Word: verwoerds
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Eccentric Farmer. The assassin's motive was still not clear, although he was known to hate Verwoerd's National Party. Born in England, Pratt was educated at Cambridge, has lived for 17 years in a 25-room mansion on his 1,000 acres of the rich veld 20 miles west of Johannesburg; there he breeds prize Ayrshires and, in a concrete-lined trout run, raises fish for Johannesburg restaurants. A gentle, kind man who collects guns, Pratt has a history of epilepsy and a tendency toward sudden violence. Last year, after his Dutch wife left him for another...
...nation's Africans could be thankful that the assassin was white. If he had been black, a blood bath might have followed. For the blacks, the week had already been bitter enough as Verwoerd's police and troops relentlessly worked to stamp out the dying embers of revolt. Chief quarry was the ringleaders who still urged blacks to stay at home rather than return to their jobs in white men's shops and factories...
...Beaches. Until the shots ripped into Hendrik Verwoerd's face, many whites could still remain unconcerned. The beaches and cocktail lounges of Durban were crowded with holidaying Transvaalers oblivious of the violence on the city's outskirts, and in bustling Johannesburg, business went on much as usual. But even among the whites, opposition to Verwoerd's policies was growing. For the first time, Afrikaner and English-speaking business groups spoke out. Their objection was simple: the disturbances were jeopardizing the economy. Jan Moolman, chairman of the Wool Board, called on the government to "amend their policies...
...Africa can face up to it fast enough." The Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Netherlands-born Joost de Blank, announced that he was sending a representative to Geneva to ask the World Council of Churches to expel the South African Dutch Reformed Church unless it takes a stand against Verwoerd's harsh racism. Johannesburg's Anglican Bishop R. A. Reeves, an outspoken defender of black rights, fled to nearby Swaziland for fear of imminent arrest...
...world press, out in force to cover the Prime Minister's speech, was caught with its pencils down. Most had gone to the press room to write their stories; TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs left, saying casually, "If someone was going to shoot Verwoerd, he'd have done it by now." One of the few journalists on the spot: Britain's olympian Rebecca West, covering for the London Sunday Times. Sample West prose: "A man got on his seat and shouted 'Shame to Johannesburg!' but that was the only fierce reaction; the sluggishness and remoteness...