To Bring the Good News to All Nations by Lauren Frances Turek

Author:Lauren Frances Turek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2020-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Constructive Engagement

On January 4, 1981, just weeks before Ronald Reagan took the oath of office for his first term as president, the CIA released an assessment of the political conditions in South Africa and their implications for U.S. national security and regional interests. The report noted that the slow pace of Prime Minister P. W. Botha’s reforms had contributed to a sense among many black, colored, and Indian South Africans that the Afrikaner government sought above all else to hold onto power, not to change the system in any meaningful way. According to the evaluation, even U.S. ally and proponent of peaceful reconciliation Chief Buthelezi had grown disillusioned with the Botha government; in the absence of “acceptable reforms,” the CIA feared that many of Buthelezi’s supporters might turn to more radical leaders.85 The CIA anticipated rising racial tensions and urban unrest, with a harsh consequent crackdown by South African authorities.86 It also predicted that “black insurgent groups, primarily the African National Congress (ANC), which is backed by the Soviets, will continue to pull off spectacular terrorist operations” in response to government repression.87 The CIA maintained that the need to uphold “American principles as well as U.S. objectives in preventing racial instability in South Africa from jeopardizing U.S. economic and strategic interests there and from creating openings for the Soviets throughout the region” meant that the United States had to take appropriate action to encourage the South African government to make substantive reforms.88

Upon taking office, the Reagan administration launched a policy of “constructive engagement” to guide U.S.-South African relations. In statements before and during his presidential campaign, Reagan had criticized the Carter administration’s approach to Southern Africa. Though he claimed that he did not condone apartheid in the RSA, Reagan argued that Carter’s focus on human rights distracted policymakers from the real threat to U.S. interests in the region: Soviet expansionism.89 The team that Reagan assembled during his campaign to advise him on African affairs included Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ernest Lefever, and Chester Crocker, all of whom shared his negative assessment of Carter’s policies and his belief that the United States should back friendly authoritarian regimes in order to thwart the global spread of totalitarianism.90

Crocker, who served as assistant secretary of state for African Affairs throughout Reagan’s presidency, outlined the contours of the constructive engagement policy in a 1980 article for Foreign Affairs. Noting that the United States could neither endorse the racist system of apartheid nor entirely disengage from South Africa in protest, he argued that the best approach for encouraging change would balance diplomatic pressure with support for even modest improvements.91 Placing the need for reform within the context of the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union, Crocker asserted, “the real choice we will face in southern Africa in the 1980s concerns our readiness to compete with our global adversary in the politics of a changing region whose future depends on those who participate in shaping it.”92 With this in mind, he stated that he viewed Prime Minister Botha

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