The furore in Kenya over former American Ambassador William Attwood's book on Africa is less important than the forces that fanned it. Since Attwood's "The Reds and the Blacks," was published in the United States, the book has been denounced by the vice president of Kenya, the attorney general, the minister of agriculture, the country's ruling party, the opposition party, the new American ambassador and the editors of Nairobi's two main English-language newspapers. The chief complaint, in the words of Vice President Daniel Arap Moi, is that the book "outrages every code of personal and diplomatic good faith." Kenya officials are angry because Attwood repeats private conversations they had with him when he was ambassador to Kenya from 1964 to 1966. Attwood's successor, Ambassador Glenn W. Ferguson, believes this has made his job extremely difficult; Kenyans won't trust an American ambassador any more...

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