The Tar Baby Option: American Policy toward Southern Rhodesia

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Columbia University Press, Jan 15, 2000 - Political Science - 316 pages
"No area of the world has been viewed by Americans with greater moral disapproval and yet less attention than southern Africa," writes Anthony Lake in the introduction to The "Tar Baby" Option. Feeling that there is much to be learned from an examination of the American response to the Rhodesian problem, he offers a detailed account of America's Southern Rhodesia policy since the Smith government's unilateral declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1965. The book provides information essential to an understanding of the American approach to the current crisis in the region. The author's use of previously undisclosed materials and interviews with U.S. foreign policymakers gives the reader an inside look not only at the Rhodesian question but also at the politics of American foreign policy.

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Contents

The International
35
The Necessity
60
The Shift in Approach 196970
123
Assorted Activities Violating
158
The Byrd Amendment
198
The Consequences of the Byrd
239
To Repeal a Policy
270
United Nations Resolutions
287
Copyright

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Page viii - Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and, to this end: a. to ensure, with due respect for the culture of the peoples concerned, their political, economic, social, and educational advancement, their just treatment, and their protection against abuses; b. to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances...

About the author (2000)

Anthony Lake is Executive Director of International Voluntary Services,a private multinational development organization. A Foreign Service Officer from 1962 to 1970, he served in 1969-1970 as Special Assistant to the President's National Security Advisor. In 1971-1972 Mr. Lake was foreign policy coordinator for the Muskie Election Committee. He joined the Carnegie Endowment staff in 1972 as Director of the Special Rhodesia Project under whose auspices the research for this book was carried out. He is the author of numerous articles on foreign policy and a contributor to the New York Times, Foreign Policy magazine, and other journals. Mr. Lake graduated from Harvard and received a Ph.D. from Princeton

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