VIDEO: Wm. F. Buckley talks with Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Regular readers of WWW will know that I have an abiding interest in Zimbabwe, a dictatorship in southern Africa which went from being the second-most prosperous on the Dark Continent to what Still-President Trump would now call a "shithole".

I lived and worked in Zimbabwe in the 90s, and could see the handwriting on the wall after the former Big Man, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, decided to pay all his "war veterans" gratuities of Z$50,000 each after they had staged a series of protests, claiming that they had not received the "benefits" of their revolt against the "white settler regime", viz: white cars, white houses and white women.

The unbudgeted payouts saw the Zimbabwe dollar lose its value by 70% in one day -- I remember it well -- and analysts say the move signalled Zimbabwe's well-documented economic collapse. Banknotes were issued in denominations of billions and even trillions of dollars and were literally not worth the paper they were printed on.

The Mugabe government abandoned the "Zimkwacha" because of hyperinflation in 2009 -- 1 US dollar was worth around Z$35 quadrillion at the time -- and started using American dollars and South African rand. 

But I digress. I was about to tell you that when I first went to Africa, there was no Zimbabwe. The country was then known as Rhodesia, a former British colony which declared its independence from No-longer-great Britain on 11 November 1965. I went there about four years later, over five years before William F. Buckley Jr. went there to record this interview with Prime Minister Ian Smith. 

I went to Rhodesia on a fact-finding mission, to see for myself whether the Africans (by which was meant "blacks") were so badly off under white minority rule as was argued by the "progressives" at the United Nations, the World Council of Churches and elsewhere. I concluded that it would be a mistake -- detrimental to the well-being of the Africans -- to overthrow the "white settler government" and impose "majority rule". But it was clear even then, in 1969, that the mistake was going to be made, in the name of "freedom and equality, yada yada yada. The mistake was made, and the result is the shithole that is Zimbabwe today. 

In this interview, recorded in April of 1974, Ian Smith makes the case for the continuation of minority rule until the majority population should be ready to govern themselves. Mr Smith was right, but of course that doesn't matter now, does it. 

One thing to note, at about the 38-minute mark, is that Mr Smith asserts that the black revolutionaries were financed and trained by Communist China. Of course today's China would never do that kind of thing.

Further viewing: Thames Television documentary visit to Rhodesia, June 1975. Includes interview with Ian Smith.  

Putin to Obama: "That's all... for now..."

Russian Tsar ["President", surely! Ed.] Vladimir Putin called US President ["Tsar", surely! Ed.] on the phone yesterday. What do you suppose he said?
a) "Can you hold off the sanctions for six weeks? I was going to take the kids to Disneyland."
b) "Your hockey team couldn't beat the Canadians either!"
c) "Just ignore the troops camping on the Ukrainian border. We're not going there... at the moment..."

The correct answer is "C". The Not-so-white-anymore House released a statement that said, "President Obama underscored to President Putin that the United States continues to support a diplomatic path... with the aim of de-escalation of the crisis. [He] made clear that this remains possible only if Russia pulls back its troops and does not take any steps to further violate Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty."

We were not told how Mr. Putin replied. Perhaps a snort of derision wasn't caught on the CIA's sensitive recording devices. In any case, the two leaders [one and a half? Ed.] agreed that their foreign ministers would meet soon to discuss the next steps.

For what it's worth, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said his country has no intention of sending troops into Ukraine. US Secretary of State John Skerry has said he hopes not, since any invasion would kind of... like... you know... oblige the US to do something to avoid losing the few shreds of credibility it has on the world stage.

The jaw that walks like a man is pushing a plan under which Russia would halt its military build-up on the border with Ukraine -- see (C) above" -- and withdraw its troops to its bases in Crimea.

Oh yeah, "international monitors" would be sent into the area too, "to protect the rights of Russian speakers". No mention was made of the rights of Ukrainians! The Kremlin version of yesterday's phone call says Mr. Putin drew Mr. Obama's attention to "the continued rampage of extremists" in Kiev and various regions of Ukraine. All is quiet in the Crimea, of course!

To sum up, Russia has occupied and annexed the Crimea -- a part of Ukraine for the last six decades -- with no casualties and barely a shot fired. And the Western "powers" have been unable to do a bloody (or unbloody) thing about it. Walt hopes that Mr. Putin will be satisfied that he's proven he's da man, and "The Leader of the Free World" isn't.