The Rhodesia Settlement
to the Military Authorisation Bill calling for an immediate end to sanctions; but the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Bill deferring any such action to 15 October. The Department concluded that if in due course Britain lifted sanctions there seemed little doubt that, under Congressional pressure, the United States would be obliged to follow suit. But they would not recognise the Rhodesian Government unless there were further changes of a kind which would help to render such action more readily defensible elsewhere in Africa. 4. Lord Harlech’s Mission (June-July 1979) 1. The Prime Minister decided that the consultative mission to Africa should be carried out by Lord Harlech, who had served as Deputy Chairman of the Pearce Commission and could be expected to command the respect of the Commonwealth African Presidents. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr Richard Luce MP, visited West Africa to consult some of the leading moderate African Presidents and urge them to use their influence to avoid extreme resolutions being passed at the summit meeting of the Organisation of African Unity in July. 2. Lord Harlech visited Africa between 11 and 22 June. He saw the Presidents of Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, Angola and Malawi, the Mozambican Foreign Minister, the Nigerian Chief of Staff and representatives of the Patriotic Front. The purpose was to judge what prospect there was of the ‘front line’ Presidents acquiescing in a settlement based on the change which had taken place in Rhodesia or on some further development of it; and to gauge the prospects of the Patriotic Front joining in some wider agreement which would take those developments as it starting point. 3. Lord Harlech took the line that successive British Governments had been committed to bringing Rhodesia to legal independence on the basis of the six principles. Political change had taken place in Rhodesia on lines which in the British Government’s view could be argued to satisfy to a very large extent those principles. But the change had been criticised as not going far enough. The Government had genuinely not made up its mind about the next steps to be taken towards the objective of bringing Rhodesia back to legality with the widest possible international acceptance. We were not merely ‘playing for time’ until after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Lord Harlech did not suggest that the Government was itself trying to establish further conditions which Rhodesia would have to satisfy. His concern was to try to draw out from those he met their view of what might need to be done. 4. Lord Harlech concluded that not one of the Governments whose leaders he met would give even tacit support if we granted Rhodesia independence on the basis of the status quo. There was a unanimous view that 56
