# Did Ronald Reagan Really Support Apartheid in South Africa? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2003, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944 "2003-03-25T03:32:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/21 "2003-03-25T19:49:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*I didn’t say anything of the sort, **RickJay**. All I did was ask **Brutus** to PROVE that the SA Apartheid regime was worth it to prevent communism. \*\* I know you didn’t say it; I was simply using Carter as a contrast to illustrate that it’s a phony charge against Reagan. I wasn’t trying to single you out, but you’ve expressed admiration for Carter and his (largely fictional) emphasis on human rights in foreign rlelations before, so I used him as an example. Logically, if you can charge Reagan with supporting apartheid, you can charge Carter with supporting murder. My point is that it’s silly to charge REAGAN, in particular, with supporting apartheid. He didn’t do anything Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson et al. didn’t do. Carter was just the most different counterexample I could come up with. ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/22 "2003-03-25T19:58:35Z")
The US did at various times tacitly support the appartheid regime, for example when Jamacia sent troops to fight with Mozambique against the appartheid regime, contrary the wishes of the US, they lost all their economic aid. Of course there was an element of anti-communism in this too as Cuba also sent troops as well. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/23 "2003-03-25T20:17:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Cite, please. He clearly indicated his belief that they had no need to change by carefully refraining from even the most restrained criticism of their treatment of their citizens. In fact, he went so far as to claim that they were already doing what they needed to: > [@](#): > > 8/24/85 > President Reagan tells an interviewer that the “reformist administration” of South African president P.W. Botha has made significant progress on the racial front. “They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country,” says the President, “the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated - that has all been eliminated.” [http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html](http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html) (When challenged on his lie, he admitted he might have spoken “carelessly.”) [Time article](http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/from_redirect/0,10987,1101850916-142437,00.html) His “constructive engagement” was different than Carter’s in several ways. While Carter had blocked the U.N. resolution calling for boycott, Carter had imposed several restrictions on South Africa, including the suspension of weapons shipments to the police units that had engaged in most of the terror activities against the blacks of the townships–an order that Reagan reversed upon taking office. Shortly after his claim that they had “eliminated” segregation, Reagan did impose sanctions by executive order. However, the sanctions imposed were less than those to be imposed by a bill that had the support of both houses of Congress and was imposed to forestall passage of that bill. When, at the end of twelve months, it was clear that Reagan’s administration had refused to actually implement the sanctions, the Congress passed the bill, overwhelmingly–even overriding his veto. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/24 "2003-03-25T21:40:28Z")
> [@](#): > > President Reagan tells an interviewer that the “reformist administration” of South African president P.W. Botha has made significant progress on the racial front. No offense, **tomndebb** , but saying, “You have changed a lot” is significantly different from saying, “There is no need for you to change.” You accused Reagan of ‘clearly indicating’ that he felt there was no need for South Africa to move away from apartheid **at all**. This is untrue, as Reagan condemned apartheid directly. [Cite.](http://www-tech.mit.edu/V105/N38/aprt.38n.html) Certainly Reagan disagreed with many on how to pressure the South African government, preferring “active, constructive engagement” as has already been cited in this thread, but to state that Reagan saw no need to dismantle apartheid is false. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/25 "2003-03-25T22:05:57Z")
You’ll have to do better proving Reagan ever condemned _apartheid_ since your link gives me a 404. 😉 I never heard him condemn _apartheid_ in nine years of campaign and residency in the White House. It would be interesting to see where he actually said it. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/26 "2003-03-25T22:07:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*Okay, let me rephrase that. How about **Brutus** offer us a cite, to better explain his views? > > And still, why bring up Carter? \*\* Well, I’ll dig up some timeline or something later, but a cite seems superfluous. Rhodesia, Angola, and Mozambique all fell to marxists during the Carter administration, I believe. Of course it would have been an important policy objective to prevent South Africa from falling to marxists. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/27 "2003-03-26T00:45:40Z")
