{South Africa}[26th October 1970]

[Redbook1:179-180][19701026.0000]{South Africa}[26th October 1970]

Mon 26/10/70

            “What do you think about arms to South Africa?  Don't you agree that it is immoral?”

            “Well, look: if you were Mr Heath [the UK Prime Minister], and you believed -- as we must presume he does --  that there is a growing Soviet threat in the Indian Ocean, threatening the Cape Route, would you have any alternative but to attempt to counter that threat at any price?”

            “But there is no such threat!  Haven't you heard...?

            “Now wait a minute.  You may be as qualified as Mr Heath to pronounce on the ethics and morals of backing a system of apartheid in any way, but one thing you most certainly do not know as much about as Mr Heath is the nature of politics in the Indian Ocean.  Nor does Mr Kaunda [the President of Zambia] or anyone else in Africa; nor, quite possibly, do the C.I.A., since the Ocean and the Cape are of far less vital importance to them.  Probably the only people who know as much about it as Mr Heath and his men are the Russians, and they aren't telling.  Mr Heath may be wrong about the danger there, but if he is it is on a mountain of knowledge that you can never hope to rival.

            “Of course you may be right about the immorality of countenancing apartheid whatever the circumstances; but if you are right, and [if] Mr Heath is right, we may end up replacing white dictatorship in the south of the continent by Russian-backed dictatorship over the whole of it -- which would get us nowhere.”

[PostedBlogger09052013]