Did Ronald Reagan really support Apartheid? And if so, why?

I don’t know if he did, but sadly it would hardly be the first time a US president has supported a… less than benevolent group or cause, for whatever reason.

It’s not so much that he supported it as he didn’t think it was a big deal to go along with it if they could get South Africa to help in Angola and to keep the flow of minerals and access by American corporations.

Reagan was never a champion of civil rights, but he wasn’t opposed to them either, as long as they didn’t disrupt business and the status quo.

My belief is that Reagan, like most presidents before and since, held his nose at some of the more repugnant aspects of various countries, such as South Africa’s apartheid (as well as Noriega’s drug-running in Panama and the well-known outrages of Saddam Hussein in Iraq) in favor of strategic alliances with geographically and economically significant partners against our more-pressing foes in the Cold War. Don’t forget the Cold War.

I haven’t read Constructive Engagement, but the policy was also intended to help cajole a more-or-less friendly South Africa into modifying or scrapping apartheid instead of simply standing outside the gates and screaming at them as an avowed enemy (our continual failed policy with Iran, for example).

I doubt Reagan could even spell Apartheid.

(Reagan turned a blind eye to the way Saddam Hussein rose to power because his civil rights and track record for the population in Iraq in general was not so bad, so long as you weren’t a Kurd, and he was at war with Iran, who was more an enemy of the US. You know the saying… ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’.)

He was very much focused on nuclear disarmament.

A good book to read about Reagan, I thought, was Colin Powell’s autobiography.

Maybe we all believe in apartheid and that’s why we have countries.

@flutherother Uh, nope. Lol. And even if so, that’s not a good thing.

Reagan had very few ideas of his own, he was (basically) the ‘feel-good front man’ for the big business Republican Party. Standing up for those against Apartheid would have been diametrically opposed to big business precepts. Chances are, the thought never even crossed his mind. He was one of the US most dismal choices as president, he did a tremendous amount of harm to the US & the only people who benefited from his presidency were those who were already rich.