Carter Leads Zimbabwe Walkout : Parties and Politics Mark Birthday of U.S. Overseas

From Moscow to the Far East, foreigners joined in that grand old American tradition of mixing politics with Fourth of July celebrations--in far-off Zimbabwe, to the extent that former President Jimmy Carter and other guests walked out of a diplomatic gathering.

Carter and U.S. Charge d’Affaires Edward Lanpher led a group of about 40 people in walking out of an Independence Day reception at the U.S. Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe, after an official of the African nation criticized U.S. policy on South Africa.

David Karimanzira, Zimbabwe’s minister of youth, spoke on behalf of the foreign minister, Witness Mangwende, a harsh critic of U.S. policy in Africa. He accused Washington of giving indirect support to South African “terrorism.”

“It was offensive,” Lanpher said later of the speech. British, Dutch, and West German diplomats, as well as Carter’s wife Rosalynn and daughter Amy, joined the former President and Lanpher in the walkout.

Kremlin Congratulations

Soviet newspapers published a message of congratulations from their government to President Reagan, but the newspaper Moscow Pravda complained that official U.S. propaganda was using the Statue of Liberty centennial to fuel chauvinism in the United States.

The occasional sour note aside, however, Independence Day overseas generally was an occasion for a bit of celebrating.

In Bonn, the U.S. ambassador to West Germany, Richard Burt, gave a July Fourth lawn party with Kentucky Fried Chicken, Baskin-Robbins ice cream, McDonald’s hamburgers, chocolate chip cookies and popcorn for hundreds of guests.

French farmers dumped two tons of corn at the feet of a replica of the Statue of Liberty in Paris, to protest a U.S.-Common Market agreement allowing U.S. corn shipments to Spain and Portugal to continue.

California Wine

In Cairo, hundreds of Americans turned out for Independence Day hot dogs, beer and a California wine toast to Miss Liberty.

In Seoul, South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae Jung attended his first official function at the U.S. Embassy compound since 1980. He mingled with about 1,500 other guests who came to the embassy’s Fourth of July bash.

Kim, convicted of sedition and under a suspended 20-year sentence, is barred from politics.

In The Hague, U.S. Ambassador Paul Bremer unveiled a plaque at the site of the first embassy acquired by the U.S. government, a house bought in 1782 by Ambassador John Adams, who later was elected President.

A Netherlands government printing plant now occupies the site.

Annual Burger Airlift

In what has become an annual hamburger airlift, 2,500 burgers were sent from Hong Kong to the U.S. Embassy in Peking. American diplomats, business executives, journalists, teachers and students lined up for the home-style fare.

A cartoon in India’s pro-Soviet newspaper Patriot showed Reagan holding aloft a torch and clutching a book labeled Nicaragua. The caption: “Give me your billions for the poor contras.”

In London, the conservative Daily Mail newspaper said, “For all the razzmatazz, the glitz and the hype, the celebration this weekend of the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty is a great event. . . . We, too, can rejoice with our great ally and, remembering how crucial she is to our own survival in freedom, join thankfully with the chorus of ‘God bless America.’ ”

‘Friendship Festival’

The Copenhagen newspaper Berlingske Tidende described Denmark’s annual Danish-American Fourth of July celebration at Rebild in Jutland as a “festival of friendship.” This year, the speaker was Maureen Reagan, the President’s daughter. Her father spoke there in 1972.

Spain televised the July Fourth party given by U.S. Ambassador Thomas O. Enders. The Madrid newspaper Diario 16 observed that U.S. democracy “with all its defects, constitutes a model for all of humanity.”