High noon in southern Africa

A decade ago no region of the world was more tormented by fear, hatred, and racial conflict than the southern part of Africa. Frequent waves of war and internal strife swept over nations that history and geography had made truculent neighbors. There, a young Assistant Secretary of State embarked on what proved to be an eight-year diplomatic marathon, pitting him against relentless ideologues - some thuggish defenders of a shrinking "white redoubt," others dedicated Marxist revolutionaries, still others crafty potentates abetted by Cuban mercenaries whose support could be obtained at a price. Chester A. Crocker was the U.S. point man for African policy from 1982 to 1989, serving as Assistant Secretary of State longer than anyone in the history of the State Department. He developed the strategy and led the diplomacy that culminated in a settlement that ended nearly thirty years of regional conflict, guaranteeing the UN - supervised transition to independence of Africa's last colony, Namibia, as well as the withdrawal of 50,000 Cuban troops from neighboring Angola. Chester Crocker's mission was not made easier by the divisive battle between the Reagan administrations and its critics over South Africa and by the bitter struggle within the administration between movement conservatives and internationalists for control of Third World policy. Despite the obstacles that turned his original diplomatic initiative for "constructive engagement" into a prolonged effort in conflict resolution, the Crocker strategy worked. This engrossing narrative reveals the role of American diplomacy in bringing freedom to Namibia and Angola, while scoring a major Cold War triumph and setting the stage for South Africa's dramatic turn away from apartheid and toward the negotiation of a nonracial democracy.