AMERICAN NOTES: Get-Well Card

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AMERICAN NOTES

During his 2½-year tenure, Ugandan Strongman Idi Amin Dada has had a few prankish and many sinister moments, as when he expressed his approval of Hitler and when he expelled 26,000 Asian residents from his country. Thus his personal Fourth-of-July message to President Nixon was, by Amin's standards, a mild enough antic. He started by congratulating the U.S. on Independence Day and commending the nation for its help "to those countries that were struggling against European colonialism." That said, he chided the U.S. for a tendency to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and "to destroy human life on earth, particularly in the developing world."

Then came the unkindest cut. Signing off with an expression of "highest regard and esteem," Amin wished the President "a speedy recovery from the Watergate affair." Nixon was evidently not amused. The State Department said that the note was "totally unacceptable in substance and tone." As a result, the U.S. will send no ambassador to replace the one who was recalled last February, when Amin became too critical on the subject of Viet Nam.