A Career of Defiance: The Life of Ian Smith

191 Pages·1992·8.474 MB·English

by  William C. Pollard, Jr.

A Career of Defiance
The Life of Ian Smith

William C. Pollard, = Jr.
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A CAREER OF DEFIANCE:
THE LIFE OF IAN SMITH
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by
William C. Pollard, Jr.
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copyright 1992 by
William C. Pollard, Jr.
printed by
Agusan River Publishing Co.
Topeka, Kansas
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This book is dedicated to the people of Zimbabwe; may they remain

Ef free and may their economic and political future be bright.
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TERRY MCADAM (Bureau of Disease Control) is the illustrator
of a book A Career of Defiance - The Life of Ian Smith by
journalist, William Pollard, Jr. The book is a chronicle of the
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe government under the reign of Prime Minister Ian
Smith. The book is the result of 14 years of research by William
Pollard, Jr.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ----rr -rrr- rr-r rr-r r-rr i
Chapter 1: Smith's Childhood and Early Years - - - - - = - 1
Chapter 2: Smith's Rise to Political Prominence - - --- 8
Chapter 3: Smith in the Cabinet - ------7------- 16
Chapter 4: Glimpses of the Prime Minister - ------- 19
Chapter 5: Building Up for a UDI - -----+-e"*-+----e-- 26
Chapter 6: Minority Rule SucceedS - - - -----+-+--- 41
Chapter 7: Rhodesia Finds Itself in Trouble - - - - - - - 60
Maps and Sketches - - - ------7f7 r72f7 7r7777r77 79A
Chapter 8: A Transition for Rhodesia - --------+-- 80
Chapter 9: The First Black Government - - - ------- 91
Chapter 10: Four Months of British Rule - ----+-+--- 97
Chapter 11: White Politics in Black Zimbabwe - - - - - - - 102
Chapter 12: The Loss of All White Political Power - - - - 120
Definitions and Abbreviations of Terms - - - ------- 129
Footnotes - -----s- 7, et- 7,7 ef er errr err rrr rrr 133
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PREFACE
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My purpose for writing this book was to provide as objective
an account as possible of the life of Ian Douglas Smith, the
former prime minister of what was known as Rhodesia and is now
known as Zimbabwe. It is hoped that this book has done justice
to the subject. Unfortunately, I was unable to travel to
Zimbabwe to explore the public documents in Harare and the local
newspapers there and in other localities. Therefore, I have
missed out on some information that would have helped make this
book better. .ixSmith, Ian Douglas
However, I hope this book has not suffered for lack of
information. I made a thorough examination of information in
this country. While I was forced to rely heavily on information
in the news media, I was able to locate information through other
sources. A number of books and reference materials were
available, as were professional publications on African affairs.
Also, I got some information from what was known as the Rhodesian
Information Office in Washington, D.C.; its name later changed to
the Zimbabwe Rhodesian Information Office. Also, I wrote a
number of individuals involved in the politics of Rhodesia. Those
who responded to my letters include Sir Roy Welensky and former
U. S. Senator S. I. Hayakawa.
Another person deserving thanks because of his encouragement
is Lee F. Young, who in 1989 retired from teaching at of the
William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of

Kansas. Finally, I wish to thank all those whose names I never
knew who worked at Watson Library at the University of Kansas.
Without their help I would never have located some of my sources.
I realize this book has limitations because I was unable to
travel to Zimbabwe and thus use all the materials there.
However, I am confident that this rendition has done justice to
an important subject in both southern African and world history.
William Cc. Pollard, Jr.
The Author
CHAPTER 1
SMITH'S CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS

