The Gordian Knot: Apartheid & the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order, 1960-1970
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THE GORDIAN KNOT: APARTHEID & THE UNMAKING OF THE LIBERAL WORLD ORDER, 1960-1970 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Ryan Irwin, B.A., M.A. History ***** The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Professor Peter Hahn Professor Robert McMahon Professor Kevin Boyle Professor Martha van Wyk © 2010 by Ryan Irwin All rights reserved. ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the apartheid debate from an international perspective. Positioned at the methodological intersection of intellectual and diplomatic history, it examines how, where, and why African nationalists, Afrikaner nationalists, and American liberals contested South Africa’s place in the global community in the 1960s. It uses this fight to explore the contradictions of international politics in the decade after second-wave decolonization. The apartheid debate was never at the center of global affairs in this period, but it rallied international opinions in ways that attached particular meanings to concepts of development, order, justice, and freedom. As such, the debate about South Africa provides a microcosm of the larger postcolonial moment, exposing the deep-seated differences between politicians and policymakers in the First and Third Worlds, as well as the paradoxical nature of change in the late twentieth century. This dissertation tells three interlocking stories. First, it charts the rise and fall of African nationalism. For a brief yet important moment in the early and mid-1960s, African nationalists felt genuinely that they could remake global norms in Africa’s image and abolish the ideology of white supremacy through U.N. activism. These efforts existed parallel to the fall and rise of the Nationalist government. This work also follows Pretoria’s attempt to circumvent African diplomacy by rehabilitating South Africa’s status among specific power brokers in Washington, New York, London, and other Western metropoles. The United ii States shaped the arena surrounding African/ Afrikaner antagonism and functioned as the referee of this contest. The final prong of this project, therefore, explains the growth and collapse of American liberal internationalism, as well as the rise of realpolitik in the late 1960s. As international politics grew more unwieldy in the postcolonial years, U.S. policymakers began to reconsider both the intellectual universalisms that had propelled decolonization and the institutional integrity of organizations like the United Nations. This shift eroded the power of African nation-states, cemented the stability of the South African government, and established the template of the 1970s—an era marked by moral ambiguity, transnational activism, and geopolitical détente. iii FOR AMY iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I fell in love with this job for the first time on August 7, 2007. It was the beginning of my second month of archival research in South Africa and I was buried two floors beneath the Union Buildings in Pretoria—the pseudo-equivalent of the White House in Washington, DC—looking through documents on the National Party’s response to the apartheid debate in the 1960s. I had visited plenty of archives at this point, but this one was especially unique. The call system consisted of a conversation with the head archivist and the reading room was a cluttered table in the midst of the actual stacks. Halfway through that particular afternoon my sole companion interrupted my work with a question—that morning we’d spent thirty minutes or so chatting about our favorite books and contemporary events, and he seemed eager to continue the discussion. “Ryan, I must know,” he began. “When people read your book will they call you a fox or a hedgehog?” Seven time zones from home, living in a rented flat far from my soon-to-be wife and friends, and this man—for all intents and purposes a complete stranger—wanted to discuss Isaiah Berlin. He wanted to discuss the meaning of life. This project, like most, sits atop a string of unanswerable questions asked by people in archives, classrooms, living rooms, restaurants, and conference halls in South Africa, Great Britain, and the United States. My debts are numerous. Like most students of the humanities, however, they begin with funding organizations. My travels and other activities were made possible by the generous support of the Society for Historians of v American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, International Security Studies at Yale University, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the Kirwan Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, and the History Department at Ohio State University. Without