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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Among the sober assessments of U.S. interests in South Africa by the Rockefeller Commission one finds a rare lapse into wishful thinking. It is the contention that the option of Major economic sanctions against the Republic ‘must be kept in the U.S. policy arsenal’. Since this distinguished body recommended against expansion and new entry into South Africa (but also against disinvestment), the commitment of American and European firms in South Africa has grown substantially. U.S. investment alone increased by 13 per cent in 1981. The 1,200 British companies, followed by 375 American and 350 West German firms, with a total foreign investment of R30 billion in 1982, seem to confirm the South African propaganda of stability and growth. These interests constitute an effective veto block against meaningful disengagement.
Page 235 note 1 The Report of the Study Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Southern Africa, South Africa: time running out (Berkeley, 1981), p. 426.Google Scholar
Page 235 note 2 Lippman, Th. W., ‘A South African Empire Reaches to U.S.’, in Washington Post, 11 04, 1982.Google Scholar
Page 237 note 1 Ferguson, Clyde and Cotter, William R., ‘South Africa: what is to be done’, in Foreign Affairs (New York), 01 1978, pp. 253–74.Google Scholar
Page 239 note 1 The Star (Johannesburg), 19 08 1982.Google Scholar
Page 241 note 1 The Star Weekly (Johannesburg), 9 10 1982.Google Scholar
Page 241 note 1 Ibid. 18 September 1982.
Page 244 note 1 For example, an academic supporter of Treurnicht, Professor Booysen, Hercules, warned: ‘This country can be put on fire, not only by whites too. Apartheid has, to a certain extent, given whites a false sense of security. But take away the system and see what will happen then’. New York Times, 25 07 1982.Google Scholar
Page 244 note 2 See Hanf, Theo, South Africa: the prospects of peacefull change (London and Bloomington, 1981).Google Scholar For the best up-to-date assessment of P. W. Botha' politics, see Giliomee, Hermann, The Parting of the Ways (Cape Town 1982).Google Scholar For a perceptive, critical review of recent developments, see also Schlemmer, Lawrence and Welsh, David, ‘South Africa's Constitutional and Political Prospects,’ in Optima (Johannesburg), 30, 4, 06 1982, pp. 210–31,Google Scholar and Kane-Berman, John, ‘A Sharp Step Backwards’, in Frontline (Braamfontein), 2, 9, 08 1982.Google Scholar
Page 248 note 1 Degenaar, Johan, the political philosopher at Stellenbosch, first used the term ‘morally-critical Afrikaner’.Google Scholar
Page 249 note 1 Lambley, Peter, The Psychology of Apartheid (London, 1980), p. xx — a singularly unhelpful and opinionated attempt to understand the mentality of a ruling group by an English psychiatrist.Google Scholar
Page 249 note 2 The P.F.P. is still largely an English-speaking, upper-middle-class organisation. In the last general election, 1981, only 5 percent of Afrikaners — albeit 25 percent of those with university education — voted for the P.F.P.
Page 249 note 3 The Economist (London), 22 05 1982.Google Scholar
Page 249 note 4 Ferguson and Cotter, loc. cit. p. 274.
Page 249 note 5 Frederickson, George M., White Supremacy: a comparative study in American and South African history (New York, 1981), p. 281, calls this ‘one of the more general lessons of history’.Google Scholar
Page 251 note 1 A notion coined by the former U.S. Ambassador in South Africa, Bill Edmondson.
