Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXI, Africa

420. Memorandum From William H. Brubeck of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)⁰

Washington, November 1, 1963.

SUBJECT

• Rostow’s South Africa Study¹

This is still a working draft, not a final product, but it is a surprisingly solid and objective study worth selective reading. It is not, however, very relevant to our current problem about how to handle the South African issue in the UN Security Council this month, on which the Secretary of State will be sending over a paper Monday. He will propose, in effect, that we hold the line at our position of the August Security Council, with no significant new concessions to the Africans.

There is a debate going on within State over proposed action to stop US Government loans and credits to South Africa and even warn US private investors against the economic risk of investment in South Africa. These proposals will probably not mature for a while but the economic sections of the attached study take on particular interest apropos of the general question of what further steps we might take, like our August arms embargo, to pressure the South Africans and help the Black Africans.

The heart of the attached study is a “long range proposal” (210-231) which picks up a remark of Prime Minister Verwoerd’s and develops from it a scheme for a set of modest reforms by the South African Government in return for which the US and UK would give categorical support to the South African Government politically. While the reforms are modest and gradual, they are basic because the South African Government would have openly to scrap apartheid—a complete admission of defeat for its present policy.

What is particularly interesting about this proposal is that within the US Government support for it ranges from the liberal, pro-Black Africans (such as the authors of this piece) to Ambassador Satterthwaite and the CAS in South Africa. (The latter of whom is as far to the right as any one in the US Government on the subject of South Africa.) The scheme may, therefore, be a starter in two ways—first as a serious proposal to the South Africans and second, if they refuse it, as a public US gambit which would seriously split Verwoerd’s near-monolithic present white support. The second point might be important, because the complaint of South African liberal whites now is that, by being so militantly hostile, the Western powers are driving even liberal white South Africans into the Verwoerd camp. In any event, even if it has practical interest, there’s serious doubt whether South Africa is yet ripe for such a proposal.

Other items of interest in the paper:

1. A reminder of how dismal is South Africa’s basic record as an allegedly staunch ally of the West (200-202).

2. An excellent survey of the South African economy (A-1 to A-14); of the possible effect of economic sanctions (A-15 to A-20); and of US investment (203-6). For example, in spite of all the political noise, South African trade with a number of Black African countries is actually increasing—including Ghana! And the Chicoms and Eastern Europeans still do some business with South Africa.

3. A lot of work needs doing with the economic data, in terms of its relevance to sanctions, pressures, economic reprisals, etc. in the future international quarrel over South Africa. However, it is interesting to note how vulnerable the South African economy apparently is—for example, the sharp outflow of private capital and the $1.4 billion decline in stock values after the Sharpeville riot (March 1960) and the withdrawal from the Commonwealth (May 1961). (Pages A-3 to A-4)²

William H. Brubeck³

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, South Africa. No classification marking. A handwritten notation reads: “(Included in Pres. week-end reading dtd 11/2-3/63).”
1. Attached to the source text, but not printed, is an intermediate draft of a paper entitled “South Africa, Department of State, National Strategy Series” prepared by William R. Duggan of the Policy Planning Council and Waldemar B. Campbell of the Bureau of African Affairs.
2. On October 29, Rostow sent a copy of the South Africa paper to President Kennedy under cover of a memorandum stating that he believed that the President would want to examine this intermediate draft report on South Africa over the weekend and noting that the imminent debate on South Africa in the United Nations would make the document useful for him to know, since it was certain to play a role in the formulation of U.S. policy in New York. (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, South Africa)
3. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.