South Africa The Red and the Black

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As the leading opponent of South Africa's system of racial apartheid, the African National Congress has become the embodiment of the hopes and aspirations of the country's blacks. Yet even some of apartheid's opponents harbor lingering reservations about the ANC, mainly because of its longstanding and unapologetic ties to Communists. ANC President Oliver Tambo has repeatedly said he does not know or care how many members of his national executive committee are party members. As the ANC's critics see it, the ! organization runs the danger of becoming, wittingly or not, the vehicle through which Communism could eventually gain power in any change of government in South Africa. Exhibit A for this argument is usually Joe Slovo, 60, a man whose prominent shock of wiry gray hair supports many hats. A lawyer by training, he became in 1985 the first white to serve on the executive committee of the ANC, whose dedication to the abolition of apartheid has made the organization illegal in South Africa. Slovo is also chief of staff in the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), a position that puts him in the cockpit of the ANC's campaign of terrorism.

But the hats do not stop there. Slovo is also chairman of the South African Communist Party and is believed by some Western intelligence agencies to have close ties to the KGB, the Soviet secret police. Slovo has called that claim "part of a misinformation campaign" waged against him by South African security forces. But there is little doubt that his involvement with Moscow, if not formal, is at least fervent. Says Craig Williamson, a former South African security agent who infiltrated the party from 1971 to 1980: "Slovo is the classic South African Communist that the Soviets like -- tough, down the line, disciplined and utterly dedicated."

In a rare interview with TIME last week, Slovo spoke freely of the unity of purpose between the ANC and the Communist Party. Said he: "There are no differences in our common objective to destroy racism and to achieve a united democratic South Africa." But, he added, South Africa's Communists make no secret of their conviction that a democratic revolution will eventually lead to a second, socialist phase. Any suggestion that the ANC serves as a Soviet puppet, however, Slovo insists is a "slanderous insult."

Slovo, a native of Lithuania whose parents emigrated to South Africa in 1935, exemplifies the connections that have grown up over the years between the ANC and the country's Communists. He joined the party before it was declared illegal in 1950 and helped write the Freedom Charter, the document that in 1955 became the ANC's political program. Slovo was accused of sabotage in 1963 in the same trial that resulted in lifetime prison sentences for Nelson Mandela and five other ANC leaders, but Slovo had managed to flee South Africa a month before the others were arrested. He has lived in exile ever since. In 1982, his wife Ruth First, also a prominent Communist, was killed by a parcel bomb allegedly planted by Pretoria's agents.