The Truman Administration and South Africa A paradoxical support of the apartheid regime, 1948-1952

Abstract

ABSTRACT. This thesis explores the inconsistency that exists between the words spoken in the Truman doctrine and the concrete actions carried out by the Truman Administration concerning the relation with the South African apartheid regime. The motives of the United States that justify the foreign affairs concerning South Africa will be discussed. Analyzing different primary sources from US officials concerned with the political relationship between the US and South Africa proves that there was an awareness of the racist situation that the institutionalizing of the apartheid created. By exploring the incentives the US had in maintaining the relationship with the white minority in South Africa, the importance of the Cold War politics and economy will be discussed and connected to the underlying incentive of the Discourse of Whiteness, a theory introduced by C. V. Scott on which this thesis will elaborate regarding the situation in South Africa. By connecting the political incentives and the discourse of whiteness, a transcending motive for the foreign affairs concerned with South Africa comes to exist. Placing South Africa as a case in the context of the foreign affairs of the US during the Truman Administration displays the paradox between the Truman doctrine and the actual performed foreign politics of his Administration.