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South African Perspectives and Responses to External Pressures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

The purpose of this article is to explore the pattern of South African responses to external pressures. My study grows out of a concern with the regional conflict situation in Southern Africa, whose dimensions have become relatively clear only since the coup in Portugal in April 1974. Whatever the specific details of the policies and actions of the rest of the world; these should not rest on a misperception of the basic motivation and dynamics of South African decision-making vis-à-vis external pressures.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

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Page 450 note 3 Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), 10 10 1974 p. 9:Google Scholar Professor Gerrit Viljoen, Rector of the Rand Afrikaans University, speaking to the Broederbond.

Page 451 note 1 House of Assembly Debates (Cape Town), 9 09 1974,Google Scholar col. 2943: M.S.F. Grobler, National Party M.P.

Page 451 note 2 Financial Mail (Johannesburg), 9 03 1973, p. 863;Google Scholar and Rand Daily Mail, 15 06 1973, p. 6:Google Scholar the Minister of Economic Affairs in response to parliamentary questions.

Page 451 note 3 I know of only two published references since 1960 to the possibility of détente with the Soviet Union. The first was an abortive venture by verkrampte members of the Cabinet to raise the issue of recognition; see Schoeman, Beaumont, Van Malan tot Verwoerd (Cape Town and Pretoria, 1973),Google Scholar reviewed in the Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 3 06 1973.Google Scholar The second was a parliamentary inquiry during 1973 which was gently squashed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs; House of Assembly Debates, 9 May 1973, cols. 6114 and 6130.

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Page 452 note 2 For details of the co-ordinative arrangements between the Departments of Information and Foreign Affairs, see Mulder, C. P., House of Assembly Debates, 2 10 1974, cols. 4282–83.Google Scholar Concerning the rôle of the Secretary of Information, Eschel Rhoodie, see the article by van Schoor, Mostert in The Star (Johannesburg), 7 06 1974.Google Scholar

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Page 453 note 1 See the West German supplement in the Financial Mail, 4 10 1974, pp. 37–8,Google Scholar and the report on recent Arab investments by Stephen Muiholland in the Sunday Times, 13 October 1974.

Page 453 note 2 Owen, Ken, ‘The IMF Lesson SA Must Learn’, in The Star, 10 10 1974, p. 10.Google Scholar

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Page 454 note 1 Sunday Times, 24 06 1973, Magazine Section, p. 8:Google Scholar translation from Schoeman, Van Malan tot Verwoerd.

Page 454 note 2 Meiring, Piet, Inside Information (Cape Town, 1973), p. 166;Google ScholarMiller, J. D. B., ‘South Africa's Departure’, in The Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, I, 1, 11 1961, pp. 5674;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and also Barber, James, South Africa's Foreign Policy, 1945–1970 (London, 1973), pp. 163–7.Google Scholar

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Page 455 note 2 Cf. Barber, op. cit. p. 162 concerning contacts with Katanga.

Page 455 note 3 Ibid. pp. 172–3, also cited by du Toit, loc. cit.

Page 455 note 4 De Kiewiet, loc. cit. and Barber, op. cit. pp. 213ff.

Page 455 note 5 Munger, Edwin S., ‘New White Politics in South Africa’, in Hance, William A. (ed.), Southern Africa and the United States (New York, 1968), pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

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Page 456 note 2 Personal interviews, 1974. It appears that parallel effort towards détente were made in the same period by a representative of the Lesotho Government.

Page 456 note 3 Personal interview, June 1972.

Page 456 note 4 Washington Post, 6 October 1971, and New York Times, 6 and 9 October 1971.

Page 457 note 1 Landell-Mills, P. M., ‘The 1969 Southern African Customs Union Agreement’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, IX, 2, 08 1971, pp. 263–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 457 note 2 A notable exception was in June 1973, when South African air-force helicopters dropped food and blankets to Basotho who were stranded in a snowstorm in the Malutj Mountains.

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Page 457 note 5 The Star Weekly (Johannesburg), 9 06 1973, p. 12,Google Scholar discussing Schoeman's Van Malan tot Verwoerd.

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Page 458 note 4 Strydom, Hans in the Sunday Times, 20 10 1974, p. 13.Google Scholar

Page 459 note 1 House of Assembly Debates, 30 August 1974, cols. 1850 ff.

Page 459 note 2 Ibid. 9 September 1974, col. 2537.

Page 459 note 3 Ibid. 10 September 1974, col. 2590.

Page 459 note 4 The Eastern Province Herald (Port Elizabeth), 17, 18, and 25 09 1974.Google Scholar

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Page 459 note 6 House of Assembly Debates, 2 October 1974, cols. 4300–8, Minister of Information, C.P. Mulder, justifying the success of the new approach. See also the Financial Mail, 18 10 1974, pp. 233–4.Google Scholar

Page 460 note 1 For excerpts of a recent B.B.C. interview with Vorster, see the Rand Daily Mail, 25 11 1974, p. 7,Google Scholar and for the problems of co-ordination facing Rhoodie, see the Financial Mail, 29 11 1974, p. 859.Google Scholar

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Page 460 note 3 House of Assembly Debates, 2 October 1974, cols. 4234 and 4281: C. P. Mulder on black Information officers.

Page 460 note 4 The Star, 3 October 1974, and Rand Daily Mail, 4 and 5 October 1974.

Page 460 note 5 House of Assembly Debates, 10 September 1974, cols. 414–19.

