ABSTRACT
The documents do not go on to state what "other options" the administration was contemplating. But in light of President Reagan's stated willingness to rearm Savimbi's guerrillas, it is the administration was considering, and perhaps implementing, covert operations against Angola. The Reagan team's only opposition to South African aggression against regional neighbors was based on strategic concerns. The underlying rationale of the constructive engagement policy was that by improving relations with Pretoria, Washington could expect cooperation in two key areas: a settlement in Namibia, and internal reform in South Africa. Administration officials announced they were seeking modifications in the UN plan for Namibian independence, as outlined in Security Council Resolution 435. Namibian fishing grounds had been so overfished that fishing and canning operations once providing work for roughly 10,000, by 1982 employed a few hundred. Constructive engagement assumes that there are genuine reformers in power, and that they see it in their interest to move away from white minority rule.
