Word: smiths
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...daredevil defiance with which Smith ran his breakaway regime, friends suggest, reflects his personality as much as his politics. As a pilot flying Hawker Hurricanes in North Africa for the Royal Air Force during World War II, Smith barely survived a spectacular crackup on a takeoff. But after five months of plastic surgery in Cairo, during which his face had to be almost totally rebuilt, he was happily back flying fighter missions. Later he was shot down while strafing German positions in Italy, and found himself stranded far behind enemy lines. Eagerly playing guerrilla, Smith fought with a band...
...Smith married a strong-willed South African widow, Janet Watt, whose views on race coincided with his own (they have a son; she has two children from her first marriage). Smith, the ex-pilot, soon gravitated into another form of combat: Rhodesian politics. In 1961, when he was chief whip of the ruling United Federal Party, Smith resigned his seat in protest over a proposed constitution that accepted the British demand for greater black representation in government. Backed by an ultrarightist tobacco tycoon, Douglas ("Boss") Lilford, Smith helped found the Rhodesian Front Party, which won the national elections...
White Rhodesian attitudes toward subsequent events are sharply divided. Most whites, however, probably consider Smith a hero for having held out so long...
...Rhodesian rebellion may be at an end, but Ian Smith does not plan to abandon his country. After all, he and his family still have 21,500 acres of prime ranching and farming land to tend in south-central Rhodesia. Says he: "I have no intention of leaving...
Assuming Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith makes good on his promise to cede power to his country's black majority, a number of Africans will be in line for the leadership. The four main contenders...