The Evolution of a Policy

...The Union Carbide Corporation and the Foote Mineral Company, eager to import Rhodesian chrome, decided the moment was auspicious to seek exemption from the sanctions...

...The strategy never received a public christening-Africans and some members of Congress would have raised the roof-and it did not become general knowledge until New York Times reporter Terence Smith described what had happened more than two years later...

...increased its imports of Russian chrome...

...They must, says Lake, develop reliable sources of information, and identify potential allies, within the influential Washington bureaucracies...

...The firms have either denied the charges or refused to talk, and the U.S...

...Yet without economic and political pressure, Ian Smith and his cohorts could not have been talked into abdicating in favor of majority rule...

...He left unsaid the fact that he needed the support of American blacks against the Reaganites, who feel much more comfortable with colonialists...

...pressures on the minority regimes was called for, together with "increased communication" that would encourage them to move in the direction of moderation...

...The "Tar Baby" Option necessarily stops short of these latest events...

...supported the resolution (as much to stand behind its ally England as anything else...

...has now come out against white minority regimes-but only after Portugal was thrown out of Angola...

...Despite the Administration's public stance, Haldeman made certain Nixon received memos opposing repeal any time there was strong lobbying from the pro-sanction side...

...The efforts of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, combined with public apathy, resulted in a 1971 amendment that made the U.S...

...But the book is a documentary of the evolution of American foreign policy, with a cast of characters that includes smart corporate lobbyists, clever conservative politicians, disorganized liberals, competing government bureaucracies, a press and public as indifferent to Africa as the Secretary, plus one ever-present theme song and all-purpose rationale-"national security...

...True, the U.S...

...Reviewed by Lucy Komisar Author, "Down and Out in the U.S.A.: A History of Welfare" ANTHONY LAKE was a special assistant to Henry Kissinger in 1969-70...

...Indeed, it was not until this past July that the peripatetic Secretary of State made his first official trip to black Africa to try to stave off a war by Rhodesian nationalist guerrillas- probably his last exercise in shuttle diplomacy, leading to the cmcial talks that got underway last month at Geneva...

...At the same time, the U.S...

...More recently, the effort bogged down in the rivalry between Ford and Ronald Reagan...

...attitudes...

...Our credibility in Africa suffered a severe setback, as did international leverage against Rhodesia...

...was then buying substantial amounts of the mineral from the Soviet Union, they had a natural argument: "Dependence on Russian chrome is a threat to U.S...

...Treasury Department says it is investigating...

...But in the State Department people with such attitudes were considered too romantic, too concerned with "principle.' An example of what Washington apparently considered a more pragmatic approach to the issue came in 1966-67...

...producers of the alloy were forced out of business by Rhodesian concerns, who could make it more cheaply...

...books, newspapers and magazines are censored...

...Lake effectively demonstrates how, before this summer's turnaround, the U.S...

...financial or military interests...

...Nixon's henchmen did not want to offend Byrd, an erstwhile Democrat who had won election as an Independent...

...Nevertheless, Kissinger sent a memo to Nixon recommending adoption, and it was done...

...one of four countries in the world (the others were South Africa, Portugal and Switzerland, a non-UN member) to officially violate the international boycott...

...Kissinger apparently agrees...

...it became apparent that the days of white rule in Rhodesia were numbered and a showdown in South Africa was inevitable...

...is committed to majority rule and economic support of black African countries...

...Upon drafting the implementation order in January 1967, though, the Treasury Department managed to include some words about cases of "undue hardship" arising out of deals already under way...

...would attempt to increase its influence with the black African countries by stepping up economic aid...

...The United Church of Christ charged last June that Mobil Oil, Shell Oil and Caltex (owned by Standard Oil of California and Texaco) were sneaking oil past the Rhodesian embargo by means of affiliates, dummy companies and fancy paper shuffling...

...The controversy over the amendment aside, Lake believes that American policy in southern Africa has been based on a fallacy...

...after Prime Minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared his country's independence from England...

...In addition, most of their political organizations are outlawed...

...and various stripes of Communists began jockying to get close to the winners...

...The Californian favored the Byrd Amendment, and Ford-in search of conservative votes-was embarrassed by Kissinger's statement in Africa in support of repeal...

...A few public officials, like former Assistant Secretary of State G. Mennon Williams and Representatives Charles Diggs (D.-Mich...