In 1898 John Douglas Smith decided to leave his native
Scotland and try his luck in Southern Rhodesia. John, eighteen
at the time, came from a large family from Hamilton in
Lanarkshire. His family apparently was fairly well to do, owning
two or three butcher shops and a cattle farm, although John's
father died while he was very young.
It is hard to imagine exactly what John expected to find in
Rhodesia, although he surely knew something of what the territory
was like. His older brother had been one of the first pioneers
to colonize the area in 1890, the colonists being under the pay
and direction of Cecil John Rhodes, the prime minister of South
Africa's Cape Colony. The older brother, however, did not fare
well, being drowned one night while trying to cross the Zambezi
River on horseback, at a point near Livingstone, Northern
Rhodesia.
John Smith, who came to be well known by the nickname "Jock,"
settled in the small mining camp of Selukwe. Another of Jock's
brothers then came to Rhodesia, but decided to return to
Scotland, from where he then left for the United States; he
settled there for life.
Jock Smith mined gold in Selukwe, but the occupation provided
him little financial reward. He then branched out into four
other enterprises: farming, butchery, the bakery business, and
the garage business. Jock quickly prospered and began spending
time with a hobby he greatly enjoyed, the breeding and grooming
of horses. Jock Smith's horses won at least a few prizes,
including the Coronation Derby of 1911, in Salisbury; Smith rode
his, own horse in that derby and it was not unusual for him to do
so.
Agnes Hodgson arrived in Selukwe in January 1907. Her father
had left his wife and family of four children in Cumberland and
fought for the British in the Boer War. After the War's end in
1902, he settled in Selukwe and became a gold miner. After
spending a few years in the industry, his family joined him.
Considering that Selukwe in those days was never larger than
900 people--and is about the same in population today--Jock Smith
and Agnes Hodgson probably knew each other as early as 1907. At
any rate, in 1911 they were married.
Jock continued working hard at his enterprises and he and
Agnes both became active in the civic affairs of the community.
The couple also raised a family of two girls and a boy. The
girls, Phyllis and Joan, were born firgt. Then on April 8, 1919,
the boy, Ian Douglas Smith, was born.
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The Southern Rhodesia in which Ian Smith was born and grew up
Was a much different place than was the Rhodesia he declared
independent in 1965. In 1919 both Rhodesias were still governed
under a charter granted to Cecil Rhodes by Great Britain; Britain
had some responsibilities under this charter, but Rhodes's
British South Africa Company held the reins of power. The white
settlers were growing unhappy with the company's rule by this
time and in 1923 voted to establish a self-governing colony, in
which they held a great deal of power in internal affairs, while
allowing Britain the right to govern the areas occupied by blacks
and the responsibility to provide military protection. fThe
British neglected to perform their duties of governing the black
areas and the settler government gradually stepped into this
area; this situation would become a bone of controversy many
years later, when the settlers negotiated for independence.
The population was also small as compared to today. The 1925
edition of The World Almanac and Book of Facts provided an
official estimate from 1921 for Southern Rhodesia. The whites
were 33,500 strong and the native population was estimated at
770,000 people. The white population was 4% of the total, a
percentage that has decreased only in the last ten to twelve
years. The World Almanac estimated the population of Northern
Rhodesia for 1920 as comprised of 3,500 Europeans and 928,000
Africans.
The colonial government was structured like those in much of
Europe. There was a Parliament and a prime minister. The party
taking the majority of the seats in the Parliamentary elections
chose the prime minister, who remained in office until the next
scheduled election or until Parliament defeated a major
government bill and the prime minister was forced to resign or
call new elections.
Very few blacks had the right to vote and none were elected
to Parliament under this constitution, which remained in effect
until 1961. Although until after World War II blacks comprised
about 95% of the population--and whites, Asians, and colored
(those of mixed race) were the other five percent--few blacks
pressed for civil or political rights. While blacks probably
were very unhappy with receiving a very limited franchise, very
limited occupational and educational opportunities, and
substandard housing, they rarely felt much could be done to
improve their lot.
Smith's home community was very small. In his youth it was
first a mining camp and later a town. Conditions there were
somewhat primitive. There was no electricity. The town had only
one store and a town hall, built of plaster and lathe, where the
town's social activities, such as dances and tea parties and
meetings of various charitable and social clubs, took place.
Other social events were the various athletic activities, such as
soccer. The young Ian Smith was fascinated by sports.
The town's inhabitants made the town cosmopolitan in terms of
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ethnic and racial groups. Of course, most of the inhabitants
were black. The rest were a mixture of European groups, of which
the British were probably the most numerous. The town also
contained a number of Greeks and Jews, as well as other
Europeans.
The social conditions of Selukwe and Southern Rhodesia as a
whole undoubtedly had a great deal of influence on the
development of Smith's personality. Another source of influence
on the boy was his father. Smith always thought highly of his
father and much later in life remarked that his father encouraged
his involvement in sports while he was a pupil at the primary
school in Selukwe: "I spent a little too much time on sport, and
I could have spent a little more time at my studies. Of course
my father being very keen on sport encouraged me, perhaps to the
detriment of my studies in those days." Early in life Smith
began competing and winning at sports.
After graduating from the Selukwe School, Smith went on to
Chaplin School, the secondary school in Gwelo. At both schools,
Smith performed with excellence on the sports field and was,
academically, an average student. At Chaplin, Smith took part in
a number of sports, including rugby, tennis, and cricket. He
excelled in mathematics and arithmetic and his grades were fair
in most other subjects. In Latin, French, and Greek, however,
Smith earned poor marks. It might be added that both at home and
at school Smith was well behaved, rarely getting into trouble.

