by Larry Bond
Satisfied, Vorster turned to Erik Muller, sitting quietly by his side.
“What of the other black states-Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and the rest? Can they interfere with Nimrod’s smooth completion?”
Muller shook his head decisively.
“No, Mr. President. Our covert operations have them all off-balance. They’re too deeply embroiled in their own internal troubles to give us much trouble.”
Marius Van der Heijden snorted contemptuously, but said nothing.
Muller frowned. Van der Heijden was the leader of those on the cabinet who despised him, and the man’s enmity was coming more and more to the surface. What had once been a simple rivalry for power and position was fast taking on all the signs of a blood feud. It was a feud Vorster had done little to discourage. Instead, the President seemed perfectly content to watch their infighting as if it were some kind of sporting event staged solely for his amusement.
And why not? Muller thought. Our sparring doesn’t threaten his hold on power, and it prevents either of us from gaining too much control over the security services. His respect for Vorster’s shrewdness climbed another notch-as did his carefully concealed dislike for the older man.
Vorster turned to the foreign minister, a gaunt, sallow man. Rumor said he was fighting some form of deadly cancer. It was a fight he seemed to be losing.
“And what of the world’s other nations, Jaap? Have we anything to fear from them?”
The foreign minister shook his head.
“Nothing more than words, Mr.
President. The Western powers have already done their worst. Their sanctions can scarcely be made stricter. And the Russians haven’t the resources left to threaten us. They’re too busy watching their empire crumble to be concerned with what happens ten thousand kilometers from
Moscow.”
Vorster nodded approvingly.
“True. Very true.
He looked around the table again.
“Very well, gentlemen. Any last comments?”
The silence dragged on for several seconds.
At last, one of the junior cabinet ministers raised a reluctant hand.
“One thing still troubles me, sir.”
“Go on. ” Vorster’s temper seemed more in check than it had earlier.
“The Western intelligence services and spy satellites are bound to spot signs of our mobilization for Nimrod. Since it’s essential that we obtain tactical and strategic surprise for this campaign, shouldn’t we have some kind of cover story to explain our troop movements?”
Vorster smiled grimly.
“A very good point, young Ritter. And one that has already been taken into consideration.”
He nodded toward Fredrik Pienaar, the minister of information.
“Fredrik and I have already begun to lay the groundwork. Tomorrow, I shall speak to our most loyal supporters from the Transvaal. And when the interfering democracies hear what I have to say, they’ll be quite convinced that our soldiers are going to be used only for cracking kaffir heads inside this country. Little “Namibia’ will be the furthest thing from their minds.”
The men around the conference table nodded in understanding and agreement.
“Good. That’s settled, then.” Vorster turned to the minister of defense.
“Very well, Constand. Notify all commands. Operation Nimrod proceeds as planned.”
South Africa was on its way to war.
AUGUST 4-ABC”S NIGHT LINE
The reporter stood at the corner of C and Twenty-third streets in downtown
Washington, D.C. The gray government building behind her provided a neutral background for her carefully coiffed hair and green summer dress.
More importantly, the sign saying STATE DEPARTMENT told her viewers where she was and that great events were afoot. Bright white TV lights lit the sky.
“If congressional Democrats can agree on anything these days, it’s that the administration’s response to recent developments in South Africa has been halting, confused, and wholly inadequate. And as Pretoria’s violent crackdown on dissent continues, congressional demands for further economic sanctions seem likely to intensify. All this at a time when administration officials are already working late into the night-trying desperately to restructure a South Africa policy thrown badly out of whack.”
The camera pulled back slightly, showing a lit row of windows at the top of the State Department.
“And something else seems certain. South African state
president Karl Vorster’s latest public harangue will do absolutely nothing to douse the sanctions furor building up on Capitol Hill. If anything, his rhetoric appears calculated to send apartheid opponents around the world into fits.”
She disappeared from the screen, replaced by footage showing Vorster standing on a flag-draped dais. The bloodred, three-armed-swastika banners of the Afrikaner Weerstandbeweging mingled with South African blue-, white-, and orange-striped national flags.
Vorster’s clipped accent made his words seem even harsher.
“We have given the blacks of our country every chance to participate in a peaceful exchange of ideas. Every chance to work toward a sharing of power and increased prosperity, for them and for all South Africans.”
He paused dramatically.
“But they have shown themselves to be unworthy!
Their answer to reform is murder! They reply to reason with violence!
They are incapable of peaceful conduct, much less of participating in the government. They have had their chance, and they will not have another.
Never again! That I promise you, never again.”
A roar of approval surged through the hall and the camera panned around, showing a sea of arm-waving, cheering white faces.
As the thunderous applause faded, the camera cut back to the reporter standing on the State Department steps.
“Vorster’s speech, one of his first since taking over as president, came at the close of a day-long visit to the rural Transvaal, his home territory and a stronghold of ultraconservative white opinion. And nobody who heard him speak can have any doubt that he’s giving South Africa’s diehards just what they’ve always wanted. Tough words and tougher action.
