SO UTH AFRICA INC. The Oppenheimer Empire DAVID PALLISTER SARAH STEWART IAN LEPPER LOWRY PUBLISHERS MEDIA HOUSE PUBLICATIONS E116210 338 Cape Town City Libraries Contents 2 9 FEB 1988 Preface and Acknowledgements Kaapse Stadsbiblioteek Abbreviations Chronology 1 A Day Out to Carletonville 2 The Oppenheimer Dynasty 3 Early Days ISBN 0 947042 23 7 4 The Importance of Being Harry First published in South Africa in 1987 by 5 From Sharpeville to Soweto Media House Publications (Pty) Limited 6 Bringing in the Yankee Dollar Box 782395, Sandton 2146 7 The Diamond Conspiracy In association with Lowry Publishers Cc 8 The Golden Arc Box 30685, Braamfontein 2017 9 Working for Anglo 10 Playing the Black Markets © 1987 David Pailister, Sarah Stewart and Ian Lepper 11 The Lair of the Lion This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. 12 Crossing the River No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. Appendix: Profile of the Anglo Group Notes and References Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bibliography A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd, Exeter Index To the black miners of South Africa Preface and A cknowledgements The Dutch first came to South Africa in 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck founded a small settlement at the Cape of Good Hope as a way-station to the East for the Dutch East India Company, In crossing the river I become a new man, but it was not until two centuries later that the region began to be of real interest to Europeans. In 1867 diamonds were first Different from the one I was at home. discovered there and in 1884 the first South African goldfields At home I was secure were opened. The so-called Randlords who exploited the fabulous But now that I am on this side underground riches came from England, Germany and Russia. I am in a place of danger, Many of them were anglophile Jewish emigres, and the first great Where I may lose my life at any time. mining houses were based in London. They combined a brutal So prepare me for my death. capitalism with a colonialist fervour that sought to secure South Africa's wealth within the British Empire. In their scheme of things From Another Blanket, Sotho migrant labourers' song the Boers, who spoke the 'kitchen language' of Afrikaans, were rural primitives; the tens of thousands of Blacks who worked the mines were dispensable units of production who could only be 'civilised' by a long association with European culture. The Boer War, at the turn of the century, decimated the Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State and in 1910 the Union of South Africa was established. The second generation of Randlords included the Oppenheimer brothers, who came from a wealthy merchant family in Germany. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer founded the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa in 1917. It became the largest company in South I believe that we are today crossing the Rubicon. There Africa and, in many respects, the dynamo of the apartheid can be no turning back. economy. For the past fifty years the family has enjoyed an unpre­ cedented control of the West's supplies of diamonds, gold and President P.W. Botha, 15 August 1985 platinum. Sir Ernest's son, Harry, was known around the world as vii Vlll PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IX the 'King of Diamonds'. Their rise to pre-eminence has paralleled result is neither biography nor corporate history but, we hope, a and at times complemented with their money and power the devel­ synthesis of a family and its fortunes which illuminates some of opment of the South African state. Sir Ernest and Harry welded the most important political developments in southern Africa this together an empire of huge and sprawling proportions that has century. In unravelling the complexities, we have avoided the strict penetrated the economies of six continents. Yet the empire is so chronological method. Rather as a diamond cutter we have selected complex that it is never recognised as a single entity. each facet as a face of the whole. There is, though, a detailed The family themselves, and the corporate image, have presented appendix showing the group's interests around the world. a face to the world as South Africa's leading white opponents of As we have written, the unfolding struggle for black liberation apartheid. Both father and son have been opposition politicians as in South Africa has quickened and events are being daily overtaken well as leading capitalists arguing against the more restrictive prac­ by the battles in the townships. New power relationships are tices of apartheid. Yet the mines on which their wealth rests evolving within the white and black communities. The sanctions provided the economic impetus for some of South Africa's most debate is raging unresolved, as yet reluctant