First, an apology for this cursory diary. If someone else does a better job, I'll take it down.
On Dec. 7, the New York Times published a piece by Bill Keller, "Nelson Mandela, Communist", about Mandela's brief membership in the Communist Party (a fact gleefully seized on by the right-wing) and the true significance of it:
... First, Mandela’s brief membership in the South African Communist Party, and his long-term alliance with more devout Communists, say less about his ideology than about his pragmatism. He was at various times a black nationalist and a nonracialist, an opponent of armed struggle and an advocate of violence, a hothead and the calmest man in the room, a consumer of Marxist tracts and an admirer of Western democracy, a close partner of Communists and, in his presidency, a close partner of South Africa’s powerful capitalists. ...
In today's Times, there is a letter from Stephen Ellis (on whose research the Keller piece was based), saying in part:
Perhaps the United States government will now confirm the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in Mr. Mandela’s arrest in August 1962, which is also indicated by my research.
Was the CIA responsible for Mandela's arrest? Was his imprisonment part of the same "evil empire" madness that resulted in the overthrow of Mossadegh and Allende, the terror of the "Contras", etc., etc.?
Will we ever know?