Working on the Railroad

To the Editors:

John Kenneth Galbraith should not let pass so casually his revelation that “in 1961, when the Kennedy administration arrived, there was a deep strategic concern over Tanganyika-Tanzania, where the Chinese were building a railroad” (NYR, October 12). Kennedy took office in January 1961, and Tanganyika achieved independence from Britain in December 1961. I shall be forced to revise my China and Africa which states that China first offered to build the railroad in 1965; and countless works on Britain’s departure from Africa will have to be redone to show that eleven months before Tanganyikan independence Chinese workers were clandestinely engaged in major construction there. Did the British know? Were the British and Chinese in collusion?

Bruce D. Larkin

University of California

Santa Cruz, California

John Kenneth Galbraith replies:

Sorry, sorry about the date, but I note that my point survives.