by Nancy Mitchell, North Carolina State University
When historians and pundits praise Jimmy Carter’s achievements as the US president and extol his exemplary post-presidential years, they mention the recognition of China, the Panama Canal Treaties and the Camp David Accords. Almost no one mentions what Carter achieved in Africa during his presidency. This is a serious oversight.
When I interviewed President Carter in 2002, he told me:
I spent more effort and worry on Rhodesia than I did on the Middle East.
The archival record supports the former president’s claim. Reams of documents detail Carter’s sustained and deep focus during his presidency on ending White rule in Rhodesia, and helping to bring about the independence of Zimbabwe.
There were several reasons for Carter’s focus on southern Africa. First, realpolitik. Southern Africa was the hottest theatre of the Cold War when Carter took office in January 1977. A year earlier, Fidel Castro had sent 36,000 Cuban troops to Angola to protect the leftist MPLA from a South African invasion backed by the Gerald Ford administration. The Cubans remained in Angola until 1991 .
Mozambique was no longer governed by America’s NATO ally, Portugal, but instead by the left-leaning Frelimo . Apartheid South Africa – so recently a stable, pro-American outpost far from the Cold War – suddenly faced the prospect of being surrounded by hostile black-ruled states.
The unfolding events in southern Africa riveted Washington’s attention on Rhodesia, where the insurgency against the white minority government of Ian Smith was escalating. One week after the Carter administration took office it assessed the crisis in Rhodesia:
This situation contains the seeds of another Angola … If the breakdown of talks means intensified warfare, Soviet/Cuban influence is bound to increase.
The administration knew that if the…
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