this institutional support this project would never have gotten off the ground. I’m grateful especially to Chris Burton, Ann Powers, and Joby Abernathy for all their assistance at Ohio State. During my final years as a Ph.D. candidate, I attained full-year fellowships from International Security Studies at Yale University and SHAFR, which gave me an unparalleled opportunity to step away from teaching and write this manuscript in New Haven, Connecticut. Jeff Mankoff, Ann Carter-Drier, Susan Hennigan, and Kathleen Murphy made this transition seamless and I’m deeply appreciative of their help as well. I’ve been blessed with remarkable advisors and friends. Peter Hahn, Robert McMahon, Carole Fink, Mitch Lerner, and Jennifer Siegel have created an outstanding diplomatic history program at Ohio State, and I benefited tremendously from their leadership and support. In the classroom, they encourage counter-intuitive thinking and rigorous critical analysis; outside the classroom they nurture creative endeavors and foster an environment of consummate collegiality. I am indebted most particularly to Peter Hahn and Robert McMahon, who cultivated my ideas from the very beginning, as well as Kevin Boyle and Judy Wu, who remain the best teachers I have ever met— models of excellence in academia. The life-blood of any program is its students and I benefited undoubtedly from the feedback, support, and criticism of my fellow buckeyes, most especially Chapin Rydingsward, Paul Chamberlin, Alex Poster, Jessica Pliley, Kate Epstein, Mark Rice, Angela Ryan, Doug Stewart, Joe Orser, Greg Kupsky, and Brian vi Kennedy. Paul, Chapin, and Alex, in particular, have been companions and confidants since the day I arrived in Columbus in September 2004. Beyond Columbus, Paul Kennedy and John Gaddis offered valuable support during my time in Connecticut, as well as Lien-Hang Nguyen and Sarah Snyder. Tim Borstelmann, Nick Cullather, James Esdaile, Richard Hull, Miguel Jerónimo, Dane Kennedy, Philippa Levine, Wm. Roger Louis, Frederick Logevall, Paul Ocobock, Jason Parker, Taylor Sherman, Jeremi Suri, and Marilyn Young also provided generous feedback on different parts of this manuscript at conferences, workshops, and other events in Bloomington, Boston, Madison, New York, and Washington, DC. In South Africa, Anna-Mart and Johann van Wyk, as well as Tilman Dedering, opened their homes and provided companionship, as well as assistance and critical feedback on this project. Christopher Saunders, Geoffrey Allen, Jan Picard, Neels Muller, and Mosoabuli Maamoe were also immensely welcoming and helpful. My experiences in South Africa would have been much different without their assistance. At a different stage, Sue Onslow also offered guidance about South Africa. Scott Cappuzzo, Seth and Emily Art, Brian Nordell, Adam Gloo, Jason and Kate Behan, and Scott and Pat Clark provided irony and places to stay in New York, Washington, and Boston. My parents, grandparents, and in- laws gave sage advice and encouragement from afar; my brother passed along invaluable information on the importance of Florida sea grass to the apartheid debate of the 1960s. I remain deeply grateful to everyone. My biggest debt, however, is to Amy. For nearly a decade she’s sat at the center of my life. From that vantage point, she has pushed me incessantly to be a better version of myself, forced me to laugh at my excesses, and patiently provided feedback on every single vii word I have written. Without her toleration, my routine sojourns would be impossible. Without her curiosity, my unanswerable questions would remain uninterrogated. Without her love, this manuscript would be incomplete. This work is hers. viii VITA 1980………………………………………... Born, Portland, Maine 1999………………………………………... Liverpool High School 2003………………………………………... B.A., State University of New York at Geneseo 2003-2004………………………………….. Program Coordinator, Syracuse SUCCESS 2006………………………………………....M.A., The Ohio State University 2004-2007…………………………………. Graduate Associateship, The Ohio State University 2008-2009………………………………….. Predoctoral Fellowship, Yale University 2009-2010…………………………………..Dissertation Completion Fellowship, The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Publications “Tragedy, Revisited . Again.” Passport: The Newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Vol. 40, No. 2 (September 2009). “Wind of Change? White Redoubt and the Postcolonial Moment, 1960-1963,” Diplomatic History Vol. 33, No. 5 (November 2009). Fields of Study Major Field: History ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….. ii Dedication…………………………………………………………………………..iv Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………v Vita………………………………………………………………………………….ix Framing History…………………………………………………………………….1 PART ONE · Winds of Change…………………………………………………...15 1.