The World: POISED BETWEEN PEACE AND WAR

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A few of Smith's white countrymen hold him responsible for what is happening to Rhodesia. "There is a widespread feeling," says a local mining executive, "that, in retrospect, UDI was a waste of time, money and lives. If we had settled for a gradual transition eleven years ago and Smith had started to train black successors back then, we would not face such a problem now." But a few hardliners, like Leonard Idensohn, who heads the small, far-right Rhodesia National Party, criticize him for giving in now. "Smith and his 49 traitors in Parliament have sold us down the river," says Idensohn fiercely. "Fifty corpses hanging from ropes would be a marvelous thing."

To a great many Rhodesians, how ever, Ian Smith is still "good old Smithy," the taciturn farmer who, had he been left alone, might have been able to preserve "the Rhodesian way of life" for the country's 274,000 whites. He was not left alone, they believe, and so he had no choice.

The historic event that sealed the fate of white Rhodesia and changed the life of every white man in Africa south of the Zambezi River was the Portuguese revolution in April 1974. The military coup against the Caetano government in Lisbon led the following year to the granting of independence to Mozambique and Angola — something the old regime vowed would never happen. Before 1975, Mozambique and Angola were Portuguese colonies that served as bulwarks against the southward march of African nationalism; after 1975, their Marxist governments became directly involved in the black struggle to overthrow the remaining white minority regimes. In time, Mozambique cut Rhodesia off from its best rail routes to the sea, forcing it to rely exclusively on South Africa for its trade — and arms. Mozambique also granted sanctuary to more and more Rhodesian guerrillas.

Like all other European settlers in Africa in years past, the Rhodesian whites, by reason of their numbers alone, had always been vulnerable. Of the estimated 313 million people who live in Africa south of the Sahara, 61 million are in southern Africa (including Angola, Zambia and Mozambique). Of these 61 million, only about 5 million are white — and of these, 4.3 million live in South Africa. Before the independence of Angola and Mozambique changed the power balance in southern Africa, it was just conceivable that 274,000 Rhodesian whites could maintain their position indefinitely over the country's 6.1 million blacks, even though the whites were outnumbered 22 to 1. Thereafter it became a preposterous sham.

The Angolan civil war had an additional effect on southern Africa: it brought Soviet power and influence, partly in the form of Cuban troops, into the area in strength. Inevitably, Washington became concerned about the region's vulnerability to foreign influence. Kissinger wanted to prevent the whole of southern Africa from falling — eventually, and almost by default — into the Soviet orbit; he wanted to head off what appeared to be inevitable race war; and he wanted to create circumstances in which moderate black regimes would have a chance to endure. With these motives in mind, he met John Vorster twice this summer in Europe.