‘We Must Analyse Where Our National Interest Lies and not Worry too Much about Other People’s Domestic Policies’: Richard M. Nixon and Apartheid South Africa in the Early 1970s

ABSTRACT

This article explores the pragmatic stance that the United States adopted, during the Nixon era, regarding relations with Pretoria. The Nixon administration believed that Washington needed to prioritise the protection of its own strategic and commercial interests and not become overly concerned about the domestic agenda of its global partners. The vehement anti-communism of the National Party government combined with a profitable economic relationship and the abundant mineral resources of the apartheid state dictated a need on practical grounds for closer ties with South Africa. This stance was further reinforced by Nixon’s contempt for sub-Saharan Africans and lack of interest in achieving racial justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Richard Nixon
• US foreign policy
• US history
• South Africa
• Cold War
• economic history
• race relations

Notes

1 Richard Nixon Library (hereafter NL), NSC Institutional ‘H’ Files, Box H-026, NSSM-39, Memo from Kissinger to Rogers et al., 10 April 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-144, NSSM-39, 15 August 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-39, Memo from Kissinger to Vice President et al., 28 January 1970; E. Michel, ‘The Luster of Chrome: Nixon, Rhodesia and the Defiance of UN Sanctions’, Diplomatic History, 42, 1 (2018), 14.

2 J. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); N. Mitchell, ‘Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Jimmy Carter and Rhodesia’, in S. Onslow ed., Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power Black Liberation (London: Routledge, 2012); N. Mitchell, ‘The Cold War and Jimmy Carter’, in M. Leffler and O. A. Westad, eds, The Cambridge History of the Cold War, iii: Endings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 66–88; E. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); O. Westad, The Global Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

3 A. DeRoche, Black, White and Chrome: The United States and Zimbabwe, 1953–1998 (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2001); G. Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War against Zimbabwe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); M. A. Lawrence, ‘Containing Globalism: The United States and the Developing World in the 1970s’, in N. Ferguson, C. S. Maier, E. Manela, and D. J. Sargent, eds, The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010), 205–222; R. Litwak, Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969–1976 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); C. Saunders, ‘The Cold War and Southern Africa, 1976–1990’, in M. Leffler and O. A. Westad, eds, The Cambridge History of the Cold War, iii: Endings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 222–243; Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa; J. Suri, ‘Henry Kissinger and the Geopolitics of Globalization’, in N. Ferguson, C. S. Maier, E. Manela, and D. J. Sargent, eds, The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010), 173–188; Westad, The Global Cold War.

4 T. Borstelmann, Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); H. Davis, Jr., ‘US Policy toward South Africa: A Dissenting View’, in R. Lemarchand, ed., American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance (2nd edition, Washington: University Press of America, 1981), 309–340; W. Foltz, ‘US Policy toward Southern Africa: Economic and Strategic Constraints’, in R. Lemarchand, ed., The Stakes and the Stance (2nd edition, Washington: University Press of America, 1981), 283–285; D. Gibbs, The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money and US Policy in the Congo Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

5 M. Franczak, Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022); Westad, The Global Cold War.

6 P. Lauren, Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996); W. Minter, King Solomon’s Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa (New York: Basic Books,1986); M. Cotey Morgan, ‘The Seventies and the Rebirth of Human Rights’, in N. Ferguson, C. S. Maier, E. Manela, and D. J. Sargent, eds, The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010), 237–250; S. Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010); C. Watts, ‘“Dropping the F-Bomb’: President Ford, the Rhodesian Crisis, and the 1976 Election’, Paper presented at the 2014 Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Conference, Lexington, Kentucky.

7 T. Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); DeRoche, Black, White and Chrome; A. DeRoche, ‘Relations with Africa since 1900’, in R. D. Schulzinger, ed., A Companion to American Foreign Relations (Malden: Blackwell, 2006), 117; R. Massie, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years (New York: Nan A. Talese, 1997); T. Noer, Cold War and Black Liberation: The United States and White Rule in Africa, 1948–1968 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985); B. Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and US Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); P. von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).

8 Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun; E. Morgan, ‘Our Own Interests; Nixon, South Africa and Dissent at Home and Abroad’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 17, 3 (2006), 475–495.

9 F. Logevall and A. Preston, eds, Nixon and the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969–1977 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

10 A. Lake, The ‘Tar Baby’ Option: American Policy toward Southern Rhodesia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976); A. Thomson, US Foreign Policy towards Apartheid South Africa, 1948–1994: Conflict of Interests (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

11 Harry S. Truman Library (hereafter TL), Papers of Harry S. Truman (hereafter Truman papers), Box 177, President’s Secretary’s Files, NSC Meetings, 17 June 1948, CIA Review; TL, Truman papers, Box 170, President’s Secretary’s Files, National Security Policies, Vol. I Geographical Areas, NSC Report on the Current Policies of the United States of America Relating to the National Security; Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1948, Vol. V, Part 1, Policy Statement of the Department of State, 1 November 1948; Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, The Heart of Hope Padraig O’Malley Archive, Population Registration Act No 30, Apartheid Legislation 1948–1990; University of the Witwatersrand, Historical Papers Research Archive, Group Areas Act (Act No. 41 of 1950) Records, ZA HPRA A1485, Union of South Africa Act, No. 41 1950; TL, Joseph D. Sweeney Papers (hereafter Sweeney papers), Union of South Africa File, Parliamentary Legislation Box 3, Union of South Africa Act No. 55, 1949; TL, Sweeney papers, Union of South Africa File, Parliamentary Legislation Box 3, Union of South Africa Act No. 21, 1950; D. Aikman, Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2003), 81; T. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 253.

12 TL, Truman papers, National Intelligence Estimate, President’s Secretary’s Files, Central Intelligence Reports, Box 215, The Political Situation in the Union of South Africa, 31 January 1949; TL, Dean Acheson Papers (hereafter Acheson papers), Memoranda of Conversations File October 1952, Box 71, Memorandum of Conversation, 14 October 1952; FRUS, 1952–1954, Volume XI, Part 1, Editorial Note.

13 Lyndon Baines Johnson Library (hereafter LBJL), Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Box 73, South Africa, CIA National Intelligence Estimate, 20 May 1964; LBJL, National Security Files (hereafter NSF), Box 78, South Africa, 11/64–9/66, Vol. 2, CIA Special Report, 3 September 1965; Gerald R. Ford Library (hereafter GFL), White House Central Files (hereafter WHCF), Box 45, South Africa 6/1/75–11/30/75, Briefing Memorandum for Ford.

14 TL, Truman papers, President’s Secretary’s File’s, Box 150, Foreign Affairs, Department of State Report: The Berlin Crisis; R. M. Byrnes, South Africa: A Country Study (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1997), 338; FRUS, 1951, Vol. V, Secretary of State to South African Ambassador, 5 February 1951; FRUS, 1951, Vol. V, Consul General Johannesburg to the Department of State, 19 April 1951; Borstelmann, Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle, 4, 50, 81; E. Michel, ‘“My Children, You Are Permitted in Time of Great Danger to Walk with the Devil until You Have Crossed the Bridge”: President Truman, Apartheid and the Early Cold War’, South African Historical Journal, 72, 2 (2020) 2, 25–26.

15 John F. Kennedy Library (hereafter KL), John F. Kennedy Papers (hereafter Kennedy papers), Box 2, NSF, Africa General 8/61, Guidelines for US policy towards the Republic of South Africa, 19 July 1961; KL, Kennedy papers, Box 2, NSF, Africa General 5/62, Department of State Guidelines for Policy and Operations Republic of South Africa, May 1962; KL, Kennedy papers, Box 159A, NSF, South Africa-General, Department of State National Strategy Series-South Africa, 28 October 1963; FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. XXIV, Africa National Security Action Memorandum (hereafter NSAM), No. 295, 24 April 1964; E. Michel, ‘“Since We Can’t now Bet on a Winner, We Should Be Hedging Our Bets and Buying Time”: President John F. Kennedy, Domestic Racial Equality and Apartheid South Africa in the Early 1960s’, Safundi 22, 4 (2022), 1–2; E. Michel, ‘“You Haven’t Been too Horrible to Us Recently”: Lyndon B. Johnson and Apartheid South Africa’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 32, 4 (2021), 743–744.

16 Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun, 7; Michel, ‘The Luster of Chrome’, 8; R. Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978) 439–440.

17 H. Kissinger, White House Years (London: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 69; M. Lawrence, ‘Containing Globalism: The United States and the Developing World in the 1970s’, in N. Ferguson, C. S. Maier, E. Manela, and D. J. Sargent, eds, The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010), 209–210; Michel, ‘The Luster of Chrome’, 8; J. Suri, ‘Henry Kissinger and the Geopolitics of Globalization’, in N. Ferguson, C. S. Maier, E. Manela, and D. J. Sargent, eds, The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010), 173–184.

