South African Future

I disagree with your editorial “Another Big Step for a New South Africa” (June 7). I see instead the first real beginning of “white flight” as a result of the repeal of the two laws dealing with residential patterns.

President Frederik W. de Klerk, in his haste to appease the critics of apartheid, is taking a big step down the same path as Lyndon Johnson’s flawed Great Society--trying to force diverse ethnic groups to like each other through legislation. One only needs to see the savagery between the African National Congress and the Zulus to understand the apprehension in non-black neighborhoods that this action brings. Can forced integration and affirmative action be far behind?

Whether you like it or not, the strength of the South African economy is a product of its white founders, industrialists, entrepreneurs, managers and administrators. When they leave, as they most surely will when their neighborhoods and businesses turn from white to black, South Africa will follow all of its “liberated” neighbors down the path of economic ruin.

The future of the “New South Africa” is predictable!

PAUL E. KENT

Rancho Mirage