How the right tried to ruin Nelson Mandela

[DonViejo]

Powerful conservatives spent decades trying to take down the South African leader
PETER FINOCCHIARO

The most obvious thing you could say about Nelson Mandela is that he died a widely loved man — as the Onion facetiously noted yesterday, “the first politician to be missed.” What’s been somewhat harder to glean from the mad rush to eulogize the African leader is the antagonism that many powerful Americans — and in particular those of the conservative persuasion — exhibited toward Mandela, before, during and after his 27-year imprisonment. What follows are a few of the most notable ways in which Mandela’s American malefactors demonstrated their distaste for the man:

The CIA was instrumental in Mandela’s 1962 arrest: South Africa was a source of great anxiety for the American government in the heyday of the Cold War. Fearful of Soviet influence, and of the prospect that the Western-friendly apartheid regime might lose control, the intelligence community took an active interest in the country. Working with a person inside the African National Congress, of which Mandela was then a leader, the CIA obtained the information necessary to locate and arrest Mandela.

Reagan vetoed the 1986 Anti-Apartheid Bill, which called for harsh sanctions against South Africa: “Immoral and utterly repugnant” were the words he used to describe the proposed sanctions. Congress ultimately overrode the veto — sanctions were ultimately lifted when apartheid ended — but without the help of a Wyoming congressman named Dick Cheney, who defended the vote even decades later.

Reagan also placed Mandela on the terrorist watch list: Echoing the position of South Africa’s apartheid regime, Reagan officially recognized the African National Congress as a terrorist organization. There Mandela remained until 2008.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/06/how_the_right_tried_to_ruin_nelson_mandela/

[legcramp]

1. Do you not find it odd that PETER FINOCCHIARO/Salon

find JFK/RFK to be Powerful conservatives?

My recollection is that in 1962 when the CIA was responsible for Mandela's arrest and 27 years in prison they were President and Attorney General of the United States.

Never thought of them as powerful conservatives

[Igel]

2. The CIA story is interesting.

Sort of a published rumor. The guy accused of passing along the information says he didn't. Mandela says he didn't hold the CIA responsible--he was just clumsy. No good word on who the informant was.

Now, who was in charge of the CIA in 1962 is, of course, an open question. You'd probably want to say that somehow Obama is in charge of it today, but only when it does something you like--like figuring out where bin Laden is or taking out the head of the Taliban. If it did something we didn't like, well, of course, Obama can't be held responsible for anything it does. In politics, CYA >> veridicality.

McCone was appointed by Kennedy. A (R), he also opposed the Diem coup and was oddly suspicious of the claim that nukes were on Cuba. Behind lots of plots--nothing new there--dodged blame for some stuff, saying he wasn't informed of it. Mixed bag. Then again, we constantly hear the refrain that (R) back then weren't as rabid as they are now (except when they were). Would something like Rickard's alleged turning in of Mandela have risen to his attention? Probably not. Unless we need to make the claim that it did, then it axiomatically reached exactly the level needed for our claim. You don't prove axioms.

In '62 the ANC/SACP was fairly clearly pro-Soviet, so there's that. But also in '86 anything that made the look bad was instant gold as the Soviet bloc tried to survive its miserable economic and ideological policies. Even to say that Mandela was turned in by the CIA would just burnish his credentials--just as the SACP's claim that Mandela was a member of its central committee (something denied by Mandela) amounts to trying to claim some of the radiance of his nimbus for their own. (Then again, he denied both CIA involvement in his capture and SACP membership.)

[Cha]

3. They lost again. Losers on the wrong side of history.

Mahalo, DonViejo