Word: verwoerd
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When Balthazar Johannes Vorster took over as South Africa's Prime Minister six months ago, the world had little reason to expect that he would be much different from the assassinated Hendrik Verwoerd, the apostle of apartheid. Vorster had, after all, been Verwoerd's police boss for five years, and he looked even tougher and more unbending than the white-thatched Verwoerd. But Vorster has been a considerable surprise. While not basically changing South Africa's policy of racial separation, he has proved far more reasonable than his predecessor, injecting some humanity and even humor into South...
...more relaxed than Verwoerd, Vorster allows himself to be photographed playing golf in baggy shorts, and even invites opposition newsmen into his chambers for regular background briefings. He slyly chides visiting foreigners for their one-dimensional view of South Africa with his startling salutation: "Welcome to the happiest police state in the world...
...vast majority answered the rhetorical question in a vigorous negative. We continued our broad coverage of the Vietnamese war, beginning with the Man of the Year cover story on General William Westmoreland. Also memorable, we feel, were our report on the South African situation, which featured Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd on the cover shortly before his assassination; our tour of swinging London; and the introduction of several new leaders on the world scene, including Germany's new chancellor, Kurt Kiesinger...
There was no doubting the guilt of the man on trial in Cape Town last week. He was Dimitrio Tsafendas, the 48-year-old parliamentary messenger who stabbed Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd to death before the eyes of scores of horrified witnesses in the House of Assembly on Sept. 6. Many of Verwoerd's loyal followers bitterly demanded the vengeance of the gallows. They did not get it. After three days of testimony by four psychiatrists, Supreme Court Justice Andries Beyers ruled that Tsafendas was insane and ordered him to be detained in prison indefinitely...
...escaped from at least two institutions. Settling down in South Africa, Tsafendas somehow landed his messenger's job last August (a secret government inquiry is exploring the lapse in screening); then, acting on the impulse that he blamed on the demon inside him, Tsafendas attacked Verwoerd as he was about to make his first major policy speech of the Assembly session. "I can expect a certain amount of shock and dissatisfaction among certain people," Justice Beyers noted after his decision, "but I am sure they will realize it could not be otherwise, and that it is not humane...