Peter Vale

Ronald Reagan's imposition of limited economic sanctions against the South African regime in September was a tacit admission that his policy of "constructive engagement"--encouraging change in the apartheid system through a quiet dialogue with that country's white minority leaders--had failed. Having been offered many carrots by the United States over a period of four-and-a-half years as incentives to institute meaningful reforms, the South African authorities had simply made a carrot stew and eaten it. Under the combined pressures of the seemingly cataclysmic events in South Africa since September 1984 and the dramatic surge of anti-apartheid protest and political activism in the United States, the Reagan Administration was finally embarrassed into brandishing some small sticks as an element of American policy.