South Africa Laying Down the Law

By William R. Doerner.

Few Presidents have excelled Ronald Reagan at winning showdown foreign policy votes on Capitol Hill. Through a combination of astute compromise and skillful personal lobbying, the President has managed to persuade reluctant legislators on such hotly contested matters as sending advanced AWACS surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia and aid to the contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. But ) last week Reagan's fabled reserves of luck and persuasion finally ran out. Both houses of Congress voted decisively to override his veto of a bill calling for stiff economic sanctions against South Africa.

It was only the sixth of 50 vetoes to be reversed during the Reagan presidency. White House researchers could find only two other examples this century of foreign policy vetoes that were overridden -- a World War II immigration measure and the 1973 War Powers Act, which Richard Nixon tried unsuccessfully to scuttle. In effect, Congress called for an abrupt end to the Reagan Administration policy of "constructive engagement," through which Washington sought to nudge South Africa into gradually liberalizing its system of apartheid. Instead, Congress adopted measures designed to bring about social change by exerting economic pressure on the government of State President P.W. Botha.

The sanctions package bans new American investments in South Africa and prohibits the import of such South African commodities as steel, iron, farm products, uranium and coal -- worth a total of $713 million in 1985. It suspends South African Airways' landing privileges in the U.S. The congressional package will reinforce the effect of somewhat weaker sanctions adopted last month by the twelve members of the European Community, which do not contain any provisions affecting coal imports or airline landing rights.

South African officials denied that the sanctions would have any major impact on the nation's economy. They warned, as Reagan did, that any hardships that do result will most likely affect South Africa's 24 million mostly poor blacks, as well as neighboring black African states whose economies are linked to Pretoria's. "Well, it's done," said Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha. "Now maybe they'll leave us alone." Other foreign leaders who have opposed sanctions in the past showed little inclination to be swayed by the new U.S. policy. Said a top aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who led resistance to the E.C. measures: "Her determination to resist further sanctions remains as strong as ever."

An overwhelming majority of the U.S. Congress, however, felt that practical considerations have come to be outweighed by moral ones. The sanctions package, said an elated Congressman Mickey Leland, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, "is absolutely the best we could do." Leland celebrated the Senate victory by joyfully hugging Randall Robinson, executive director of the antiapartheid lobbying group Transafrica. Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, the measure's Senate sponsor, summed it up: "Today the American people spoke in a strong and determined voice against racial injustice in Africa."

Others were far more dubious. Said Kansas Republican Robert Dole, who led the defense of the Administration position in the Senate: "This is a feel- good vote." In a message released by the White House shortly after the vote, Reagan expressed his "deep regret" at the Senate vote. The President added, "Our Administration will, nevertheless, implement the law."

It was a bitter defeat. The White House had mounted a determined, if muddled, last-minute campaign to head off the override. Three days after he vetoed the sanctions bill, which had been passed in August by the Senate (84 to 14) and then later by the House of Representatives (308 to 77), the President sent a letter to House Speaker Tip O'Neill offering to impose some measures in an Executive Order. The proposal included bans on the import of iron and steel but omitted coal and other important items, like the cancellation of airport landing rights. Congress was in no mood to settle for half a loaf. Reagan's offer, said a Lugar aide, was "a day late and a dollar short."

White House strategists then switched to a familiar ploy. Meeting with eight Republican Senators who were considered swing votes, Secretary of State George Shultz argued strongly that a congressional override of the sanctions veto would undercut Reagan's credibility at this weekend's meeting with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Iceland. "To the best of my knowledge, South Africa has never been on the agenda for a summit," commented Lugar. "I think this will be seen as farfetched."

But the blow that finally doomed Administration lobbying efforts came from South Africa. In telephone conversations with two farm-state G.O.P. Senators, Iowa's Charles Grassley and Nebraska's Edward Zorinsky, Pik Botha warned that imposition of sanctions would result in retaliatory measures from Pretoria. South Africa would not only refuse to import any more American wheat (it bought 256,000 tons in the year ending last June) but also block grain deliveries to neighboring black states that depend on South Africa for commercial transport. Both Senators had been buttonholed near the Senate cloakroom by North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, a friend of Botha's and a ) leading foe of sanctions, who proceeded to put them in touch with the Foreign Minister on a cloakroom telephone.

The gambit backfired badly. A furious Lugar denounced Botha's warning as "despicable" and bordering on "bribery and intimidation." Somewhat startled, Botha shot back that it was the first time he had heard that "one was not supposed to provide information to an American Senator." His riposte seemed relatively mild, considering that the bill under review was designed specifically and solely to influence South African policy. Still, Botha apparently failed to appreciate the Senate's carefully nurtured view of its proceedings as "deliberative" and free from apparent coercion.

Although the outcome of the House vote was never in question, the final tally, 313 to 83, was lopsidedly in favor of the override. Until moments before the Senate showdown, Administration strategists insisted they had nearly 30 commitments, but released some when it became clear they would fall short of the 34 needed to sustain Reagan's veto. The crowning moment of the final debate, enacted before a packed gallery, came during an exchange between Helms and Lugar. Helms denounced the sanctions as measures that could eventually lead to a "lasting tyranny" of Communist forces in South Africa. Countered the normally reserved Lugar, his arms raised and his eyes flashing: "We are against tyranny, and tyranny is in South Africa . . . We're saying, Wake up." Although the Administration had gained seven G.O.P. votes since passage of the sanctions, 31 of the Senate's 53 Republicans voted against Reagan, along with all 47 Democrats.

As the legislative drama unfolded in Washington, there were new developments in South Africa. Addressing a provincial congress of his National Party in East London, State President Botha failed to set a date for new elections, which had been expected to take place in November and are now not anticipated until next April, thus postponing a plebiscite on his leadership. Botha also distanced himself from any possibility that his government would consider permitting racially desegregated neighborhoods, a proposal now said to be under review by the President's council studying reform of South Africa's Group Areas Act. "We cannot agree that the principle of separate residential areas be destroyed," he said.

Meanwhile, an appeals court in Bloemfontein, South Africa's judicial capital, overturned a lower-court ruling that Botha had exceeded his authority ! in ordering the detention without charge of some 9,600 South Africans; those detentions had been authorized by the state of emergency that went into effect last June. By ruling that the detentions were legal, the appeals court opened the way for further arrests.

As expected, the White House nominated Edward J. Perkins, 58, to become the first black U.S. Ambassador to South Africa. A career foreign service officer who has been posted for the past 15 months as envoy to Liberia, Perkins is expected to face little opposition in his Senate confirmation hearings. In Pretoria a foreign ministry spokesman said the appointment, which was made for largely symbolic reasons, was "of no concern" to the government.

The sanctions that became law last week do not require U.S. companies now doing business in South Africa to abandon or sell their investments. Even so, reviews of such holdings are under way in a growing number of states, cities and universities. Harvard University announced last week that it will sell $158.7 million in stocks and bonds in companies with operations in South Africa, about 30% of its holdings in such firms. University policy, explained Treasurer Roderick MacDougall, required withdrawing investments in companies that do not meet the widely accepted Sullivan fair-employment standards or that "persist in selling significant quantities of an important good or service" used in enforcing apartheid. Among them: Exxon, Texaco and Ford. Rather like Congress, which debated sanctions for two years before acting, the university last week decided that the time to act had finally come.

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington and Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg