IAN SMITH NA "NATIONAL REVIEW"

Ian Smith (1919-2007)

"Ian Smith, who died, age 88, was suited by birth and temperament to maintain the British Empire in Africa. Born in what was then Rhodesia in 1919, he served gallantly with the RAF in World War II (a crash permanently disfigured his face). After the war, he bought a cattle ranch and entered parliament. Britain was shedding its empire, however, to black successor states, which Smith could not accept. In 1965, as prime minister, he declared independence in order to maintain white power, and arrested, then fought, black nationalists. Pressured by his South African allies, he finally accepted an expanded franchise which in 1979 replaced him with a black Methodist bishop. But this did not satisfy world opinion. A 1980 election overseen by Britain put guerilla leader Robert Mugabe in power, where he remains today. Smith rejected majority rule; Mugabe's incompetence and crimes have defamed it. R.I.P."

The National Review