Page 461 note 1 Rand Daily Mail, 5 10 1974, p. 8.Google Scholar On the difilculties of responding to the B.B.C. film, see Mulder, C.P., House of Assembly Debates, 2 10 1974, cols. 4295–2, and 15 10 1974, cols. 730–2.Google Scholar

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Page 462 note 1 Financial Mail, 4 10 1974, pp. 37–8,Google Scholar and Clark, Caroline, Sunday Times, 13 and 20 10 1974 pp. 1 and 7 respectively.Google Scholar

Page 462 note 2 For background information on this policy review, see Cowley, Clive, The Star, 17 09 1974, p. 29;Google ScholarStrydom, Hans, Sunday Times, 22 09 1974, p. 3Google Scholar and also To the Point, 4 10 1974, pp. 78.Google Scholar

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Page 462 note 4 For an insight into the South-West African stalemate, see Cowley, Clive, The Star, 19 03 1975, p. 49.Google Scholar

Page 463 note 1 The Prime Minister's speech to the Senate on 23 October was reported and discussed in The Eastern Province Herald, The Star, and Rand Daily Mail on the following day; also To the Point, 1 11 1974, p. 7.Google Scholar For Ambassador Pik Botha's speech to the U.N. Security Council on 24 October, see The Eastern Province Herald, The Star, and Rand Daily Mail on the following day. Kaunda's speech at the University of Zambia was reported in the Sunday Times, 27 10 1974, p. 3.Google Scholar For comment on possible motives for these moves, see Walker, Richard, The Eastern Province Herald, 25 10 1974, p. 3;Google Scholar and Serfontein, J. H. P., Sunday Times, 27 10 1974, p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 463 note 2 In March 1975, South African Police units were withdrawn from duty on the Zambezi to rear-area camps in Rhodesia; The Eastern Province Herald, 18 03 1975 p. 1.Google Scholar The following month, Vernon Mwaanga, the Zambian Foreign Minister, informed the O.A.U. Council of Ministers in Dar es Salaam that the Prime Minister of South Africa had agreed to withdraw all the S.A.P. units from Rhodesia before June 1975; Ibid. 9 April 1975, p. 1.

Page 463 note 3 Krause, Otto, Die Trarrsvaler (Johannesburg), 5 06 1974;Google Scholar Cas de Villiers of the Africa Institute, Sunday Times, 16 06 1974, p. 5;Google ScholarS.A.B.C. ‘Weekend Newsroom’, 23 06 1974;Google Scholar and also Worrall, Senator Denis, The Eastern Province Herald, 20 09 1974, p. 17.Google Scholar

Page 463 note 4 For Nationalist concern, see Serfontein, J. H. P., The Sunday Times, 9 06 1974, p. 1Google Scholar and D'Oliveira, John, The Star, 30 09 1974, p. 29.Google Scholar For an interview with Vorster, see To the Point, 14 06 1974, p. 21;Google Scholar and for the diplomat's comment, see Edlin, John, The Star, 4 09 1974, p. 10.Google Scholar In a B.B.C. interview, Muller said that no sanctions would be applied against Rhodesia; The Eastern Province Herald, 22 01 1975, p. 1.Google Scholar

Page 463 note 5 See Uys, Stanley, Sunday Times, 9 03 1975, p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 463 note 6 The Eastern Province Herald, 8 04 1975, p. 1.Google Scholar

Page 464 note 1 The Star, 17 02 1975, p. 25.Google Scholar

Page 464 note 2 See especially his New Year's Eve message to the nation, The Star, 2 01 1975, p. 29,Google Scholar and Sunday Times, 5 01 1975, p. 8.Google Scholar

Page 465 note 1 For analyses of the change from 1973 to 1974, see D'Oliveira, John, The Star, 15 08 1974, p. 16;Google Scholar and Birkby, Card, Sunday Times, 18 08 1974, p. 8.Google Scholar For the 1975 defence budget, see The Eastern Province Herald, 27 04 1975, p. 15.Google Scholar

Page 465 note 2 The Star, 7 04 1975, p. 1.Google Scholar

Page 465 note 3 Rand Daily Mail, 24 09 1974, p. 1.Google Scholar The Government's action received support in S.A.B.C. ‘Current Affairs’, 24 09 1974.Google Scholar

Page 465 note 4 Rand Daily Mail, 23 09 1974, p. 6.Google ScholarSunday Times, 15 09 1974, p. 11.Google Scholar

Page 465 note 5 Sunday Times, 15 09 1974, p. 11.Google Scholar

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Page 466 note 2 J. H. P. Serfontein, ibid. 6 October 1974, p. 1.

Page 466 note 3 Ibid. 17 November 1974, p. 1.

Page 466 note 4 See the especially insightful analysis by Stanley Uys, ibid. 3 November 1974, p. 13.

Page 467 note 1 Hans Strydom, ibid. 20 October 1974, p. 7. He reports that conservative United Party members are even opposed to land grants to the Homelands to meet the requirements of the outdated 1936 Land Act. The ‘final’ consolidation proposals tabled in the House of Assembly in April 1975 fell far short of what had been requested by Homeland leaders, but did provoke the reactions from Natal white farmers that Strydom anticipated.

Page 467 note 2 For a somewhat similar analysis of significant policy areas reflective of basic change, see Hirschmann, David, ‘Pressures on Apartheid’, in Foreign Affairs (New York), 52, 1, 10 1973, p. 178.Google Scholar

Page 467 note 3 D'Oliveira, John in The Star, 30 09 1974, p. 29.Google Scholar