Henry Kissinger: Forgotten Architect of Rhodesia's Destruction

"Strategery", Decline, and Dysfunction

Welcome back, and thanks for reading! Today, we’re returning to a subject I’ve let rest for a bit, so as to provide some variety: Rhodesia, and the West’s great betrayal of it. This article is primarily paywalled. All those who are not yet paid subscribers: while some of this article is free, please subscribe for just a few dollars a month to support this project, get access to audio episodes, and read this article in full. As always, please tap the heart to “like” this article if you get something out of it, as that is how Substack knows to promote it!

[AUDIO] How Henry Kissinger Destroyed Rhodesia

Who destroyed Rhodesia? Robert Mugabe is the obvious culprit, as he drove it on its path to ruin. Nkomo is similarly culpable, though to a lesser extent because he never grasped power in the same way Mugabe did. The Gukurahundi took care of that. But neither man would ever have been able to do it alone; as Zoomer Historian covers well in his video on Operation Eland,¹ the Rhodesians were far more competent fighters than the communist terrorists against whom they fought. Nevertheless, the Rhodesians lost the war, and Mugabe was given free rein to destroy Rhodesia.

The reason why is outside support for the communist terrorists. Specifically, though of course communist aid—whether from the native regimes in Zambia and post-Carnation Revolution Mozambique, or the USSR and Red China—was helpful, it was the Western world’s betrayal and damnation of Rhodesia that did in the embattled little land of excellence. Amongst those Western powers, Jimmy Carter stands out as one of the most despicable villains, as does British Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

But, again, neither of those men can quite be named as the culprit that drove the nail in the Rhodesian coffin; the eventual defeat was in sight by the time Carter took office in 1977, and Wilson’s attempts to blockade and embargo Rhodesia were debacles he couldn’t enforce. He tried to do them in, to be sure, but resistance from within what remained of the British military made him largely unsuccessful; the blockade of Beira was a debacle, the SAS outright refused to try assassinating Smith, and Wilson was out of power in the mid-1970s when Rhodesia still had a glimmer of hope of winning the war. MI6 did an “admirable” job, if it can be called that, of infiltrating Rhodesia and feeding intelligence to the communists, but that was about it.

No, the nail in the coffin for Rhodesia was when the South Africans betrayed it in 1975 and 1976 in the name of a bizarre detente with the black, communist nations of Africa. The removal of South African troops, the near-cutoff of military aid, the unhelpfulness in both importing necessaries and exporting cash crops, and the immense diplomatic pressure placed on Ian Smith is what ended Rhodesia’s dreams of independence and survival.

That betrayal came not just because Vorster was a gullible buffoon, but because of Henry Kissinger. He saw Rhodesia as a pawn on his chessboard and plotted the moves so that it would be destroyed in the name of expediency. If there is one man who can be most blamed for Rhodesia’s destruction, it is he, as I’ll explain in this article, charting his involvement at the critical moments in the Bush War.

Bush War Betrayal: The Agonizing Death of a Land Fighting to Be Free