Obituary

Frikkie Botha: Diplomat who stood up to Info rogues

13 August 2017 - 00:00 By CHRIS BARRON

Frikkie Botha, who has died in Cape Town at the age of 98, was South Africa's ambassador to the US in the early 1970s when he blew the whistle on the Information Scandal three years before it exploded into the open.
A year after presenting his credentials to US president Richard Nixon in 1971, he began receiving reports that officials of the Department of Information, led by minister Connie Mulder and secretary Eschel Rhoodie, were engaging in "irregular undercover activities" in Washington.
The reports came to him directly from friendly members of the US Congress, senators and US government officials.
He was told of a campaign by information department officials to target critics of apartheid in the US Congress and Senate and leak whatever damaging information could be dug up about them.
He heard about attempts to bribe lobbyists and politicians and buy journals and newspapers, notably the Washington Star.
Flabbergasted, Botha reported all of this in detail to Hilgard Muller, then the minister of foreign affairs.
He was told that "unconventional diplomatic activities" by the department had been approved by the government.
It had been decided not to consult him so that he could say with a clear conscience that he was not aware of what was going on.
He told the minister that as the South African representative in the US it was his duty to know about these things.
He said he could not claim ignorance of stories that were circulating in Washington without destroying his and the embassy's credibility.A plea of ignorance was particularly ill-advised, he thought, at a time, 1973-74, when Nixon was protesting his innocence in the unfolding Watergate scandal on the grounds that he "did not know".
Botha said efforts by the information department to justify racism, banning orders, detention without trial and the Group Areas Act were counterproductive because these things were "unpalatable" to the people who mattered in Washington.
His strong opposition to what he saw as an "aggressive" information department "invasion" of the diplomatic space in Washington so incensed Rhoodie and his officials at the embassy that they launched a campaign of vilification against him in Washington and South Africa.
Rhoodie complained to the editor of The Star, who rebuked his correspondent in Washington, future Sunday Times editor Ken Owen, for "retailing Frikkie Botha's stories".
By early 1975 things had become so unpleasant for Botha that he flew back to South Africa to appeal to prime minister John Vorster personally.
He had with him a memorandum detailing the information department's "objectionable activities", which he warned were "highly deleterious" to South Africa's relations with the US.
He said the integrity of the South African mission to Washington was being jeopardised.
He was attacked by his own minister and Mulder for refusing to co-operate. Vorster, who was shown Botha's memo but later pleaded ignorance, refused to see him.
Shortly after his return to Washington Frikkie Botha was recalled and replaced by Pik Botha.
Three years later "Infogate" rocked South Africa and brought down the Vorster government.
A commission of inquiry was appointed under the government-friendly Judge Rudolph Erasmus, but when Frikkie Botha wanted to give evidence the Department of Foreign Affairs wouldn't allow him to.
Instead he was posted to Japan to get him "away from the scene", he said later.
In 1978 Mulder told parliament that information department officials in Washington "only acted in consultation with the head of mission", Frikkie Botha.
He was incensed and appealed urgently to Pik Botha, who by now was minister of foreign affairs, to put the record straight. Pik did nothing.
Frikkie Botha was highly critical of Pik Botha, saying that after replacing him in Washington he did what Vorster "expected".He said: "He did what Rhoodie and Mulder wanted."
In his book about the Info Scandal, Rhoodie said Vorster felt Pik Botha would be more "compliant" about their activities than Frikkie Botha.
Rhoodie quoted Vorster as saying to him: "I know the other Botha [Frikkie] was a wet blanket. Pik will not disappoint you."
Frikkie Botha was born in Steynsburg in the Eastern Cape on February 18 1919.
He matriculated with distinction at Steynsburg Hoërskool at the age of 15.
He went to the University of Stellenbosch at 16 but had to leave after a year because of a lack of funds.
He worked for the Post Office until World War 2 began, in 1939, when he joined up to fight in North Africa and Palestine.
When he was demobbed he completed a bachelor of economics degree through Unisa while working at the Post Office, and joined the then Department for External Affairs.
He served in Ottawa, Canada, and was South Africa's acting permanent representative to the UN in New York before being sent to open South Africa's first mission in Tokyo in 1962.
Botha, whose fondness for bowties earned him the nickname "Strikkie Frikkie" (strik being Afrikaans for bow), is survived by four children. His wife, Monica, who he married in 1949, died eight years ago. 
1919-2017..

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