nkrumah's financial advisor; 20 per cent to Aloysius K. Barden, Director of the Bureau of African Affairs; 20 per cent to J. A. Afari, First Secretary of the Ghana High Commission in London; and 10 per cent to Douglas G. Rogers. In point of fact, Barden's shares were registered in Ayeh-Kumi's name, giving him 70 per cent of the shares.

In August 1964, before the first number appeared, Douglas Rogers wrote an embittered letter to Nkrumah. He deplored the fact that only £5,000 of the promised £24,000 had reached him and stated that Nkrumah had personally promised him 25 per cent of the stock. Relating that he was now assigned only 10 per cent, he wrote, "I felt that this reappraisal indicated a considerable lapse of confidence in me . . . It seemed to indicate a low opinion of my sense of responsibility and trustworthiness. I must in all honesty, my dear Osagyefo, say that I found this a most humiliating decision."

In addition to its periodicals, the Bureau printed leaflets and pamphlets, always using Pan-Africanism as a means of projecting Nkrumah's personal image as the Saviour of a free Africa, but really designed to promote his personal power and further his personal ambition. A few focused on genuine issues such as the plight of Angolans, South Africans and Mozambiquans, but more were simply exercises in political cliches and meaningless pseudophilosophical "maxims", bearing such titles as Categorial Conversion. These publications included Awakening Africa, Angolan Story, Nationalist Address, Unity Now, and Historical Facts about the Zanzibar Struggle.

Secret Camps

The secret camps were located at Damongo, in the Northern Region, at Half-Assini, at Mankrong and at Obenemasi.

The first of these training camps was that at Mankrong, identified in the Bureau of African Affairs files as the M.K.G. Project, and it was opened in November, 1961. Mankrong is situated on the bank of the Afram river some 35 miles from the town of Mpraeso. In December, 1961 the Bureau of African Affairs took over four government rest-houses, those at Mankrong, Worobon, Kwahu Adawso and Mpraeso, for its exclusive use and no one was permitted even to enter the grounds of these rest-houses. (See Appendix F1).

The first course offered at Mankrong began on 3 December, 1961, but little was accomplished until the arrival of two Russian instructors, sent from Moscow for this purpose. The first course was completed on 23 June, 1962 and the Russian instructors left for Accra, and then for Moscow, on the following day.