Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

But he fails to move the Senate or make his point

In Frank Capra's classic cinemorality play, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, an idealistic hick politician successfully filibusters the Senate into accepting his impassioned arguments. Last week another Mr. Smith -- also a country boy, albeit a shrewd one from a far country -- went to Washington seeking somewhat the same kind of improbable result. But to no avail. After four whirlwind days in the capital promoting his "internal settlement" approach to biracial government in Rhodesia, Prime Minister Ian Smith failed to impress even many of the 27 Senators who had invited him to Washington over State Department objection.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, the most eloquent of the three black leaders who sit with him on the executive council that is preparing the way for Smith's concept of black rule in Rhodesia. The two leaders had a two-hour session with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance; as they left the State Department surrounded by Secret Service agents to protect them from placard-waving demonstrators, Smith grimly characterized the meeting as a sparring session in which there was nothing more than "a repetition of old ideas." In a pointed rebuff, Vance did not even bother to escort Smith from the State Department building as he customarily does with visiting dignitaries.

President Carter flatly refused to meet the Rhodesians, telling a press conference: "I do not intend to see Mr. Smith. There is no reason for me to meet with him." Smith's best moment, as a result, was a session with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There he declared that all four members of the executive council are prepared to attend "with no preconditions" an all-parties conference on Rhodesia's future, sponsored by the U.S. and Britain, and including Patriotic Front Leaders Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. After checking out Smith's statement with his Rhodesian advisers, State Department African experts concluded that the Prime Minister's remarks represented "no change of policy."

The Administration is convinced that Smith has long since lost sight of Rhodesian reality. Reported one U.S. diplomat who sat in on last week's sessions with Vance: "Smith maintains that everything is just fine, as though it could go on forever, even though his casualty rates, emigration and capital outflow are higher than ever. Our concern is that if Smith stays firm on the internal settlement, it is a recipe for disaster."

To all who would hear him out, Smith patiently insisted that his internal settlement fulfills the conditions of an agreement he made with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1976. In brief, Smith said, he agreed to majority rule for the breakaway British colony within two years; in return, the U.S. and Britain would recognize the legitimacy of his government and end the United Nations sanctions that have plagued Rhodesia's economy since 1966. "Our case is watertight," said Smith. "We cannot understand what is wrong."

In fact, answer U.S. diplomats, several things are wrong. Although Kissinger last week cautiously suggested that the U.S. should give the internal settlement "an opportunity" to succeed, he has formally denied making any flat promises to Smith about recognition or the sanctions. Beyond that, State Department officials argue that Smith's idea of majority rule involved a very restricted black electorate and special privileges for Rhodesia's whites -- in short, continued minority rule. "Two years later, he says he's now willing to accept the original formula," says one U.S. negotiator. "Well, that was two years ago, and things have changed."

Smith's halfhearted commitment to equality for blacks was demonstrated by an announcement from Salisbury last week -- not timed to the Washington visit, Rhodesian officials lamely insisted -- proclaiming the end of the country's racial discrimination laws. Bishop Abel Muzorewa, another black member of the executive council, beamed as he announced the change: "I am so happy I could jump off the top of the roof." In fact, the laws still must be passed by Rhodesia's white-dominated assembly, and economic restrictions replace the legal fiats that are to be abolished. Under the new laws, for example, blacks are free to seek treatment in hospitals hitherto reserved for whites, but they must pay a $15-a-day room fee in addition to medical expenses, and the average African worker earns a scant $882 a year. Schools in white areas will be open to people of all races in the neighborhood -- a meaningless right, as in the U.S., for blacks who cannot afford to live in expensive suburbs where the best schools are.

Prospects for an immediate convening of an all-parties conference were not good. White Rhodesians believe that this Anglo-American goal is unrealistic, under present circumstances, and only encourages the guerrillas to carry on their fight. In addition, the Patriotic Front leaders and their supporters in the "frontline states" are at odds over the decision by

Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda to reopen his border with Rhodesia in order to import much-needed fertilizer. Tanzania's Julius Nyerere and Mozambique's Samora Machel flew to Zambia in a vain effort to persuade Kaunda to reverse his decision. "I feel like I've lost a friend of 20 years," said Nyerere after leaving Lusaka. Mugabe, the Marxist leader of the Mozambique-based Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), was also outraged by the decision. Conceding that Kaunda had acted out of "economic necessity," a ZANU statement said that the decision to reopen the border was "extremely embarrassing" since it "boosts the sagging morale of a disintegrating settler economy."

Mugabe had reason to be worried. According to rumors in Lusaka and Dar es Salaam, a new scenario for settling the Rhodesia problem was afoot. With Zambian support, the British would eventually move into Rhodesia after Smith resigns and install Joshua Nkomo of the Zimbabwe African People's Union as head of a new interim government. That would leave Mugabe and his radical allies out in the cold.

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