...Nor is the issue fully settled...

...and workers who leave jobs without permission are sent to prison (the UN Commission on Human Rights calls that slavery...

...Attempts were made in the last two Congresses to repeal the amendment...

...A typical Harvard knee-jerk reaction...

...Lake also notes that the failure of liberals to have a voice in African policy typifies their lack of influence in foreign affairs generally...

...airlines, car-rental firms, travel agencies, credit-card companies, banks, and a newspaper to violate the sanctions with impunity...

...And Nixon himself was not very interested...

...As it finally emerged, the popular wisdom in the Administration was that white rulers were "here to stay...

...Perhaps the most valuable function of Lake's book is that it illuminates and places in context Henry Kissinger's abrupt conversion to the moral imperative of majority rule...

...The U.S...

...Treasury, of course, has never been known for its devotion to the sanctions, so how the matter is resolved could tell much about the depth of the new U.S...

...Its 6 million blacks outnumber whites 24-1, but have only token representation in Parliament and are subject to pass laws, arbitrary and secret arrest, torture, and execution...

...But the real key to changing our African policy, Lake believes, is held by American blacks: They constitute the one group with the motive and political means to force a shift in U.S...

...the tar baby option and the Byrd Amendment both caught liberals by surprise...

...Lake details how this enabled U.S...

...tried over the years to establish support for majority rule throughout Africa...

...that blacks had no chance of obtaining their rights through violence...

...came the scornful response from his boss, who found Africa "boring" before the struggle in Angola again turned the Dark Continent into the kind of Cold War battleground he prefers to troop around on...

...What is more, after the amendment passed, the U.S...

...Rhodesia is a landlocked country sharing borders with South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, and Zambia...

...Presidents Nixon and Ford each announced his support of repeal and each did nothing...

...security...

...Lake, now with a private multinational development organization, wrote it as director of a special Rhodesia project set up by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace...

...America, however, found two saving graces in Rhodesia: chrome and anti-Communism...

...This meant ferrochrome as well as chrome, and within two years, two of the four major' U.S...

...Forces within the government were very divided: Besides internal opposition, the black Africa advocates in the State Department were opposed by factions in Commerce, Treasury, Defense, and NASA who did not want to upset U.S...

...helped prolong and prop up white minority rule in Salisbury by choosing economic and political convenience over international law and morality...

...In the State Department this came to be known as the "tar baby" option-because we would be hard-pressed to get unstuck if it failed to work...

...The Administration plan merely gave comfort to Smith in exchange for some chrome we really did not need...

...Consequently, a "selective relaxation" of the limited U.S...

...Once the Administration had set the stage, the action in the drama passed to Congress...

...He points out that the whites in Portuguese territories were not "here to stay"-nor are they, it turns out, in Rhodesia...

...no sooner had he returned from his Africa trip than he arranged to be invited to national meetings of the NAACP and the Urban League...

...and Donald Fraser (D.-Minn...

...Equally important, top Administration officials, preoccupied with Vietnam, simply wanted a "low risk, low cost" policy that would keep things off a high burner...

...He told both organizations that the U.S...

...and that the only way to achieve constructive change, head off chaos and limit the Communists' opportunities was to work through the whites...

...When Richard Nixon came into office two years later, his foreign-affairs chiefs decided on a genera] review of African policy...

...Hoping to isolate Rhodesia and thus force recognition of black rights, Third-World countries in the UN pushed through a plan invoking the world's first international economic boycott...

...The head of the African National Council called the legislation "the worst blow we have suffered from any quarter.'' Ironically, the ohrome-importing ferrochrome producers-save probably Union Carbide, which had a plant in Rhodesia-ignored the significance of the Byrd Amendment's wording: It allowed the purchase of any "strategic and critical" materials that could also be imported from Communist countries...

...It had all been a red herring anyway: One year's wartime chrome needs would have used barely over 2 per cent of our stockpile...

...Since the U.S...

...the UN revoked South Africa's protectorate over South West Africa...

...A total of 750 American jobs were lost...

...When he quit in protest against the bombing of Cambodia, he told the then National Security Advisor he was thinking of doing development work in Africa...

...it is a crime to obtain or transmit information that might be even indirectly useful to an enemy of the repressive regime...

...commitment to majority rule in Africa...