London and Washington. Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of
Britain in 1979, and although her government then presided over the
negotiations that led to the transfer of power in Zimbabwe, she was ada-
mantly opposed to sanctions against South Africa. In ensuing years,
Thatcher rejected demands by other members of the Commonwealth that
Britain should join them in taking strong economic measures against
apartheid. The Reagan administration, too, opposed sanctions and ig-
nored the increasingly popular antiapartheid lobby in the United States.
Chester Crocker, Ronald Reagan's able assistant secretary of state for Af-
rican affairs, devoted most of his time and energy to a prolonged diplo-
matic effort to remove Cuban troops from Angola in exchange for imple-
mentation of the U.N. plan for the liberation of Namibia from South
African control. Accepting the premise of National Security Study Memo-
randum 39, that the only way for meaningful change to come about in
South Africa was through the Whites, he formulated a policy of "construc-
tive engagement" toward South Africa, which amounted to encouraging
the South African government to reform apartheid and refraining from
making contacts with antiapartheid organizations, such as the ANC. 27