Klan-Missionary Plot in Africa? ‘Absurd,’ U.S. Says

The letter that all of Kenya has been talking about this week reveals an unbelievably sinister plot: a Ku Klux Klan plan to topple several African presidents, funded by an $80-million war chest and using American missionaries in Kenya as undercover operatives.

President Daniel Arap Moi’s government, which for months has accused unnamed missionaries here of “subversive activities” but produced no evidence, saw the letter as a smoking gun. It not only unmasked a dastardly plot, but it named names as well.

So Kenya took the unusual step last week of deporting the seven American missionaries named in the letter--and then leaked the letter to Kenya’s newspapers, which dutifully published it on their front pages under large headlines.

But both the letter and the coup d’etat plot, the U.S. government said Tuesday, are pure fabrication.

The U.S. Embassy here, in a rare public disagreement with the Kenyan government, Tuesday called the letter “a forgery.” And it added that the story of a plot to overthrow African governments by the klan and a Christian church in North Carolina was “baseless.”

A State Department spokesman in Washington called the plot story “patently absurd.”

Nevertheless, on Tuesday the Kenyan government confiscated the U.S. passports of at least half a dozen additional missionaries and ordered them to report to the immigration department today. No reasons were given.

The whole affair has angered American officials and frightened many of the estimated 7,000 American missionaries and their families who work in Kenya.

In the last year, Moi has frequently suggested that missionaries were plotting to destabilize his government. The Times reported earlier this year that several American missionaries were harassed by Kenyan police who confiscated their shortwave radios and plowed up their dirt airstrips.

The letter, published Saturday, seemed suspicious from the start to most Westerners here. But Kenyan politicians and newspapers appeared to accept its authenticity without question.

Not Shouting ‘Wolf’

“This is not a scarecrow story or a shouting cry of ‘Wolf!’ ” declared the Standard, a daily newspaper here. “Neither is it a piece of disinformation.”

By Monday, editorial writers and politicians all across the country were blasting the “Bible-crazy plotters” and, in a few cases, urging Kenyans to seek out other collaborators among missionaries working here.

The letter, on the stationery of the Foscoe Christian Church, in Boone, N.C., was addressed as a “MEMO: To Klu (sic) Klux Klan Members.” It purported to seek $20 million in donations for a plot to topple the governments in black-ruled countries around South Africa.

“Our strategy is to begin with Kenya because this is where our interests are mostly at stake,” it said. “Our folks there need money.”

The letter went on to name Paul and Marty Hamilton, two missionaries based about 20 miles outside Nairobi, and said they needed money to bribe government officials. It also said that missionary Gene Throop, his wife, Sherry, and Curtis Burke, stationed in Machakos, east of Nairobi, needed money “for coordination, telephone and training.”

Stationed as a ‘Disguise’

Missionaries Bob and Maxine Durey, identified in the letter as Bob and Durey Maxine, were stationed in Machakos “only as a disguise . . . but to do this successfully they need funds to help children and buy them textbooks,” the letter said.

It described Moi and Kenneth D. Kaunda, president of Zambia, as “good supporters” of Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader imprisoned in South Africa. “We cannot afford this relationship at this time,” the letter said.

It was purportedly signed by the Rev. Kenneth A. Caswell, pastor of the church, who was identified in the letter as treasurer and covert operations director for the klan.

Caswell, reached for comment by Western reporters Saturday, said he had not written the letter. But his denial was not mentioned in Kenya.

The letter contained several indications that it might be phony. For example, although purportedly written by a member of the klan, it misspelled the klan’s full name.

Peculiar Phrasing

Further doubt on its authenticity was suggested by the extremely large amount of money--$80 million--that the letter said had been raised so far, plus some peculiar phrasing that seemed inconsistent with American-style English. At one point, for example, the letter referred to the need for “$1,000,000.00 U.S. dollars.”

All seven missionaries named in the letter were expelled Friday night. Several of them had been detained and questioned by police a few weeks before and had sought the help of the U.S. Embassy here.

Who wrote the letter and why remains a mystery. But sources in the American Embassy say it may have originated in the United States with a Kenyan student there who has been acting as a fund-raiser for missionary groups in his home country.

Until the U.S. Embassy’s announcement Tuesday, no one here had publicly suggested that the letter was anything but authentic.

In an apparent attempt to calm the waters, Moi sought Sunday to reassure “all genuine and sincere foreigners” in Kenya that they are welcome in the country. But he added that “a minority of non-Kenyans amongst us . . . have come to our country for carefully disguised purposes. On the surface they appear to have the best intentions. But . . . their real work has been sabotage and destabilization.”

No Connection Found

The U.S. Embassy’s statement said an investigation in the United States had determined that neither Caswell nor his Foscoe Christian Church had any connection with the klan or any direct connection with the seven missionaries who were deported.

“The church and the missionaries appear to have been the victims of a hoax or fraudulent scheme,” the statement said, adding that the U.S. government “is seeking the support of the government of Kenya in explaining the facts to the public.”

Missionaries operate in Kenya, as in most of Africa, without much protection. Often affiliated with a collection of small churches, they operate on a shoestring budget, and they usually live in isolated areas with only a shortwave radio for emergency communications and a dirt airstrip for the delivery of mail and fresh food every few weeks.

“We worried that missionaries or other people working in rural areas of Kenya might become the victim of people who think there is a subversive in their midst,” an American diplomat said Tuesday.

However, many American missionaries have complained privately that U.S. officials here had repeatedly declined to help missionaries harassed by government officials during the past year. Some embassy sources acknowledge a lack of enthusiasm for complaining on behalf of individual missionaries, citing a fear of endangering U.S.-Kenyan relations.

Airport Access

Under a 1980 agreement, the United States has access to Kenyan airports and ports. The government receives $53 million a year from the United States, making it the second largest recipient of American foreign aid in the region, and Kenya is a popular tourist destination for more than 600,000 American and European visitors annually.

Since church leaders began loudly criticizing some policies of Moi last year, he has accused religious groups here of being under foreign influence and of plotting to destabilize the country.

In October, 1986, Moi announced that he had caught an American missionary group importing ammunition, arms, maps, military uniforms and sophisticated communications devices into Kenya to “cause chaos.”

But the “arms” turned out to be pellet guns and crossbows, for protection from snakes and other animals. The “military uniforms” were 500 blue school uniforms sewn by church members in Oregon. The communications equipment consisted of walkie-talkies and shortwave radios registered with Kenyan authorities for use in areas without telephone service. And the maps that Moi said “infringed state security” were bought from the government map office in Nairobi.