Neutrality or Complicity? The United States and the 1975 Moroccan Takeover of the Spanish Sahara

From mid-October to mid-November 1975, the Spanish Sahara was the site of a tense standoff between the governments of Spain and Morocco. By the end of the crisis, Madrid had abandoned its colony to Rabat, precipitating the now thirty-year-old conflict for Western Sahara between Morocco and the independence front Polisario. For many years, analysis of the US role in the 1975 Sahara crisis has had to rely on much speculation and little fact. This investigation is based on recently declassified US records and archival sources, as well as documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act. It demonstrates that the Ford administration adopted an explicitly pro-Moroccan policy. Though avowedly neutral in the affair, behind the scenes the US government worked to make sure the Spanish Sahara went to Morocco.