Word: pretoria
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Although billed as the culmination of a two-month "reassessment" of U.S. policy, the speech was actually a reassertion of the President's policy of constructive engagement, a call for continuing efforts to persuade rather than pressure Pretoria to abandon apartheid and speed efforts to prepare for power sharing with South Africa's black majority. By turns defiant and defensive, Reagan seesawed between condemnations of apartheid as "morally wrong and politically unacceptable" and qualified praise of South African leaders for bringing about "dramatic change." He denounced the "Soviet-armed guerrillas of the African National Congress," the banned but influential black...
...military forces and police, including reserves, total almost 500,000 very well-equipped men and women. "There is no sign of demoralization on the part of the security forces," says Michael Hough, the director of Pretoria University's Institute for Strategic Studies. "Only massive outside intervention on behalf of the A.N.C. could conceivably tilt the balance...
...speech did make certain demands on the South African government: the President called for Pretoria to announce a timetable for the elimination of apartheid laws; to release all political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela; to lift the ban on "black political movements," presumably including the African National Congress. He asked that the white government begin a dialogue with its opponents to create a system "that rests on the consent of the governed." None of these, however, was a departure from previous Administration policy...
...circulated a week ago, State Department bureaucrats argued that it should be canceled. So did White House political operatives, and Chief of Staff Donald Regan eventually agreed. National Security Adviser John Poindexter, on the other hand, contended that even without concrete measures, the speech would put more pressure on Pretoria. A tentative decision had been made to scuttle the speech before Shultz arrived for a meeting with the President. The Secretary took Poindexter's side; he wanted a clear statement of support for the policies he was due to defend on Capitol Hill the following day. Also, the Administration...
...branded the U.S. and Britain the "co-guarantors of apartheid." The President insisted that sanctions do not work, noted Gray, yet he has imposed them on some 20 nations throughout the world, including Poland and Libya, where they stood far less chance of being effective. Because sanctions are what Pretoria fears most, said Gray, they are the best bet for getting South Africa to act. "Without economic sanctions," he said, "without pressure, without increasing the cost of apartheid, there is no reason for South Africa to dismantle apartheid...