“This is Madeline Sinclair, for “Nightline.”
“
The camera cut away to show the program’s New Yorkbased anchorman.
“Thank you, Madeline. Following this break, we’ll be back with Mr. Adrian Roos, of the South African Ministry of Law and Order, Mr. Ephriarn Nkwe, of the now-banned African National Congress, and Senator Steven Travers of the
Senate Foreign Relations ComiTtittee. “
The anchorman’s sober, serious image vanished, replaced by a thirty-second spot singing the praises of a Caribbean cruise line.
AUGUST 5—THE RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sen. Steven Travers’s innermost congressional office was decorated with a mixture of autographed photos, the Nevada state flag, and a stuffed lynx nicknamed Hubert by his aides.
“Hubert” disappeared whenever any of the most prominent animal-rights lobbyists paid a visit. But the lynx always reappeared to reassure home-state visitors that Travers-no matter how liberal he might be in foreign affairs-was still the plain, gun-toting cowboy his campaign commercials always showed.
The photos crowding the office’s rich, wood-paneled walls included shots of the senator with his wife and family, with two presidents (both
Democrats), and with several Hollywood stars-all famous for the various liberal causes they supported. A recent addition was a picture of himself in the Capitol rotunda, shaking hands with ANC leader Nelson Mandela.
The pictures all showed a tall, slim man with sandy hair slowly going gray and a handsome, angular face. He looked good in a suit-a fact that hadn’t endeared him to other, less telegenic senators back when cameras first started recording every minute of the Senate’s floor debates for posterity. Right now the suit hung on a hanger
in his office closet, and
Travers lounged comfortably behind his desk wearing jeans, a Lacoste shirt, and loafers.
His small, normally neat office seemed crowded with two legislative aides, two staff lawyers, and a close friend. Coffee cups and boxes of doughnuts littering the floor and desk made it clear that they had either started very early or worked very late.
“Hey, guys, time’s awasting. I’ve got a committee meeting
in three hours,” said Travers, looking at his watch, “with a CBS interview thirty minutes before that.”
He started to yawn and then closed his mouth on it.
“Not that the “Nightline’ spot didn’t come out pretty good, but I can’t keep spouting the same stuff over and over. Things are going wrong too fast over there.”
Travers reached forward and pulled a red-tagged manila folder out of the pile on his desk.
“I mean, look at this!” He flipped the folder open and tapped the first sheet.
“The CIA says that bastard Vorster’s even mobilizing more troops to go after the black townships. People are gonna look to me to provide the Senate’s response, and I can’t just go on repeating the same old tired calls for more sanctions. I need something new-something that’ll grab some headlines and grab Pretoria by the throat.”
Travers had championed the anti apartheid cause in the Senate ever since his election two terms ago. It had been a happy marriage of personal belief with a popular cause. And now he was one of the senators first on the media’s list for official reaction whenever South Africa hit the news.
“Steve’s right. This is his chance to take the lead on this issue in the public mind. The rest of these fuds up here on the Hill will just thunder and blast without really saying anything. The media wants an American answer to this South African problem. And whoever gives ‘em one is gonna be their fair-haired boy for quite a while. ” George Perlman was Travers’s political advisor and reality check. He’d spent most of the night watching the brainstorming, the arguments only speaking when the discussion wandered or when he felt a fresh viewpoint was needed.
Perlman was a short, balding man dressed in slacks and a pullover sweater.
As a seasoned old campaigner, he was ensconced in the most comfortable chair in the office. He was fifteen years older, but despite their age difference, he and the senator had become friends years ago. It was a friendship cemented by the fact that Perlman had masterminded Travers’s successful reelection campaign.
Perlman continued, “Plus, with the White House moving so slowly on this thing, we can slam the President effectively and pick up some points from the party faithful. And now’s a real good time to do that. We could sure use some firstrate recruiting PR to bring in the volunteers and the big-buck contributors . “
The men crowded into Travers’s office nodded. As always, Perlman’s political instincts were right on target. The next presidential election might be more than three years away, but three years was the blink of an eye when you were contemplating setting up a national campaign organization. And even though the senator hadn’t yet made up his mind to push for the nomination, he always believed in keeping his options open.
“True. ” Travers’s eyes flickered toward a calendar. Twenty-nine months to the first primaries.
“But I’m still hanging out there without anything new to say.”
He looked back toward one of his legislative aides.
“Got any more ideas,
Ken?”
Ken Blackman was the senior of Travers’s two Foreign Relations Committee staffers. A liberal firebrand since his student days at Brown University, he helped draft the legislation that kept the senator’s name in good standing with the right D.C.based lobbying groups. He was ambitious, and nobody could doubt that he had hitched his wagon firmly to Travers’s rising star.
Short and thin, he paced in the small space available, almost turning in place with every third step.
“I think we should stick with a serious call for deeper, more meaningful sanctions. Not just petty stuff like
Krugerrands, but everything that makes South Africa’s economy tick over.
