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score South Africa's continuing defiance of the UN General Assembly's resolutions on South West Africa.

2. Telegram From the Department of State to the Consulate General in Cape Town1

Washington, February 17, 1969, 2112Z.

25151. Capetown for Embassy.2 Subject: Timely Protest on SWA Affairs Bill. Ref: Cape Town 196, 203. USUN 431.3

1. Department seriously concerned by press reports on SWA Affairs Bill introduced in Parliament last week and already through second reading. Reportedly, bill will give SAG power to apply any SA law to SWA without reference to Parliament and also to change these laws as it deems fit. This and reported provision in bill for acceleration apartheid program in SWA appear represent such flagrant defiance of UN authority and world opinion that Dept believes quick reaction important.

2. Therefore, even in advance of receiving details of bill, Dept proposes urgent Embassy approach to SAG along following lines: (a) Your remarks would of necessity be couched in general terms, but should express our concern over challenge this legislation poses to international status of SWA, to UN responsibility for the territory and to rights of inhabitants to international safeguards and self-determination. (b) You could emphasize inevitable heightening of international tensions at moment when Afro-Asians have decided call for SC meeting to consider SWA, and point out bill is retrograde step bound to harm instead of further SWA's own interests and particularly its efforts improve re

1 Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 15–2 S AFR. Confidential; Priority. Drafted by Crosby on February 14, cleared in IO/UNP and L/AF, and approved by Palmer. Repeated to Pretoria, London, Paris, USUN, Maseru, Gaborone, Mbabane, Durban, Johannesburg, Stockholm, Tokyo, Bonn, Helsinki, Madrid, Lusaka, Taipei, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, and Monrovia.

2 The primary location of the U.S. Embassy was Pretoria, where the majority of the executive branch of the South African Government was located. The Chief of Mission and members of the country team relocated to Cape Town when the South African Parliament was in session.

3 In telegram 196 from Cape Town, February 12, the Embassy summarized the South African Parliamentary debate over provisions of the South West Africa Affairs Bill, which effectively turned South West Africa into a province of South Africa. (Ibid.) Telegram 431 from USUN is ibid., POL 19 SW AFR/UN. Telegram 203 from Cape Town was

not found.

lations with other African states and throughout the world; SWA Affairs Bill will repel not only potential friends, but also nations with which SAG already has good and constructive relations. (c) You should urge SAG weigh these considerations in light its own best interests and the overwhelming world opposition to direction of movement concerning SWA. USG sincerely hopes SAG will reconsider and take action to ensure bill is not adopted.

3. Dept hopes foregoing can be conveyed urgently, as approach would be more effective if made before final adoption SWA bill. Same approach should be made, but urging non-implementation, if Bill already adopted.

4. Please keep info addressees advised.

Rogers

3.

Intelligence Note From the Director of the Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (Hughes) to Secretary of State
Rogers1

No. 100

Washington, February 18, 1969.

SUBJECT

Southern Rhodesia: Smith's Great Leap Rightward

A New Constitution. Southern Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith's new draft constitutional proposals come close to eliminating any remaining possibilities of settlement with the UK. They break abruptly with the suggestions for a UK-Rhodesian agreement that emerged from the meeting in October 1968 between Smith and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson on board H.M.S. Fearless. At the outset, the new constitution would halve the present number of directly elected African representatives in the Rhodesian parliament. It would establish avowedly racial voting rolls and drop even the pretense of a non-racial electoral system maintained under the present constitution. Finally, the proposals explicitly discard the idea that Africans could ever work their passage to majority rule. The far-distant goal of the new document is at most political parity of Africans and Europeans. Al

1 Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1967-69, POL 15-5 RHOD. Confidential; No Foreign Dissem; Controlled Dissem.

though Smith has moved to the right he has not gone far enough for some extremist elements in his own Rhodesian Front party, who have already attacked the proposals as inadequate.

The Mechanics. Regional congresses of the Rhodesian Front have approved the proposals. The next step is a referendum, which could be held as early as May. The timetable may slip, however.

The Proposals in Outline. Since the full text is not yet published (or even drafted, according to some reports) a number of important details are lacking. But in general they will probably provide for:

(1) a national assembly consisting initially of 66 members. Of these, 50 would be elected by a voters' roll consisting of Europeans, Asians, and Coloreds. The remaining 16 would be Africans-8 directly elected by an African voters' roll, 8 indirectly chosen by an electoral college composed of chiefs, headmen, and councilors.

(2) an African membership that could be expanded to ultimate parity with the Europeans (i.e., 50 seats) as the African population's income tax payments increase. (According to one recent estimate, Africans currently pay one half of one per cent of the total personal income tax collected in Rhodesia.) The increase in African seats is to be four at a time, to maintain parity between the two largest tribal groups, the Matabele and Mashona.

(3) a senate (10 Europeans chosen by the assembly, 10 chiefs, and 3 appointed members) that would exercise delaying powers with respect to legislation considered unfair to any racial group.

(4) three provincial assemblies-two African, one European-to which Parliament could delegate powers.

Smith's Motives. As he did in mid-1968, when the debate over a new constitution erupted within the Rhodesian Front, Smith has moved to check his right wing critics by prompting [preempting] most of their positions. But in the process he seems to be burning his last bridges to the UK. He may be signalling to London that if there is to be another round of negotiations, it must come quickly. But in that case he will have to be prepared to discard the present proposals or modify them drastically, because there is little if anything in them that Wilson could square with his "Six Principles" for a Rhodesian settlement.2

2 The "five principles" served as the basis for confidential talks between the British and Rhodesian Governments from November 1970 onwards. First enunciated in October 1965, a sixth principle was added in January 1966 after Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of independence. The sixth principle, which ensured there would be "no oppression of the majority by the minority or of the minority by the majority" was not included in the November 1970 negotiations. (Keesing's Contemporary Archives, 1965–1966, pp. 21025 and 21756, and 1971–1972, p. 24981)

4. Telegram From the Embassy in South Africa to the Department of State1

Cape Town, February 19, 1969, 1543Z.

242. Subj: Protest on South West Africa Bill. Ref: State 025151.2

1. Pursuant reftel, I called on FonSec Fourie today and informed him SWA Affairs bill to implement decisions of White Paper issued June 19683 has given rise serious concern by USG which believes legislation poses challenge to international status of SWA, to UN responsibility for territory, and to rights of inhabitants for international safeguards on self-determination. I said enactment and implementation of bill would heighten international tensions, the more so at time when Afro-Asians have decided call SC meeting to consider SWA. USG considers bill to be retrogressive step which bound to harm instead of further SA's own interests and particularly its efforts to improve relations with other African states and nations throughout world. We believe bill will repel not only potential friends but also nations with which SAG already has good and constructive relations.

2. I urged that SAG weigh these considerations in light its own best interests and overwhelming world opposition to direction of movement concerning SWA. I expressed earnest hope that SAG will reconsider and take action to ensure bill is not adopted.

3. Fourie listened attentively to my presentation and made notes of all points. He inquired whether reference to challenge to international status of SWA suggested that bill would be in violation SAG responsibilities under old Mandate or would be challenged on basis UN resolutions which SAG had made clear it did not accept. I replied that while, as SAG knew, US fully supported legality UNGA Resolution 2145* we feel that SWA Affairs bill would not only violate that, but also SAG responsibility under the original Mandate. Fourie said discussion latter aspect more appropriate for SAG, which would "in due course" give reasons to me why it considers bill necessary and within its responsibilities and in interests SWA inhabitants. He said he would convey my message to govt, but at this stage could comment only that, apart from merits of case, bill had gone through two readings and was now virtu

1 Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1967-69, POL 19 SW AFR. Confidential. Repeated to Pretoria, London, Paris, USUN, Maseru, Gaborone, Mbabane, Stockholm, Bonn, Helsinki, Madrid, Lusaka, Taipei, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Tokyo, Durban, and Johannesburg.

2 Document 2.

3 For the proposed administrative and financial changes presented June 3, 1968, see Keesing's Contemporary Archives, 1967-1968, p. 22907.

4 See footnote 2, Document 1.

ally through Parliament. I said our interest of course was first to persuade SAG not to enact legislation, and I hoped it not too late to prevent this, but if it enacted to urge non-implementation.

5.

Rountree

Memorandum From the President's Assistant for National
Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon1

Washington, April 3, 1969.

SUBJECT

NSC Review of Policy toward Southern Africa

At Tab A is a National Security Study Memorandum which I propose to send out on Southern Africa.2

This is not an immediate crisis. Though some would argue that the black terrorist raids into Rhodesia and the white reprisals are the first rounds of the long-predicted race war, that violence remains minor. The white-ruled regimes should contain any military threat for 3-5 years easily. But the black-white confrontation in Southern Africa will be with us with growing insistence politically throughout the '70s.

There are three principal reasons why I think we should get an early Presidential grip on this subject:

(1) There has been no full, high-level review of U.S. interests and objectives in Southern Africa since the early Kennedy years. Yet the situation in the area has become more volatile and complicated in the last few years, including the presence of the Soviets and Chinese as patrons of the terrorist groups operating against Rhodesia and the Portuguese Territories of Angola and Mozambique.

(2) The United States has meaningful yet potentially conflicting interests in the area which should be clearly identified and weighed. We have a political stake in dissociation from the repressive racial policies of the white regimes. At the same time, we have important material interests a NASA tracking station, overflight and refueling rights,

1 Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box CL 285, Memoranda to the President, Jan.-May 1969. Secret. Sent for action. Drafted on April 1. Printed from an unsigned copy.

2 Tab A is attached. For the NSSM as signed, see Document 6.

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