Office of the Historian

546. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, November 16, 1966, 5:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Rhodesia

PARTICIPANTS

  • U.K.
    • Sir Patrick Dean, British Ambassador
    • Sir Michael Stewart, Minister, British Embassy
  • U.S.
    • The Secretary
    • M.D. Goldstein, Acting Country Director, BMI

Ambassador Dean said that he was instructed to hand to the Secretary the text of Smith’s reply to the British Government’s proposals for settlement of the Rhodesian question. He observed that the reply seemed basically designed for publication. It amounted to a rejection of the British proposals, though it did not explicitly say so.

The British Government expected to have to take the Rhodesia question to the UN. Before doing so, however, the Government has asked Smith to state his position on (1) providing guarantees for uninterrupted progress to majority rule; (2) participation in an interim broad-based Rhodesian government before promulgation of a new constitution, the acceptability of which would remain to be determined by Rhodesians as a whole; and (3) reversion to the Governor of control over the military, the lifting of censorship, and the release of political detainees.

The Ambassador said that Sir Malcolm McDonald was explaining to Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya what the British Government was doing, and Lord Caradon had talked to President Kaunda along the same lines.

The Secretary, referring to his own conversations with Kaunda, noted that Kaunda did not say as much then as he did in his speech at the UN: their talk was quite relaxed and Kaunda used no invective or florid language in expounding his unhappiness with the British. In almost an hour’s discussion he spent perhaps ten minutes on Rhodesia. Kaunda was very much concerned that the passage of time was allowing for the consolidation of the Smith regime.

The Secretary went on to say that Kaunda stressed that sanctions against Rhodesia could not succeed without the cooperation of South [Page 923] Africa. When Kaunda raised the question of using force in Rhodesia, the Secretary expressed strong reservations—he noted that the situation could require two divisions—and Kaunda did not argue the point very much. Kaunda pointed out that 600–700 people had signed the Governor’s book in Salisbury and that, while this was not a large number in itself, in the circumstances it probably reflected a considerable body of anti-Smith sentiment in Rhodesia.

The Secretary concluded by recalling that Kaunda did not ask for anything specific from the United States. He seemed to be waiting for the present British schedule to run out.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 16 RHOD. Secret. Drafted by Goldstein, and approved in S on November 21. The source text is marked “Part 1 of 3.” The meeting took place in the Secretary’s office.↩