An Exchange on Biafra
The New York Review of Books Volume 14, Number 8 · April 23, 1970 By Sara S. Berry, George A. Elbert, Norman Thomas Uphoff, Reply by Stanley Diamond To the Editors: Stanley Diamond's article, "Who Killed Biafra?" (NYR, February 26) sets out to rescue us from the propaganda of governments seeking to justify their roles in the conflict. His discussion of the considerations which moved other nations to support one side or the other is plausible and informative, but sheds little light on the course of events in Nigeria and Biafra themselves. I have no reason to question Diamond's conclusion that Biafra was not "a puppet of reactionary forces," or the fact that the unequal supply of foreign arms and assistance to the belligerents was crucial to the outcome of the war. (Nor is it startling to learn that foreign powers supported one side or the other only insofar as they felt it would be in their own interests to do so; it hardly seems necessary to demonstrate that