ABSTRACT
Unlike Canada or Panama, South Africa is to most Americans a far distant country; and until the Carter administration made an issue of its racial policies, it was not believed that US interests were deeply involved in South Africa. Although the US Navy has long considered South Africa of great strategic importance and although US multinational corporations have invested more than a billion dollars there, the US government has not acted as if it needed to concern itself about this far-off country. South Africa is governed today, as it has been since 1948, by descendants of the Dutch, Germans, and French Huguenots who came to the area three hundred years ago and who have long since severed their attachments to Europe. The South African government’s crackdown on opposition groups in October 1977 set off a worldwide reaction, which ultimately led to a UN Security Council Resolution banning the sale of all arms to that country.