In my analysis, Reagan only supported apartheid in the same sense that every other president of the US had since the start of apartheid in (I believe) 1948. In my noting of South African history, the ANC has always been supported by the South African Communist Party, and, with Cuban troops supporting the Angolans in battle, it was felt (unjustly, as history has shown) that the Communists would take over South Africa as well. Due to the continued failure of the center and left parties in South Africa in that time period (United, Progressive, Progressive Reform, Progressive Fedral, and New Republic) in taking over, it was a choice between the devil we knew(the Nationalists) and the devil we didn’t (the ANC), and we picked the devil we knew. That doesn’t justify it, it just explains it. ---
**Author:** ![Philosophocles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Philosophocles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philosophocles)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/28 "2003-03-26T01:36:55Z")
1. Where did Reagan announce his candidacy for the 1980 election? 2. What is that Mississippi town most famous for in American history? ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/29 "2003-03-26T01:53:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Philosophocles \* > \*\*1. Where did Reagan announce his candidacy for the 1980 election? > > 1. What is that Mississippi town most famous for in American history? \*\* Philadelphia, Mississippi, where 3 civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. Who, when running for governor, mailed pictures to voters showing his opponent with black children? ---
**Author:** ![zigaretten](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/91b2a8/32.png) [@zigaretten](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zigaretten)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/30 "2003-03-26T03:57:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Philosophocles \* > > 1. Where did Reagan announce his candidacy for the 1980 election? > > 2. What is that Mississippi town most famous for in American history? 1…[New York, NY](http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/intent.asp) 2…New York isn’t in Mississippi. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/31 "2003-03-26T09:06:25Z")
**Philosophocles** , **Governor Quinn**. . . did you think we wouldn’t check? ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/32 "2003-03-26T13:24:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\*I never heard him [Reagan] condemn _apartheid_ in nine years of campaign and residency in the White House. It would be interesting to see where he actually said it. \*\* His Executive Order 12532 declared that ‘the policy and practice of apartheid are repugnant to the moral and political values of democratic and free societies’. [http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/90985b.htm](http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/90985b.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/33 "2003-03-26T14:22:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\*You’ll have to do better proving Reagan ever condemned _apartheid_ since your link gives me a 404. 😉 > > I never heard him condemn _apartheid_ in nine years of campaign and residency in the White House. It would be interesting to see where he actually said it. \*\* Sorry about the link - it’s [here.](http://www-tech.mit.edu/V105/N38/apart.38n.html) > [@](#): > > **Reagan condemned apartheid** and expressed concern over the increasing violence in South Africa in the executive order outlining his sanctions…(Emphasis added) > [@](#): > > “America’s view of apartheid is simple and straightforward. We believe it is wrong. We condemn it.” - [Ronald Reagan, Sept 9, 1985.](http://www.bartleby.com/63/43/343.html) Or see **APB** ’s link. Certainly Reagan disagreed with many Democrats on **how** to pressure the South African government to dismantle apartheid, but the idea that he thought apartheid was a fine thing and didn’t need to be changed is insupportable. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/34 "2003-03-26T14:25:07Z")
Come to think of it, zig is correct. Philosophocles asked a leading question, and I took the bait. (And, for the record, the answer to the question I asked in turn was Jimmy Carter, in the 1970 Democratic run-off for Governor of Georgia. Michael Barone mentioned it in his book “Our Country”, of which I have a copy.) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/35 "2003-03-26T14:43:32Z")
I will acknowledge that Reagan had words formally condemning _apartheid_ published in his Executive Order. (All three links are directed to or paraphrases of his single EO document.) I will also note that he only did so under the threat of a massive Congressional effort that he opposed, using the formal language of such documents. His EO follwed by three weeks his claim that South Africa had “eliminated segregation” and one week before a scheduled vote in the Senate to impose the harsher restrictions that he opposed. I can find no reference to any remarks by him actually expressing personal rejection of _apartheid_ and I’m afraid I remain unpersuaded by his single publication of a political statement that he actually cared about the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/36 "2003-03-26T15:31:35Z")
