A Letter From The Publisher, Sep. 4, 1978

The death of Jomo Kenyatta last week, which raised questions about the future of Kenya, evoked sharp memories for a trio of TIME writers and correspondents who covered the African leader at different stages of his long and spectacular career.

Jim Bell, now a senior correspondent in Boston, went to Kenya in 1959 and was told by British colonial servants that Kenyatta was confined, or "rusticated" as they put it, near the Somali frontier. The militant Mau Mau leader was said to be a "hopeless alcoholic." A year later, Bell met Kenyatta in a village in northern Kenya. He was tall...

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