After graduating from Chaplin School, Smith left home to
attend Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa.
Grahamstown, about twenty miles (32 km) north of the coast in the
Cape Province, had about 15,000 inhabitants when Smith was there.
Smith found the demands of college life required him to do more
schoolwork and drop some of his sports activities, but apparently
he was not disturbed by this, realizing that school was more
important than sports.
Smith was socially active at Rhodes. He made many friends
and was a member of a number of councils and was elected headman
of his house. He was also chairman of the Students'
Representative Council and he was a leader among those wanting
better quality food at the houses.
Smith spent three years at Rhodes, but World War II
interrupted his studies. On September 1, 1939, Germany sparked a
world war by sending armies into Poland. Immediately Great
Britain and France declared war on Germany and immediately the
Soviet Union entered the war to seize a share of Poland.
In September 1941 Smith left school to join the Southern
Rhodesia Air Force. He was sent to the Royal Air Force and was
trained in Southern Rhodesia in fighter aircraft. In 1942, his
training completed, Smith was assigned to the 237 (Rhodesia)
Squadron in Iran as a fighter pilot. While in Iran Southern
Rhodesian Prime Minister Sir Godfrey Huggins decided to visit
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Smith's squadron and Smith got the honor of flying one of the
four fighters that escorted Huggins's airplane. l
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Smith was then transferred to the north African sector of the
war and, as a flight-lieutentant, he flew a Hurricane on missions l
over enemy terrain. Smith years later claimed that he first
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thought seriously about politics while in north Africa. He and
fellow Rhodesian pilots spent a lot of time talking about

politics, because there was little to do in the desert but talk.
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On October 4, 1943, Smith suffered injuries in an accident
that could easily have taken his life. Early in the morning
darkness he was taking off from an airstrip to go on a mission,
when he failed to get his plane high enough to clear a sandbag l
defense wall. The plane's undercarriage snagged on the sandbags
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and Smith lost control of the plane. His plane was destroyed,
parts being scattered over 400 meters (1300 feet or one-fourth
mile). Smith's harness, designed to take one ton of stress,
snapped, throwing him into the instrument panel. He suffered
injuries to his face, back, head, and one leg. His face was so
badly injured that one of his rescuers remarked, "He'll be cold
meat in a few minutes." i
However, extensive plastic surgery and six months of
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recuperation enabled Smith to return to action. Throughout his
life, though, Smith suffered sporadic trouble with the discs in
his back.

As the Allied forces captured the islands of Corsica,
Sardinia, and Sicily and pushed into Italy, it became desirable a
to move airstrips into these areas so as to inflict the maximum
amount of damage to the Axis forces as possible. Smith's
squadron as a result was stationed on Corsica and Smith flew his
Spitfire on numerous raids on enemy positions in northern Italy.
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In June 1944 Smith left his base for a raid on the Po Valley,
in northeast Italy, but did not return. He was strafing German

ground forces when his plane was hit by flak. Smith coaxed his
plane to stay in the air as long as he could, but he finally had l
to parachute out in the Ligurian Alps, north of Genoa. No one in
Smith's outfit knew what happened to him, so he was officially l
listed as missing in action. He was to remain missing for five
months, when he and three other servicemen suddenly turned up in
southern France.
After Smith bailed out of his crippled Spitfire, he had to
hide from a German patrol operating in the area. After the
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Germans left Smith spotted a small boy herding sheep and he e
approached the boy and talked to him. The boy's family hid Smith
in a cave for a few days and the mother brought him food. Smith
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then met a well-to-do family who were sheltering a British Army
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captain. After this he met a group of Italian partisans who
lived nearby, in a town named Moretti Piancenstani.

Smith fought with the partisans and they put him in charge of
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