from KJ
Whether Africa is a marginal player to US national interests or not, is an entirely different matter. I just wanted to give you the African intellectual's perspective on these matters. Once again, my perspective isn't that important, but maybe it helps you understand my worldview.
but, in the last few days I've read or watched a half-dozen or so African intellectuals whose dislike of the USG was far deeper and stronger than anything you have posted here. The two issues were (1) decolonialization and neocolonialization, and (2) apartheid. Judging from what I've read and watched, their dislike of the USG is not going to be put aside. Admittedly, I'm reasoning from a limited database and null hands-on African experience.

Both of these issues were controlled, so far as USG inaction on apartheid was concerned, by two things: (1) that "the continent of Africa was only of marginal interest to the US as far as American national interests are concerned," as well-expressed by George Ball (who was no rightist, though an elitist) in what I quoted; and (2) that the "communists were coming" - especially in South Africa, where the Communist Party was well represented by the writings of Joe Slovo; and the ANC was perceived as "Marxist" - it didn't express it as a matter of tactics only (1979 Green Book):

2. We debated the more long-term aims of our national democratic revolution, and the extent to which the ANC, as a national movement, should tie itself to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and publicly commit itself to the socialist option. The issue was posed as follows:

In the light of the need to attract the broadest range of social forces amongst the oppressed to the national democratic liberation, a direct or indirect commitment at this stage to a continuing revolution which would lead to a socialist order may unduly narrow this line-up of social forces. It was also argued that the ANC is not a party, and its direct or open commitment to socialist ideology may undermine its basic character as a broad national movement.
It should be emphasised that no member of the Commission had any doubts about the ultimate need to continue our revolution towards a socialist order; the issue was posed only in relation to the tactical considerations of the present stage of our struggle.
Beyond its fear of SA communists and socialists, the USG (via the DoD) believed South Africa was a necessary location for US military installations. That we see in the Kennedy administration's continuation of a space tracking center in South Africa (all doc links here).

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963
Volume XXI, Africa, Document 376

376. Letter From the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Gilpatric) to the Under Secretary of State (Bowles)11. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 65 A 3464, Africa, 000.92-Africa 452, 1961. Confidential. A copy was sent to Harold Brown, Director of Defense Research and Engineering.
Washington, March 16, 1961.

Dear Chet: As you requested, I have looked into the necessity for concluding an agreement with the Union of South Africa for the establishment in the Johannesburg/Pretoria area of a missile and space vehicle tracking station extending the Atlantic Missile Range.
...
We in Defense do not see any effective alternative to a station in the Union of South Africa if we are to handle the development of Transit, Midas, Advent, Ranger, and other programs which will follow from the availability of the Centaur/Atlas and Saturn boosters. A draft agreement satisfactory to both State and Defense has been prepared. We believe that this draft will be generally acceptable to the South Africans, since it follows as closely as circumstances permit the recent U.S.-South African agreement concerning the NASA station at Pretoria. The latter agreement, which in our view presented comparable questions of U.S. policy, was signed on September 13, 1960.
Chet Bowles was another liberal at State, with an interest in Africa. He wrote in 1955, as a private citizen, Africa (by Chester Bowles; In Collier's Weekly, June 10, 1955, pp. 40-47):

What exactly is our African policy? It is fair to say that at present we do not have one. We do not have one because for years we have told ourselves that Africa was simply a projection of Britain, France, Portugal and Belgium, and that a European policy would suffice. This same kind of disastrous reasoning in Asia led us to look upon Indochina as a French problem and not as an Asian problem. It can cost us equally heavily over the years in Africa.

However, any responsible person will agree that the development of a rational African policy is net an easy matter. It is a subject on which European opinions are sensitive and easily aroused. It is highly complex, and wide open for reckless, racial demagoguery.
with 11 policy recommendations - the first three being general:

1. Let us start with the fact that we do not control Africa, that we have no desire to control it and that there is a strict limit to what we can do there.

2. Without pompously lecturing our European friends on their colonial matters, or making a demagogic play to the applause of the African gallery, let us privately and publicly place our influence behind every orderly and responsible proposal that moves toward freedom.

3. For better or for worse, Africans themselves will eventually decide the pace of freedom. However, if America convinces the Africans that we honestly favor their independence as rapidly as they can manage it, we shall be in a position to help moderate the demands of those Africans who now want more authority than they are yet qualified to use. Premature self-government would only lead to failures which would play into the hands of the bitter enders.
Chet Bowles replied negatively to the tracking station.

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963
Volume XXI, Africa, Document 378

378. Letter From the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Gilpatric) to the Under Secretary of State (Bowles)11. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 65 A 3464, Africa 000.92-Africa 452, 1961. Secret. A copy was sent to George Newman in G.
Washington, May 17, 1961.

Dear Chet: As a result of your letter of April 3, 1961,[2] I asked the Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering and the Under Secretary of the Air Force personally to re-examine the need for a tracking station in the Union of South Africa and possible alternatives to such a station. ...

2. Bowles' letter to Gilpatric pointed out that the use of South African territory for the U.S. missile tracking program posed serious difficulties for the U.S. Government because of the racial policies of the Union Government and the recurring controversies between that government and the United Nations over South West Africa and apartheid. Therefore, he argued, it was unwise for the United States to enter into any long-term military agreement with South Africa for a permanent tracking station, and asked the Department of Defense to investigate other means of satisfying its requirements, such as the use of instrumentation vessels. He also suggested waiting for the views of the new U.S. Ambassador to South Africa before taking any action on the proposed agreement.
Adlai Stevenson was also negative.

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963
Volume XXI, Africa, Document 380

380. Letter From the Representative to the United Nations (Stevenson) to Secretary of State Rusk11. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 770X.56311/6-261. Personal and Confidential.
New York, June 2, 1961.

Dear Dean: I have recently heard about the proposed agreement with the Union of South Africa for (a) a missile tracking station, and (b) a sale of arms including fighter aircraft.

While I am not fully informed about the necessity for this transaction, I am sufficiently concerned to presume to send you this note of caution. At a time when the feeling about apartheid and the policy of the Union of South Africa is rising everywhere, including pressure for sanctions in the U.N., I would think that the necessity must be very compelling to risk the repercussions from a transaction of this kind if and when it becomes known, as it must inevitably. I hardly need add that relations with the rest of Africa, and especially the new states, are important to our security too.
- to be cont. -