structural:reformatting
1960s

Haile Selassie contributed Ethiopian troops to the United Nations Operation in the Congo peacekeeping force during the 1960 Congo Crisis, to preserve Congolese integrity, per United Nations Security Council Resolution 143. On 13 December 1960, while Haile Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil, his Kebur Zabagna (Imperial Guard) forces staged an unsuccessful coup, briefly proclaiming Haile Selassie's elder son, Asfa Wossen, as emperor. The regular army and police forces crushed the coup d'état. The coup attempt lacked broad popular support, was denounced by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and was unpopular with the army, air force and police. Nonetheless, the effort to depose the Emperor had support among students and the educated classes. The coup attempt has been characterised as a pivotal moment in Ethiopian history, the point at which Ethiopians "for the first time questioned the power of the king to rule without the people's consent". Student populations began to empathise with the peasantry and poor and advocate on their behalf. The coup spurred Haile Selassie to accelerate reform, which was manifested in the form of land grants to military and police officials and political groups.

Haile Selassie continued to be a staunch ally of the West, while pursuing a firm policy of decolonisation in Africa, which was still largely under European colonial rule. The United Nations conducted a lengthy inquiry regarding Eritrea's status, with the superpowers each vying for a stake in the state's future. Britain, the administrator at the time, suggested Eritrea's partition between Sudan and Ethiopia, separating Christians and Muslims. The idea was instantly rejected by Eritrean political parties, as well as the UN.

A UN plebiscite voted 46 to 10 to have Eritrea be federated with Ethiopia, which was later stipulated on 2 December 1950 in resolution 390 (V). Eritrea would have its own parliament and administration and would be represented in what had been the Ethiopian parliament and would become the federal parliament. Haile Selassie would have none of the European attempts to draft a separate constitution under which Eritrea would be governed, and wanted his own 1955 constitution protecting families to apply in both Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 1961 the 30-year Eritrean War for Independence began, followed by the dissolution of the federation and shutting down of Eritrea's parliament.

In September 1961, Haile Selassie attended the Conference of Heads of State of Government of Non-Aligned Countries in Belgrade, FPR Yugoslavia. This is considered to be the founding conference of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In 1961, tensions between independence-minded Eritreans and Ethiopian forces culminated in the Eritrean War of Independence. Eritrea's elected parliament voted to become the fourteenth province of Ethiopia in 1962. The war would continue for 30 years; first Haile Selassie, then the Soviet-backed junta that succeeded him, attempted to retain Eritrea by force.

In 1963, Haile Selassie presided over the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor of the continent-wide African Union (AU). The new organisation would establish its headquarters in Addis Ababa. In May of that year, Haile Selassie was elected as the OAU's first official chairperson, a rotating seat. Along with Modibo Keïta of Mali, the Ethiopian leader would later help successfully negotiate the Bamako Accords, which brought an end to the border conflict between Morocco and Algeria. In 1964, Haile Selassie would initiate the concept of the United States of Africa, a proposition later taken up by Muammar Gaddafi.

In 1963 a revolt in Bale occurred, where peasant rioters whom were discouraged by the Ethiopian taxation headed by Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold later turned into an insurgency. This caused a semi-civil war with terrorist activities carried out by rebels supported by Somalia which later forced the Ethiopian government to declare a state of emergency. The Emperor's armed forces led by Prime Minister Aklilu's cabinet with the support of the United Kingdom and the United States were able to finally end the revolt after over six years of insurgency. This assured weakened diplomatic ties with Siad Barre's Somalia.

On 4 October 1963, Haile Selassie addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations referring in his address to his earlier speech to the League of Nations:

Twenty-seven years ago, as Emperor of Ethiopia, I mounted the rostrum in Geneva, Switzerland, to address the League of Nations and to appeal for relief from the destruction had been unleashed against my defenseless nation, by the fascist invader. I spoke then both to and for the conscience of the world. My words went unheeded, but history testifies to the accuracy of the warning that I gave in 1936. Today, I stand before the world organisation has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor. In this body is enshrined the principle of collective security I unsuccessfully invoked at Geneva. Here, in this Assembly, reposes the best – perhaps the last – hope for the peaceful survival of mankind.

On 25 November 1963, the Emperor was among other heads of state, including French president Charles de Gaulle and King Baudouin of Belgium, who traveled to Washington, D.C., and attended the state funeral of assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Haile Selassie was the only African head of state to attend the funeral. In addition, he was also the only one of the three prominent world leaders that would have another meeting with the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, in Washington during his presidency; Haile Selassie met Johnson again during an informal visit to the United States in 1967.

In 1966, Haile Selassie attempted to replace the historical tax system with a single progressive income tax, which would significantly weaken the nobility who had previously avoided paying most of their taxes. Even with alterations, this law led to a revolt in Gojjam, which was repressed although enforcement of the tax was abandoned. Having achieved its design in undermining the tax, the revolt encouraged other landowners to defy Haile Selassie.

In October of the same year, Haile Selassie had a four-day visit to the Kingdom of Jordan hosted by King Hussein. During this trip, Haile Selassie visited Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus is believed to have been crucified and buried. While he had fully approved and assured Ethiopia's participation in UN-approved collective security operations, including Korea and Congo, Haile Selassie drew a distinction between it and the non-UN-approved foreign intervention in Indochina, consistently deploring it as needless suffering and calling for the Vietnam War to end on several occasions. At the same time he remained open toward the United States and commended it for making progress with African Americans' Civil Rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s, while visiting the US several times during these years.

In 1967, he visited Montréal, Canada, to open the Ethiopian Pavilion at the Expo '67 World's Fair where he received great acclaim among other World leaders there for the occasion. Student unrest became a regular feature of Ethiopian life in the 1960s and 1970s. Communism took root in large segments of the Ethiopian intelligentsia, particularly among those who had studied abroad and had thus been exposed to radical and left-wing sentiments that were becoming popular in other parts of the globe. Resistance by conservative elements at the Imperial Court and Parliament, and by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, made Haile Selassie's land reform proposals difficult to implement, and also damaged the standing of the government, costing Haile Selassie much of the goodwill he had once enjoyed. This bred resentment among the peasant population. Efforts to weaken unions also hurt his image. As these issues began to pile up, Haile Selassie left much of domestic governance to Aklilu Habte-Wold and concentrated more on foreign affairs. Over the last two decades beforehand and during the 60s Ethiopia had received over 400 million dollars in aid, 140 million of that being for the Ethiopian military, and 240 million for economic assistance.