Well, **tomndebb** , if you aren’t going to believe what he said in public, why should you believe what he said in private? You said he never condemned it, and we have posted links showing that he did. Now you say that this is not enough, and you need us to prove that he “cared” about the issue. And, no matter what I dig up, you can claim that that isn’t enough, either. The answer to the OP is, no, Reagan did not support apartheid. He condemned it publicly, imposed sanctions against the regime that employed it, and differed from prominent liberals on what would be the best way to eliminate it. I suspect it is the last of these three that cause people to accuse him of supporting apartheid. One way to put it is that Reagan supported apartheid in the same sense that those who opposed sanctions against Iraq supported Saddam Hussein, or those who oppose sanctions against Cuba support Fidel Castro. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/37 "2003-03-26T16:36:51Z")
> [@](#): > > if you aren’t going to believe what he said in public Reagan never said it in public, which is my point. The Office of the President issued an Executive Order containing a standard objection to _apartheid_, written by some staffer. There is nothing wrong with that; it is how EO’s are issued. However, the EO was a political move to prevent a political defeat in Congress and Reagan never backed it up with any other statements. > [@](#): > > One way to put it is that Reagan supported apartheid in the same sense that those who opposed sanctions against Iraq supported Saddam Hussein, or those who oppose sanctions against Cuba support Fidel Castro. I do not assert that he supported _apartheid_, only that he did not care about it one way or another. (Of course, he did, indeed, reverse actions taken by Carter to pressure the de Klerk government to change their policies, his “constructive engagement” policy had no anti-_apartheid_ carrots attached to them–just money to “fight communists,” and he did claim that S.A. had already “eliminated segregation,” and he did fail to enforce his own EO sanctions and stalled when called upon to enforce the sanctions that Congress eventually passed over his veto, so perhaps he did actually support _apartheid_, but that is not the claim that I make, which is that he never indicated opposition to _apartheid_.) ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/38 "2003-03-26T18:54:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\*He clearly indicated his belief that they had no need to change by carefully refraining from even the most restrained criticism of their treatment of their citizens. In fact, he went so far as to claim that they were already doing what they needed to: > > ’ 8/24/85 > President Reagan tells an interviewer that the “reformist administration” of South African president P.W. Botha has made significant progress on the racial front. “They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country,” says the President, “the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated - that has all been eliminated.” ’ > > [http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html](http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html) \*\* This illustrates the danger of relying only on extracts. Those remarks were immediately preceded by the comment that, ‘Our relationship with South Africa, which has always over the years been a friendly one – we have made it plain, in spite of that, that **apartheid is very repugnant to us** and that they should go down the path of reform and bringing about a more perfect democracy in their country.’ (emphasis added) [http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/82485c.htm](http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/82485c.htm) This might or might not be considered ‘restrained’, but it certainly qualifies as public, unscripted criticism from his own mouth. Yes, it’s a platitude, yes, it cost him nothing to say it and, yes, it’s just what one would have expected him to say in the circumstances, but those are precisely the reasons is why it is so silly to have assumed that he won’t at some point have made comments to that effect. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/39 "2003-03-26T21:47:09Z")
Thank you for the citation to an actual statement. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944/40 "2003-03-27T00:38:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\* > (Of course, he did, indeed, reverse actions taken by Carter to pressure the de Klerk government to change their policies, \*\* I presume you mean Botha. De Klerk didn’t become President of South Africa until 1989, by which time Reagan was out of the White House. In addition, Botha did make some changes to the system under his Presidency, such as abolishing the Pass and Mixed Marriage laws. The problem was that Botha was too unwilling to lose power in order to make any deep changes, such as the franchise. As it was, the reaction against these policies was notable enough. (The extreme-right Conservative Party, for example, won more seats in the 1985 and 1989 elections than the liberal Progressive Reform (Had I been a South African voter at that time, my pick for ruling the nation) Party, therefore being the offical opposition party.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ronald-reagan-really-support-apartheid-in-south-africa/163944.md?page=1)