S. Africans Rap Consideration of Black Envoy

Right-wing whites reacted with dismay today to news that the Reagan Administration is considering appointing a black as the next U.S. ambassador to South Africa.

“I think the government should refuse to receive him,” Jaap Marais, leader of the extreme Herstigte Nasionale Party (Reformed National Party) told Reuters.

Administration officials in Washington on Monday said President Reagan might choose businessman Robert Brown, 51, to be the first black to head the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria.

The South African Foreign Ministry said it had received no word about the appointment of a new U.S. ambassador and had no comment.

Unfriendly Gesture

Marais, whose party has attracted mounting support from whites opposed to the government’s minor reforms in apartheid, said Brown’s appointment would be an unfriendly gesture.

“They (the U.S. leadership) know the position in South Africa,” he added.

Prof. John Barratt, head of Johannesburg’s Institute of International Affairs, said that if Brown is appointed, Pretoria would be hard pressed to find recognized diplomatic grounds for objection.

“The fact that he is black could not possibly be cited as an objection,” Barratt said.

The United States has previously had black diplomats in South Africa and the present U.S. consul in Cape Town is black.

Gesture for Blacks

Business Day, a conservative financial daily, said the suggestion of a black ambassador was a sign that Reagan’s policy of “constructive engagement” with Pretoria was approaching the end of its useful life.

“The probable choice of a black diplomat by a supposedly color-blind society to replace (present Ambassador Herman) Nickel tells its own story: It is intended as a signal, a gesture of support for black South Africans and of defiance towards their white government,” it said in an editorial.

It added: “The ties that have bound us to America for the past 40 years or so, and which have created a sizable body of mutual interest, are being abandoned one by one.”