I would like to thank MT Howard for his very thoughtful review of my book. It isn’t very often that a reviewer takes the time to read a book carefully. Howard’s questions to me at the end of his review are valuable for moving our research forward, something I hope he and many other historians will do. The first question is a good one, whether it is realistic to think the files on Rhodesia and Zimbabwe in non-Western Cold War archives will become available. There have been some positive developments; some Chinese scholars have gained access to the Chinese archives on the Cold War in Southern Africa, and we should hopefully see new works as they relate to China’s support for the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). I recall hearing a paper presented at the US African Studies Association in 2022 by Jodie Yuzhou Sun that used Chinese archival sources to discuss Chinese-Mozambican relations (see Jodie Yuzhou Sun, Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949-2019, 2023). I asked Dr. Sun if she had accessed files on Chinese support for ZANU and ZANLA, and she indicated that she had. This is a promising development. There are others who have had access to the Soviet-era archives, and hopefully they will be providing new materials for Soviet relations with ZANLA and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union. Another question was about archival sources on South African support for the Rhodesians during the war. Gary Baines’ article is a certainly a good start in this direction (Gary Baines, “The Arsenal of Securocracy: Pretoria’s provision of arms and aid to Salisbury, c.1974–1980,” South African Historical Journal, 2019). The South African Defence Force files on support for the Rhodesian military are not so easy to work through, as it takes Afrikaans language skills as well as perhaps a former career as a military accountant. This is a tricky puzzle, in part because military supplies listed on South African ledgers were often put forward as ‘loans’ while others as direct support, but as Baines argues, and from what I have seen from the South African Defence Force archives myself, the amount of support from the Republic of South Africa for the Rhodesian Defense Forces, both in terms of materials and personnel, has yet to be fully demonstrated. On the question of sanctions-busting, I haven’t really dug into the sanctions-busting materials in the archives yet. The British kept good files on it, mostly having to do with how to make sure British oil interests were not brought to the UN Sanctions committee for violations after the Southern Rhodesia (Petroleum) Order of 1965. Eddie Michel has covered this issue well (Eddie Michel, The White House and White Africa: Presidential Policy Toward Rhodesia During the UDI Era, 1965-1979, 2018). Anecdotally, I remember an interview with a former communications advisor who had the honor (perhaps more the sense of survival) to serve both former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe, who told me that he was often in Italy in the 1970s working to secretly secure parts for Rhodesia’s airlines. I haven’t yet got access to Eastern European files related to what were sanctions-busting actions, so I look forward to seeing what will be uncovered in the future and encourage Howard and others to keep digging up new sources in likely and unlikely places.
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