Coup No. 2

It was four years to the day since irate Togolese soldiers murdered President Sylvanus Olympic because he had refused to spend more money on the army. What more appropriate way to celebrate the anniversary than with another coup? So Army Chief of Staff Etienne Guassinghe Eyadema, 34, did just that. In a swift and bloodless takeover, he ousted President Nicholas Grunitzky, suspended the constitution and the National Assembly, and banned all political parties. Coup No. 2 for tiny Togo (pop. 1,617,000) was the seventh military takeover in a year for Black Africa.

Lieut. Colonel Eyadema, a burly ex-sergeant in the French colonial army who fought in Indo-China and Algeria, blandly admits that it was he who fired the rifle that killed Olympic. The 250-man army then gave power to Grunitzky, a portly, phlegmatic mulatto (his father was German) who spent most of his time taking health cures in France. Last November he had to hurry back from France to head off an abortive coup by followers of Olympic, who accused him of indecision and too close a tie with Togo's former colonial masters in France. When Eyadema's men moved last week, Grunitzky urgently telephoned Paris and asked if the military treaty he had made with France covered the sending of troops for his own personal protection. At 2 a.m., after a French functionary had relayed the call to Charles de Gaulle, back came the answer: Non! But Eyadema at least spared Grunitzky's life, permitting him to resign the presidency.

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