AFRICA A Conflict of Summits

If there is one thing the leaders of Africa's underdeveloped new nations have developed it is a taste for conferences -preferably fullscale, formal summits complete with swarms of presidential airplanes, motorcades sirening through flag-draped streets, and earphones for simultaneous translation. So far this year, there have been nine major conclaves on the African continent, and there would have been more but for the simple confines of the calendar. There is just no way for everybody to talk at once.

Faced with this fact last week was Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was on an urgent mission to Ghana hoping to clear the way for the grandest conference of all, an Afro-Asian wingding. The affair, originally scheduled for Algiers in June, had to be postponed until Nov. 5 because of the overthrow of Ahmed ben Bella. But shortly after the new date had been set, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah suddenly put off his own spectacular -the 36-nation Organization of African Unity summit until Oct. 21, which was so close to the Algiers summit that many leaders might not be able to attend both. With a vast sum invested in an enormous modern conference hall and 65 presidential villas, Bouteflika had come to Accra to talk Nkrumah into setting a less conflicting date.

No dice. Nkrumah had spent even more summit money than had Algeria. His pretentious "Job 600," a complex of conference halls, office buildings, and a twelve-story, air-conditioned apartment house built for the Presidents and their delegations, was expected to cost at least $27 million -2% of Ghana's entire national income last year. The Redeemer had ordered his summit's postponement only because Job 600 had not been finished on time. The O.A.U. was already unhappy at the delay, he told Bouteflika, and any further tampering with the schedule could ruin the whole thing.

Besides, said Nkrumah, shoving the Algerian onto a plane, all of Ghana was being trained to be polite to the delegates. Radio Ghana had for months been broadcasting a daily indoctrination program entitled Service with a Smile, and the city's 800 taxi drivers had been sent to school for an intensive two-week course in basic French and elementary courtesy. The cabbies have even been ordered to make sure they stick to the proper attire: black trousers, white shirts and black ties.

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