Franklin H. Williams, The First US Envoy To Ghana, Offered $13M To Assassinate Nkrumah

The military coup that toppled Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, on February 24, 1966, occurred while he was on an official visit to China. Although the event was publicly framed as a domestic uprising, declassified communications later revealed the deep involvement of foreign powers. In a letter to U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, National Security Council official Robert Comer wrote:

The coup in Ghana is another example of luck. “Nkrumah has done more than any other Black African to undermine our interests.” This statement confirmed what many suspected: the CIA played a significant role in Nkrumah’s removal. Yet one of the least discussed figures in this political drama was Franklin H. Williams, the first U.S. ambassador to Ghana, who offered Nkrumah’s generals $13 million to overthrow him.

From the beginning of his political journey, Nkrumah was clear that independence was only the first step. His vision extended beyond political liberation to building a socialist democracy that improved the welfare of ordinary people. He believed that true freedom required dismantling imperialist structures that continued to exploit African nations economically and politically.

Although he initially underestimated class conflict within African societies, he later recognized that internal divisions could be manipulated by external forces. Nkrumah’s most comprehensive analysis of imperialism appeared in his 1965 book Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism.

In it, he outlined how Western powers reasserted control through military agreements, foreign bases, puppet governments, economic manipulation, unfair trade, and suffocating sanctions. He warned that neocolonialism was more dangerous than colonialism because it operated invisibly, disguised as aid, development, and partnership.

Despite the wave of independence across Africa, Nkrumah observed that exploitation by Western governments, especially the United States, continued in new forms. He argued that African nations must remain vigilant, restrain the ambitions of local bourgeois elites, and unite revolutionary forces across the continent. Without unity, Africa would remain vulnerable to external interference.

Nkrumah’s ideological foundation was shaped long before he became president. During his ten years in the United States, he studied the struggles of oppressed peoples and absorbed the teachings of Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Du Bois, and George Padmore. When he moved to London in 1945, he found African nationalists dreaming of liberation but lacking organization.

Nkrumah dedicated himself to transforming those dreams into a continental movement. However, his fight for independence was complicated by internal challenges. In Dark Days in Ghana, Nkrumah wrote: “I had to fight not only against tribalism, but also against the African tradition that holds that a person’s first duty is to his extended family, and therefore nepotism is the greatest virtue.”

He believed tribalism had weakened but acknowledged its lingering negative effects. These internal divisions made it easier for foreign powers to destabilize Ghana. By the early 1960s, Nkrumah had survived multiple assassination attempts involving both domestic and foreign actors. His publication of Neocolonialism in 1965 angered Washington.

Assistant Secretary of State G. Mennen Williams issued a strong protest to Ghana’s ambassador in Washington, warning of inevitable repercussions. Those repercussions came swiftly. Two days after the U.S. Secretary of State refused Nkrumah’s request for $100 million in food aid, political tensions escalated. The U.S. Embassy in Accra kept the CIA informed about assassination plans as early as February 10, 1965.

In January 1966, Franklin H. Williams, an African-American diplomat who graduated from Lincoln University, the same institution Nkrumah attended, offered $13 million to Ghanaian generals to kill or overthrow the president. According to Nkrumah, Generals Afrifa and Kotoka were promised the largest share, but fear of failure prevented them from carrying out the assassination.

Instead, they waited until Nkrumah left Ghana for China and executed the coup. After his overthrow, Nkrumah lived in exile in Guinea, where President Ahmed Sékou Touré named him honorary co-president. He remained there until his health deteriorated, eventually passing away in Bucharest, Romania, on April 27, 1972.

Kwame Nkrumah’s life and overthrow reveal a painful truth: Western powers, including the United States, the IMF, and the World Bank, have never acted in Africa’s interest. Their interventions, whether political, economic, or military, consistently weaken African economies, destabilize governments, and maintain dependency.

African leaders who trust these institutions risk repeating the tragedies of the past. Nkrumah warned that imperialism never sleeps. Today, his warning is more relevant than ever.