"The Cold War came to Zanzibar in 1964 after African rebels slaughtered one of every ten Arabs. Led at first by a strange, messianic Ugandan, the rebels became heavily influenced by pro-Communists, including Cuban-trained gun toters, making Zanzibar (in the eyes of Washington, London, and some African capitals) a potentially cancerous base for the communist subversion of mainland Africa.

Exotic Zanzibar - fabled island of spices, former slave-trading entrepot, and stepping-off point for nineteenth-century expeditions into the vast interior of the Dark Continent - had succumbed to the terror of twentieth-century revolution and Cold War intrigue.".

"As the only American in Zanzibar throughout the revolution, Petterson reports with the inside authority of a highly placed diplomatic observer, illuminating how the current troubles in Zanzibar are rooted in the Cold War and the revolution of 1964."--BOOK JACKET.