to tackle the core of vicious legislation - the Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act and the the apartheid regime's strength - gold. But whatever may happen migrant labour system where thousands of men live in compounds in the coming months, we hope that this book assists an under­ away from their families. The system was already in the making standing of South Africa's most loyal ally, the Oppenheimer even before the Afrikaner nationalists took power in 1948 and dynasty. Nelson Mandela summed up the Oppenheimers' strategy imposed their ideological racism on the country. nearly twenty-five years ago, writing in the June 1953 issue of the Cautiously and assiduously, the Oppenheimers have honed a monthly magazine, Liberation: 'Rather than attempt the costly, mystique about them that has so far defied critical examination. To dubious and dangerous task of crushing the non-European mass be sure, Sir Ernest and Harry have inspired three biographies over movements by force, they [the Oppenheimers] would seek to divert the past twenty-five years, all of them from admirers and the last it with fine words and promises and divide it by giving concessions in 1978. Nevertheless we owe them a debt, as their approach and bribes to a privileged minority (the "suitably qualified" voters guaranteed access to privileged family information. The structure perhaps).' They are still, against all the odds, pursuing the same of the secretive Anglo American Corporation and the De Beers course. diamond monopoly has been pondered over by countless economic The Counter Information Services project was launched with the commentators. But the true picture of the Oppenheimer dynastic support of the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation of Niles, Illinois. empire has always remained elusive and partial. The project led first to a report and campaign in Britain against Here, for the first time, is an attempt to redress the balance. This Consolidated Gold Fields. book began as a research project by Counter Information Services We would like to thank all those who have helped us with our (CIS), which has a fifteen-year history of exposing the workings of work on this book, including the Anglo executives who gave us multinationals. It has produced four reports dealing directly with interviews. In particular Jonathan Bloch, Duncan Brewer, David South Africa, including its first on Rio Tinto Zinc and in 1977 a Brooks, Margaret Busby, Martin Cleaver, Brian Hackland, Jeremy study of the Soweto uprising, Black South Africa Explodes. In late Herbert, Anne Koch and Pat Sidley, and those in the trade unions 1985, as the political situation in South Africa became more critical, in South Africa, were generous in their assistance to us. We would it was decided to expand the project, then well advanced, into a also like to thank the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust, the book. Fund for Tomorrow, the World Council of Churches, Christian Our researches have taken us to Johannesburg, most recently in Concern for Southern Africa, the American Committee on Africa, 1986, into the citadels of the Anglo American empire and down and the Institute of Policy Studies, who gave their support to the the gold mines. In interviews and libraries we have unearthed CIS project. matters which the empire would prefer to have remained hidden, and resuscitated events which it would prefer were forgotten. The London March 1987 Abbreviations AAA Australian Anglo American AAC Anglo American Corporation of South Africa ABF Associated British Foods ACT Advanced Corporation Tax AECI African Explosives and Chemical Industries Limited AFL-CIO American Federation of Labour-Congress of Indus­ trial Organizations AHI Afrikaner Handelsinstitut AJV Ashton Joint Venture AMAX American Metal Climax Inc. AMAPROP Anglo American Properties Limited Ambras Anglo American Corporation do Brasil Limitada Amcar Amcar Motor Holdings Amcoal Anglo American Coal Corporations Limited Amgold Anglo American Gold Investment Company Limited AMIC Anglo American Industrial Corporation AMWU African Mine Workers' Union Amzim Anglo American Corporation Zimbabwe Ltd Anamint Anglo American Investment Trust Limited ANC African National Congress Anglo Anglo American Group Anglo-Vaal Anglo Transvaal Mines Consolidated APS Association of Private Schools Armscor Armaments Corporation of South Africa Assocom Association of Chambers of Commerce Barnat Barclays National Bank BOSS Bureau of State Security xi Xll ABBREVIATIONS ABBREVIATIONS xiii BSAC British South Africa Company NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration CDM Consolidated Diamond Mines of South-West Africa OAU Organization of African Unity Charter Charter Consolidated OFSIL Orange Free State Investments CIA Central Intelligence Agency PAC Pan Africanist Congress CMS Consolidated Mines