18 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM 39, Minutes of NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969; FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Paper prepared by the NSC Departmental Group for Africa, 9 December 1969; FRUS, Vol. 28, 11969–1976, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

19 TL, Acheson papers, Box 68, MemCon File, MemCon, 20 April 1951; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-39 3 of 3 (2 of 4), Briefing by CIA Director Richard Helms, 17 December 1969; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. E-5, Part 1, 1969–1972, Office of National Estimates Memorandum, 13 March 1969; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. E-5, Part 1, 1969–1972, CIA Special Report, 20 June 1969; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. E-5, Part 1, 1969–1972, Office of National Estimates Memorandum, 23 March 1971; FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Paper prepared in the Bureau of African Affairs, undated; Michel, ‘My Children’, 17–19.

20 FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 9 December 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM 39, Minutes of NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969; FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

21 KL, Kennedy papers, Box 2, NSF, Africa General 5/62, Department of State Guidelines for Policy and Operations Republic of South Africa, May 1962; FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 9 December 1969; FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Memorandum from Guhin to Kissinger, 19 November 1971; FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

22 FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, From Hughes to Rogers, June 24, 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-39 3 of 3 (2 of 4), Briefing by CIA Director Richard Helms, 17 December 1969.

23 FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, From Hughes to Rogers, June 24, 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-39 3 of 3 (2 of 4), Briefing by CIA Director Richard Helms, 17 December 1969.

24 NL, WHCF, Box 63, CO 135 South Africa, Republic of (1969–70) Paper to Henry A. Kissinger from Dean Acheson, 30 April 969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM 39, Minutes of NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969; FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 6 October 1971; D. Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years 1953–1971 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 316–327; J. Crespino, Strom Thurmond’s America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2013), 71, 193; E. Michel, The White House and White Africa: Presidential Policy towards Rhodesia during the UDI Era of 1965–79 (New York: Routledge, 2018) 133–134.

25 FRUS, 1969–1976, Southern Africa, Vol. 28, Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 6 October 197; GFL, General (1), Box 3, Stanley S. Scott Papers, 1971–1977, Black Caucus – Meeting with the President, August 1974, Washington Post, 13 August 1974; Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun, 7, 65.

26 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 28 September 1971; Kissinger, White House Years, 69; Suri, ‘Henry Kissinger and the Geopolitics of Globalization’, 186.

27 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-144, NSSM-393 of 3 (1 of 4), Memorandum for Nixon from Kissinger, 3 April 1969; Kissinger, White House Years, 65; Lake, The ‘Tar Baby’ Option, 124.

28 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-144, NSSM-393 of 3 (1 of 4), Memorandum for Nixon from Kissinger, 3 April 1969.

29 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-144, NSSM-392 of 3 (1 of 2), NSC Interdisciplinary Group for Africa, Study in Response to NSSM 39, 15 August 1969.

30 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-144, NSSM-392 of 3 (1 of 2), NSC Interdisciplinary Group for Africa, Study in Response to NSSM 39, 15 August 1969.

31 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-144, NSSM-392 of 3 (1 of 2), NSC Interdisciplinary Group for Africa, Study in Response to NSSM 39, 15 August 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-393 of 3 (4 of 4), NSC Review Group Meeting, Southern Africa (NSSM 39), 16 October 1969.

32 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-393 of 3 (4 of 4), NSC Review Group Meeting, Southern Africa (NSSM 39), 16 October 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Boz H-026, Southern Africa (NSSM 39) (3 of 3), Issues for Decision, NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969.

33 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-393 of 3 (4 of 4), NSC Review Group Meeting, Southern Africa (NSSM 39), 16 October 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Boz H-026, Southern Africa (NSSM 39) (3 of 3), Issues for Decision, NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969.

34 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Boz H-026, Southern Africa (NSSM 39) (3 of 3), Issues for Decision, NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-026, Southern Africa (NSSM 39) (3 of 3), Memorandum for Nixon from Stans, 12 December 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145 NSSM-39 3 of 3 (2 of 4), Minutes of NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969.

35 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145 NSSM-39 3 of 3 (2 of 4), Minutes of NSC Meeting, 17 December 1969.

36 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-39 3 of 3 (2 of 4), Memo from Kissinger to Agnew et al., 28 January 1970.

37 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-145, NSSM-39 3 of 3 (2 of 4), Memo from Kissinger to Agnew et al., 28 January 1970.

38 Archives of the South Africa Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Countries, 1/33/3, Vol. 16, USA Relations with South Africa, Memorandum from Taswell to Muller, 11 June 1970; NL, WHCF, Box 65, CO 135: Republic of South Africa, Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 24 August 1970.

