The World: POISED BETWEEN PEACE AND WAR

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Throughout the week, Washington remained determinedly optimistic, insisting that the Rhodesian agreement was still "on the track." All parties had accepted the principle of majority rule, said U.S. officials, and were now merely engaged in preconference maneuvering. The details mentioned in Smith's speech were to be negotiated at the conference, and Smith might not even be represented. Upon hearing this, Salisbury expressed "surprise."

Like Kissinger, British Prime Minister James Callaghan was convinced that the Rhodesian initiative had not been seriously damaged. The British government has been reluctant to become embroiled in the Rhodesian problem again, having been burned by it before. But London announced its willingness to convene a conference in southern Africa to discuss the formation of an interim government in Salisbury.

London's decision was greeted with enthusiasm in Gaborone, where African leaders had gathered to help celebrate Botswana's tenth anniversary of independence. "Good news," declared Zambia's President Kaunda. Rhodesian Nationalist Joshua Nkomo, a leading candidate to head a post-Smith government in Rhodesia (see box page 41), was "delighted." Added one of his rivals, Bishop Abel Muzorewa: "That's great."

With negotiation near, Rhodesian black leaders were busily conferring with each other. Both Nkomo, whose strength is in the rural areas, and Muzorewa, whose followers are mostly urban Africans, were wooing Robert Mugabe, who is influential with the guerrillas based in Mozambique. Either would like to join forces with Mugabe, thereby gaining guerrilla support. Mugabe is said to place emphasis on the need for military unity. The three are united on one point, at least: the country's name will be Zimbabwe (after an ancient African civilization that once thrived there).

For most of the eleven years since UDI, Rhodesia had survived surprisingly well as an international outcast. Dozens of international firms, as well as a number of countries, continued to do business with it despite U.N. sanctions; since the passage of the Byrd Amendment in 1972, U.S. firms had been buying Rhodesian chrome in open defiance of the U.N. ban.

But for the past 18 months, the situation had grown steadily more ominous for Ian Smith. The number of guerrillas based inside Rhodesia had quadrupled in just six months, to as many as 3,000; another 5,000 to 8,000 were based in Mozambique, and 2,500 or so in Zambia. The guerrillas are well armed — mostly with Soviet bloc equipment — and increasingly well trained. They have been so active even in the dry season, when army patrols are more effective, that civilian cars have had to travel in armed convoys on many roads. Road and rail links to South Africa are increasingly threatened. According to one widely accepted rubric about guerrilla warfare, a government needs 10 to 20 soldiers to defend itself against every guerrilla involved in an insurgency; white Rhodesia was in no position to bear such a burden for long.

Gradually these grim facts have taken their toll on civilian morale. The latest migration figures were particularly discouraging. During the first eight months of 1975, there was a net increase of 1,510 white Rhodesians; this year, during the same period, there was a net loss of 4,030.