THEAPARTHEIDERA
change. Our tangible interests form a basis for our contacts in the region, and
these can be maintained at an acceptable political cost.83
That memorandum
led to increased official contacts with white South
African officials,pro-South African U.N. votes, and the appointment of an
ambassador to South Africa who showed minimal concern for the lot of
black South Africans and was reported to have gone hunting on Robben
Island with political prisoners as beaters.s"
The Carter administration (1977-8
I) tilted in the opposite direction. It
considered South Africa to be a liability to the Western alliance rather than
an ally. It believed that the future lay with black nationalists and that the
United States had an interest in coming to terms with them. Vice-President
Walter Mondale would even tell Prime Minister John Vorster that America
supported the principle of majority rule with universal suffrage-the
ANC
formula-one
person, one vote.
220