Jomo Kenyatta As the historian Keith Kyle put it, for many whites Kenyatta was "Satan Incarnate". This white animosity reached its apogee between 1950 and 1952. By 1964, this image had largely shifted, with many white settlers referring to him as "Good Old Mzee". Murray-Brown expressed the view that for many, Kenyatta's "message of reconciliation, 'to forgive and forget', was perhaps his greatest contribution to his country and to history." To Ochieng, Kenyatta was "a personification of conservative social forces and tendencies" in Kenya. Towards the end of his presidency, many younger Kenyans—while respecting Kenyatta's role in attaining independence—regarded him as a
Jomo Kenyatta London took to wearing a fez and cloak and carrying a silver-topped black cane. He adopted his surname, "Kenyatta", after the name of a beaded belt he often wore in early life. As President he collected a variety of expensive cars. Murray-Brown noted that Kenyatta had the ability to "appear all things to all men", also displaying a "consummate ability to keep his true purposes and abilities to himself", for instance concealing his connections with communists and the Soviet Union from both members of the British Labour Party and Kikuyu figures at home. This deviousness was sometimes interpreted as dishonesty