John Seiler
Reading three recently-published collections of taped conversations and phone calls authorised by United States presidents John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson and Richard Nixon (and bearing in mind the current storm around Bill Clinton) raises some questions about what similar studies might contribute to our understanding of how South African government works and, more basically, whether we have a right to such knowledge.
The constitutional and legislative answer seems to be yes. The Constitution guarantees freedom of information, although the enabling legislation remains to be spelled out. For academics and journalists, the new Archives Act requires all government documents (other than those entailing ongoing national-security considerations) to be declassified and made available after 25 years. In practice, a small archivist staff and considerable inertia (if not actual resistance) from government has resulted in negligible progress from the closed-off attitude of the old regime.
But does it really matter, except for a few academics addicted to decision-making studies? Are we confusing the titillation of watching over the shoulders of our political leaders with the urgent need in a democracy to understand the assumptions and processes that underlie state decisions?
In the US case, the differences in presidential styles are palpable.
Johnson (Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964) is the consummate democratic politician, for whom anyone could become a supporter in a specific situation if, in return, they were offered something that they genuinely wanted.
Nixon (Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes) convicts himself in his own often-obscene words as close to paranoia, with an elephantine memory for past slights and criticism.
Kennedy (The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis), although condescending about Washington politics and politicians, utilised the ad hoc executive committee to build a rational and prudent basis for reaction to Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Competitive urging in US public life drives such revelations. Without such a force, it is hard to see such attention to government decision-making developing in South Africa.
Academics and journalists could make use of State Security Council documents now released to the truth commission to get at the hard questions about how decisions were made in the old regime.
And the present government demands attention, even if documents remain unavailable (if they exist), with interviews utilised to get at important decisions and the relationships between ministers, Cabinet, the president, the deputy president, and their advisers in making these decisions.
Budget constraints have pinched not only governance but reporting on government. Tentative steps to flesh out provincial coverage by SABC TV and The Star have been sidetracked. Municipal coverage is limited to the major urban centres. Even coverage of national government is spotty. Reporting on financial management, commissions of inquiry and trials involving political figures is fragmentary and infrequent.
There is no reason to expect this government to be enthusiastic about close attention to its decision-making processes. No governments are, even those from long- established democracies. Nonetheless, for its sake and for the sake of longer-term political democracy, the effort needs to be made.
* Ernest R May and Philip D Zelikow, editors, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997, 728 pages, R………….($US35.00)
* Michael R Beschloss, editor, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964) Simon & Schuster, 1997, 591 pages, R……….($US30.00)
* Stanley I Kutler, editor, Abuse of Power: the New Nixon Tapes (The Free Press, 1997, 675 pages, R……….($US30.00)