Rhodesia: A Dramatic Meeting

If drama were all that counted, the meeting that began last week between Harold Wilson of Britain and Ian Smith of rebellious Rhodesia would have been assured of success. The two men had not spoken to each other since November of last year, and the months since then were marked by Rhodesia’s declaration of independence, British economic sanctions against Rhodesia and an air of general hostility. Then one stormy night last week, Wilson’s R.A.F. Comet landed in Gibraltar, and two hours later an R.A.F. Britannia brought Smith in from Salisbury.

Tired & Unsettled. Police had closed off the streets of the tiny fortress colony, and motorcades whisked the two men unseen from the airport to the docks. There they climbed aboard an R.A.F. rescue launch and were taken to the cruiser H.M.S. Tiger, which was anchored half a mile offshore in Algeciras Bay. Dog tired, and somewhat unsettled by the heavy swells of the sea, Wilson and Smith met briefly in the wood-paneled captain’s quarters of the Tiger, then went to bed. Two hours after dawn, the cruiser weighed anchor, wallowed out into the stormy straits and headed eastward into the Mediterranean. Except for their advisers and the Tiger’s somewhat baffled crew, Wilson and Smith were alone.

Both had good reason to try to settle their differences. Wilson, under Commonwealth pressure, had promised to ask the U.N. for mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia unless the rebel regime came to terms. Such sanctions would hurt the Smith regime, perhaps even to the point of causing a white exodus from Rhodesia. But they could also bring Britain into direct confrontation with South Africa, its fourth largest customer, which announced that it would support Rhodesia to the hilt.

A confrontation with South Africa would be all but ruinous for the weakened British economy (see WORLD BUSINESS). It would cut off most of London’s gold supply, probably throw a million workers out of jobs and, in the opinion of many economists, force Britain finally to devalue the pound. Even so, Wilson promised Parliament before he left that he would not give in on the essential British demands: that Smith’s white supremacist government return to British rule and prepare the way for eventual government by Rhodesia’s black majority.

Changed Tune. The sudden meeting was brought on by an indication from Smith that his regime was at last prepared to consider giving the Africans a start toward self-government. After years of proclaiming that “never in my lifetime” would Rhodesia be ruled by blacks, Smith last week changed his tune. It was really only a matter of timing, he told a press conference in Salisbury. And, to a British representative the following night, he submitted a plan for a “braking mechanism” that would keep Rhodesia white for five years, then, presumably, turn it slowly over to the Africans.

The proposal was not everything the British wanted, but it was the first significant break in the impasse and it gave Wilson just enough hope to ask Smith to meet him secretly in Gibraltar. “I would not have contemplated a visit today unless I had reason enough to think we are within hailing distance of a solution,” Wilson told Parliament, but he warned: “There is still a considerable gap to bridge.” At week’s end, the Tiger docked and the two Prime Ministers left for their capitals to announce the results of their unusual parley.