We could back that up with strong pressure on other countries to cut their own trade with Pretoria even further.”
David Lewin, Travers’s other aide and Blackman’s biggest in-house critic, shook his head.
“Wouldn’t do any good. There isn’t that much left to cut.
Our trade with South Africa is already so low that they won’t miss the rest.” He held a list of Commerce Department import-export figures out in front of him like a shield.
“It would still be symbolic. It would show them we don’t like what they’re doing,” Blackman argued. His nervous pacing accelerated.
Travers wagged a finger at him.
“C’mon, Ken. You know what an Afrikaner thinks of outside opinion. Calling a Boer pigheaded is a compliment over there.”
Lewin nodded.
“Besides, nobody can agree on whether the sanctions we already have in place have any effect positive negative, or none at all.
I’ve seen persuasive arguments for all three cases. And the South Africans aren’t talking. “
“They were quick enough to ask us to lift them after they let Mandela out of prison!” Blackman’s face was red. Sanctions were the anti apartheid equivalent of the Ten Commandments. Questioning their effectiveness was like asking the pope if he really believed in God.
“Yeah. But they still didn’t make any new reforms when we refused.” Lewin moderated his tone, becoming more conciliatory. The senator was pretty clearly coming down on his side of this argument, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to piss Blackman off any further. After all, they still had to share an office with each other.
“There are too many stronger political forces, local forces, in South Africa for simple economic sanctions to have much effect.”
He shrugged.
“And even if the old Pretoria government could have been influenced by sanctions, how about a hard liner like Vorster? Hell, all we’d probably be doing is giving him new ammunition on the domestic front. Some real ‘circle the wagons, boys, the Uitlanders are coming’ stuff. The diehard Afrikaners lap that up like candy.”
Despite seeing Travers nodding, Blackman tried again.
“Look, I’m not saying a tougher sanctions bill will bring a guy like Vorster to his knees, begging for our forgiveness. But it’s a step our friends on this issue will expect us to take. And if Trans Africa and the rest see us backing off something this bread-and-butter, they’re going to start yelling that we’ve sold out to the ‘do nothing’ crowd over at the White House. “
A sudden silence showed that he’d hit the mark with that. Political pressure groups had an avid addiction to name-calling They also had notoriously short memories and a tendency to see betrayal in any act of moderation. And with a possible run for the presidency coming up, Travers couldn’t afford to get caught in a mudslinging match with his own allies.
Perlman caught the senator’s eye and motioned gently toward the corner where
Blackman waited, dancing back and forth from foot to foot.
“Good call, Ken,” Travers agreed.
“We’ll work up some more stringent export-import restrictions. Just so long as we all realize they won’t go anywhere and wouldn’t do much good even if we could get ‘em past a presidential veto.”
Blackman nodded, satisfied to have won even a token victory. He started scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad. Lewin looked amused.
One of the lawyers piped up, “Can we put pressure on other countries to do more? How about on the British? They’re South Africa’s largest trading partner.”
Travers shook his head regretfully.
“Not a chance. The Brits have cut back some, but any more sanctions aimed at Pretoria are going to have to be their own idea. The EEC’s been all over them for years, and they’ve never been able to influence London. Besides, the UK’s
backed us too many times in some real tight spots. You don’t twist your best friend’s arm. I’d get killed in the full committee if I tried to push a bill like that.”
Blackman looked up from his legal pad, his pen tapping rhythmically against his lower front teeth.
“How about direct financial support for the ANC or some of the other black opposition groups?”
The other lawyer, a recent Harvard graduate named Harrison Alvarez, laughed cynically.
“Jesus, the Republicans would love that.”
He mimicked the hushed, breathless tones so common in campaign hit pieces:
“Did you know that Senator Travers supports U.S. taxpayer funding for a terrorist movement with socialist aims?”
Alvarez gestured toward a stack of press clippings on Travers’s desk.
“I
mean, Ken, get real. The ANC just killed half the South African government, for Christ’s sake!”
“They deny responsibility,” Blackman retorted.
“You better believe it, after all the heat they’ve taken lately.” Travers shook his head slowly.
“Let’s face facts. The ANC is the prime suspect in the attack on Haymans’s train. Now, I wouldn’t put it past a thug like
Vorster to manufacture black guerrilla bodies on demand, but why should he need to?”
He shrugged his shoulders, as if admitting that his own question was unanswerable.
“Besides, even if the ANC’s not responsible for the train massacre, the Republicans would still beat us over the head with it. We have to hold the high ground on this issue-call for popular actions while the administration refuses to move. Feeding money to guys with AK-47s isn’t going to cut it.”
The others muttered their agreement.
Blackman started pacing again.
“Okay, if we can’t affect the South Africans themselves, how about doing something to ease their stranglehold on their next-door neighbors?”
“Like what?” Travers sounded tentative.
Blackman persisted.
“A large-scale aid program for all the countries bordering South Africa. Economic assistance, maybe even military help.”
Lewin stepped in, eager to score a few more points at his rival’s expense.