Nigeria may be rent with tribal hatred and bloodied by war, but optimism still reigns at the top levels of the U.S. Embassy here and governs American policy toward this sick and depressing country. The optimism is less rosy and more cautious than it was in the old days of 1960 to 1965 when the embassy used to describe Nigeria as a showcase of democracy and development, a description that later proved illusory. But, though it is restrained now, the optimism is still strong enough to persuade U.S. Ambassador Elbert G. Mathews and his senior lieutenants that the federal military government's present course of using military force to end the secession of Biafra will lead to a united, prosperous Nigeria. This view is challenged staunchly and, in some cases, bitterly by several junior officers in the embassy here, some influential policy-makers in the State Department and the official American on the scene in Biafra, Robert Barnard, the U.S. consul in Enugu. They believe a military conquest of Biafra will aggravate tribal hatred so much that Nigeria will never have stability...

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