ABSTRACT
To set the stage for the return to legality, the Conservatives dispatched a commission under the chairmanship of Lord Boyd, a former colonial secretary, to observe the Rhodesian election of April 17-21, 1979. By the time Margaret Thatcher became Britain's Prime Minister in May 1979, the Rhodesian problem had been a standard fixture of British political life for a decade and a half. Henry Kissinger's advent on the scene introduced the United States as a major actor in the effort to bring about a Rhodesian settlement. The United States' most important prior contribution to the Rhodesian problem had been the passage in 1971 of the Byrd Amendment, introduced by Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, which permitted United States imports of chrome and other Rhodesian minerals in open contravention of the United Nations' sanction resolutions, for which the United States had voted.
