World: Tambo Interview "We

Oliver Tambo, 69, has served as acting president of the African National Congress for 19 years. The son of a peasant Transkei farmer, he studied at a Protestant missionary school and once considered becoming an Anglican minister. At one of the A.N.C.'s modest houses scattered throughout the Zambian capital of Lusaka, Tambo discussed his group's aims and methods with TIME Senior Editor George M. Taber and Correspondents Bruce Nelan and James Wilde. Dressed nattily in a beige safari suit with a paisley cravat tucked around his neck, the A.N.C. president tugged thoughtfully on wispy chin whiskers as he spoke. Excerpts:

On negotiations with the South African government. What the A.N.C. is looking for is a clear indication that the other side is serious. If the South African government is serious, then our leaders, who, like Nelson Mandela, have been in jail for over 20 years, must participate in any negotiations. The mere fact of their release would create a new climate. We do not want to substitute negotiations for the struggle. The Portuguese negotiated with the liberation fronts in Mozambique and Angola while hostilities were still going on. The liberation struggle for Zimbabwe continued while talks went on at Lancaster House in London. President Botha says we must disarm ourselves before talks. Why? This is not serious.

On Communists in the A.N.C. We are nobody's puppets. When we talk about the A.N.C., we are talking about a body that is not the Communist Party but which has always had C.P. members since the 1920s. They have always behaved as 100% A.N.C. men. The A.N.C. is a national movement. We all -- Communists and non- Communists alike -- want a nonracial, democratic, united South Africa. We are too clear about where we are heading to be diverted from our goals.

On Soviet aid. We have sought assistance everywhere. We found it in some places and not in others. No country in the West would give us weapons, so we went to the Soviet Union. They agreed to give us weapons, and we accepted them. I have gone up and down the socialist countries, and not once has any of them tried to tell us what to do. African countries also gave us weapons, and we accepted them. Where else could we have gone? We also get tremendous assistance from the Nordic countries -- as much as, if not more than, from the socialist countries. Yet it is never suggested that we are their puppets.

On the A.N.C.'s use of violence. Violence is one of the tools we use. It was not the first we thought of. For 48 years we had a policy of nonviolence. This is a difficult policy if you are being hit and cannot hit back. Every act we committed that was nonviolent produced more violence from the other side. We reached a dead end after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. Only after that did we decide to embrace violence -- to remove a violent system.

On relations with the U.S. The Reagan Administration still holds on to the concept that South Africa is an ally. We would like to see the U.S. break that alliance and take a firm position on the side of the victims, not only in South Africa but in this whole region. The U.S. has its own history, its own experience, which is similar to what we are experiencing in South Africa. The U.S. is the last country that should see itself as an ally of the apartheid system.

On the A.N.C. program. We favor a mixed economy. There will be nationalization at some point and to some extent. At what point and to what extent will be determined by the situation that obtains at the time. But the need for a redistribution of wealth is indisputable. The rights of every South African will be protected. Everyone. We have got to move away from the concept of race and color because that is what apartheid is. We cannot end apartheid if we retain these concepts. We might even have a white President. I would not hesitate to vote for a white person as President if I thought he was the best person for the job.