39 NL, WHCF, Box 65, CO 135: Republic of South Africa, Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 24 August 1970.

40 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Telegram from the State Department to Consulate General Cape Town, 14 May 1971; Michel, ‘You Haven’t Been too Horrible’, 750; Morgan, ‘Our Own Interests’, 477.

41 National Archives and Records Administration, General Record of the Department of State, Political and Defense Record Group 59, Subject Numerical Files, 1970–1973, Box 2578, Pol 15-1 SAFR, Telegram from Hurd to Department of State, 2 August 1973; Morgan, ‘Our Own Interests’, 478.

42 KL, Papers of Harlan Cleveland, Box 98, South Africa and Apartheid, 7/63–8/63, Statement by Stevenson to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), 2 August 1963; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-208, NSDM 81, Memo from Kissinger to Agnew et al., 17 August 1970.

43 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-208, NSDM 81, Memo from Kissinger to Agnew et al., 17 August 1970.

44 NL, National Security Council Institutional (‘H’) Files, Study Memorandums (1969–1974), Box H-144, NSSM-39 2 of 3 (2 of 2), Memorandum for Kissinger from Stans, 16 April 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Telegram from Rogers to Department of State, 12 July 1970; NL, National Security Council Institutional (‘H’) Files, Policy Papers (1969–1974, Box H-213, NSDM 38: Records of the Staff Secretary NSDM Working Files, Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 10 August 1970; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-208, NSDM 81, Memo from Kissinger to Agnew et al., 17 August 1970.

45 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-208, NSDM 81, Memo from Kissinger to Agnew et al., 17 August 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28 Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

46 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-208, NSDM 81, Memorandum from Kissinger to Agnew et al., 17 August 1970; FRUS, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Johnson to Packard, 18 November 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28 Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

47 FRUS, Vol. 28, 1969–1976, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 9 December 1969; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, from Kissinger to Nixon, 23 December 1969.

48 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, from Kissinger to Nixon, 23 December 1969.

49 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, from Kissinger to Nixon, 23 December 1969.

50 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, from Kissinger to Nixon, 23 December 1969; ‘US Imperialism and the Southern African Liberation Movement’, Sechaba, 4, 5 (1970), 11–13.

51 Michel, ‘You Haven’t Been too Horrible’, 753–754.

52 National Security Archive, from James G. Poor, Director, Division of International Security Affairs, US Atomic Energy Commission, to Chairman Ray et al., 2 October 1974, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB181/sa08.pdf; J. Richelson, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 244, 270.

53 Z. Cervenka and B. Rogers, The Nuclear Axis: Secret Collaboration between West Germany and South Africa (London: Julian Friedmann Books, 1978) 274–275; Richelson, Spying on the Bomb, 263.

54 FRUS, 1969–1976, Southern Africa, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Hormats and Wright to Kissinger, 24 January 1972.

55 FRUS, 1969–1976, Southern Africa, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Guhin to Kissinger, 19 November 1971; FRUS, 1969–1976, Southern Africa, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Hormats and Wright to Kissinger, 24 January 1972; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

56 FRUS, 1969–1976, Southern Africa, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Guhin to Kissinger, 19 November 1971; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

57 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Kissinger to Flanigan, 14 July 1973; Thomson, US Foreign Policy towards Apartheid South Africa, 57, 77.

58 LBJL, NSF, Box 4, NSAM, No. 295, 24 April 1964; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972; Thomson, US Foreign Policy towards Apartheid South Africa, 78.

59 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Kissinger to Flanigan, 14 July 1973; Thomson, US Foreign Policy towards Apartheid South Africa, 78.

60 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972; Thomson, US Foreign Policy towards Apartheid South Africa, 78.

61 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Newsom and Stevenson to Rogers, 17 February 1971; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

62 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Newsom and Stevenson to Rogers, 17 February 1971; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, March 1972.

63 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Newsom and Stevenson to Rogers, 17 February 1971; FRUS 1969–1976, Vol. E-5, Part 1, 1969–1972, US Foreign Policy for the 1970s, The Emerging Structure of Peace: A Report to the Congress by Nixon, 9 February 1972; ‘The Stealthy American’, Sechaba, August 1972, https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/sechaba-volume-6-number-8-august-1972; Thomson, US Foreign Policy towards Apartheid South Africa, 78.

64 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Newsom and Stevenson to Rogers, 17 February 1971; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Kissinger to Flanigan, 14 July 1973.

