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As titular head of the O.A.U. until next July's meeting in Nairobi, Stevens is expected to lead the battle for economic sanctions against South Africa. But his government has tight links with the apartheid regime; 49% of the national diamond corporation is owned by an offshoot of South Africa's De Beers Corp. Stevens insists that "the South Africans once had a monopoly on the diamond trade in this country, but we are trying little by little to break it." That plan has focused recently on efforts by a Stevens business associate, American Entrepreneur Maurice Templesman, to help Sierra Leone get financing from the World Bank for an ambitious deep diamond-mining venture. A sometime escort of Jackie Onassis, Templesman has hired New York Lawyer Theodore Sorensen, once the chief speechwriter for John F. Kennedy, to represent his interests. In Freetown, it is widely suspected that Stevens takes his cut of his country's dealings with De Beers. That rumor may have prompted the angry remark of one black nationalist leader at the recent summit, namely that African nations doing business with South Africa "ought to be disciplined by the O.A.U." Since all too many countries on the continent have trade dealings with Pretoria, the chances of any such disciplinary action against Sierra Leone are very slim indeed. ∎