Kenyatta Goes "Free"

Of the 77,000 Africans put behind barbed wire after the worst of the Mau Mau uprising seven years ago, about 900 are still in Kenya's four remaining detention camps. Many of them, still marked by the blood-oath fanaticism of the old days, are considered cases more in need of psychiatric care than punishment. But last week the father of the terror, bearded London-and Moscow-educated Jomo Kenyatta, the notorious "Burning Spear" feared by whites and Kikuyu tribesmen alike, was let out of jail. He had served his seven-year sentence, with 28 months off for good behavior.

Kenyatta was not yet a free man. From his cell near the Sudan border, he and five Mau Mau extremists were hustled under close guard to the tiny government outpost of Lodwar. There, in the empty, arid northern frontier district, 216 miles from the nearest town, Kenyatta will live in exile in two rooms, cooking his own government-supplied food. He may roam the local area, but must report daily to the district commissioner and must remain inside his quarters from sunset to dawn. He may receive out-of-town visitors only with permission of the Nairobi government. He will have a radio—but one that cannot pick up Moscow or Cairo. Reading material is forbidden him. Burning Spear may never address a meeting or join any organization. Though he is a spent man, his power to arouse his fellow blacks is still respected by the British, who are taking no chances.