65 The National Archives, London, PREM, 13/545, From Salisbury to Commonwealth Relations Office, No. 1707, 11 November 1965; LBJL, NSF, Box 97, Rhodesia, Vol. 2, UNSC Resolution 232, as attachment to letter from Rostow to Johnson, 31 December 1968; LBJL, NSF, Box 97, Rhodesia, Vol. 2, UNSC Resolution 253, as attachment to letter from Rostow to Johnson, 31 December 1968.

66 Cory Library, Rhodesia-Zimbabwe Papers, Box 2006 A, Cabinet Memoranda 1966 42–108, Ministry of Defence Memo, 12 February 1966; LBJL, NSF, Box 97, Rhodesia, Vol. 2, Rhodesia-Zambia SitRep, 18 February 1966; Michel, The White House and White Africa, 55–58.

67 LBJL, NSF, Box 97, Rhodesia, Vol. 2, CIA Intelligence Memo, 9 December 1966; LBJL, NSF, Box 97, Rhodesia, Vol. 2, CIA Intelligence Memo, June 1968; LBJL, NSF, Box 97, Rhodesia, Vol. 2, UNSC Resolution 232, as attachment to letter from Rostow to Johnson, 31 December 1968; LBJL, NSF, Box 97, Rhodesia, Vol. 2, UNSC Resolution 253, as attachment to letter from Rostow to Johnson, 31 December 1968; Michel, The White House and White Africa, 42, 48, 52–53, 81–82, 89–90.

68 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-144, NSSM-392 of 3 (1 of 2), NSC Interdisciplinary Group for Africa, Study in Response to NSSM 39, 15 August 1969; Michel, ‘The Luster of Chrome’, 12.

69 NL, NSC Country Files, Box 743, Rhodesia (1969–1970), Statement of J. Clayton Stephenson, President, Mining and Metals Division, Union Carbide Corporation, 31 October 1969; NL, NSC Country Files, Box 743, Rhodesia (1969–1970), Statement L. G. Bliss, Chairman of the Board and President of Foote Mineral Company, 31 October 1969; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-214, NSDM 47, Memorandum from Stans to Nixon, 15 May 1970; Michel, ‘The Luster of Chrome’, 8–9.

70 NL, NSC Country Files, Box 743, Rhodesia (1969–1970), Memorandum from Davis Jr. to Kissinger, 24 December 1969; NL, WHCF, Box 63, CO 124 Rhodesia 5/1/70–8/31/70, Letter from Eastland to Mollenoff, 19 March 1970; NL, NSC Country Files, Box 743, Rhodesia Vol. 2 (1969–1970), Letter from Thurmond to Nixon, 15 April 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, from Kissinger to the Vice President et al., 7 August 1970; NL, NSC Country Files, Box 743, Rhodesia, Vol. 2 (1969–1970), Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 16 November 1971; DeRoche, Black, White and Chrome, 170, 201–202; Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun, 151, 180–181; Michel, ‘The Luster of Chrome’, 15–21.

71 NL, NSC Country Files, Box 743, Rhodesia, Vol. 2 (1970–1974), Memorandum from Wright to Kissinger, 27 November 1971; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-188, Memorandum from Newsom to Kissinger, 22 December 1971; Michel, The White House and White Africa, 151–157.

72 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 2 April 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Southern Africa, Vol. 28, Intelligence note from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 9 March 1971.

73 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 2 April 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Southern Africa, Vol. 28, Intelligence note from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 9 March 1971.

74 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 2 April 1970; Michel, ‘You Haven’t Been too Horrible’, 756–758.

75 NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-207, NSSM 89, Memo from Kissinger to Secretary of State Rogers et al., 12 February 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 2 April 1970.

76 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, National Security Decision Memorandum 55, 22 May 1970.

77 FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Paper prepared by the NSC Interdepartmental Group for Africa, 2 April 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 15 April 1970; NL, NSC Institutional (‘H’) Files, Box H-208, NSDM 55, Memo from Kissinger to Vice President Agnew et al., 17 April 1970; FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 28, Memorandum from U. Alexis Johnson to Nixon, 6 July 1970; Thomson, US Foreign Policy towards Apartheid South Africa, 72.

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Eddie Michel

Eddie Michel joined the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies at the University of Pretoria as a Research Fellow in April 2017. His current research interests lie in the field of US policy towards South Africa during the apartheid era. His broader areas of research include US foreign policy, US history, and the Cold War in southern Africa. He is the author of The White House and White Africa: Presidential Policy toward Rhodesia during the UDI era of 1965–79, which was published by Routledge in 2018. His research has been recognised and funded by the Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundations. Eddie Michel is also an Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Fellow of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.