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confusion, thrown by Mandela’s show of courtly respect. This was not at all what he had expected. Long cemented stereotypes were crumbling. What he did not—and by his upbringing could not—see at that moment was that in political terms he was out of his class. Mandela, as a man of the world rather than a man of one volk, had a capacity the general lacked to penetrate the minds of people culturally different from himself. He knew when to flatter and soothe (Niël Barnard spoke of Mandela’s “almost animal instinct for tapping into people’s vulnerabilities and reassuring them.”); he knew also when he could go on the offensive, without causing offense, thus conveying an impression of directness that he knew the general would take to, as P. W. Botha had done. Years later, Mandela said, “I have worked with Afrikaners ever since I was in training as a lawyer, and I found them to be simple and straightforward. And if he doesn’t like you, an Afrikaner, he’ll say ‘gaan kak’ ”—“Get lost” would be a polite translation of the Boer original. “But if he likes you, then he agrees with you. They have the ability to stick to what they have undertaken.”

Mandela—polite but decidedly not mincing his words—worked on making Viljoen like him. “Mandela began by saying that the Afrikaner people had done him and his people a lot of harm,” General Viljoen recalled, “and yet somehow he had a great respect for the Afrikaners. He said that maybe it was because, though it was hard to explain to outsiders, the Afrikaner had a humanity about him. He said that if the child of an Afrikaner’s farm laborer got sick, the Afrikaner farmer would take him in his bakkie to the hospital and phone to check up on him and take his parents to see him and be decent. At the same time the Afrikaner farmer will treat his worker hard, expect him to work hard. He will be a demanding employer, Mandela said, but he was also human and that aspect of the Afrikaner was something Mandela was very impressed by.”

Viljoen was amazed at Mandela’s ability to get past the surface caricatures and reach such a deep understanding, as he saw it, of the true nature of the Afrikaner. Just how many black farm laborers Mandela might have found to validate his assessment of the “baas” is another matter. The point was that Mandela knew that his portrait of the Afrikaner as rugged Christian would conform absolutely with Viljoen’s own vision of his people.

Viljoen was as intrigued as Botha had been when Mandela proceeded to point out the similarities between the histories of the blacks and the Afrikaners, both of whom had fought freedom wars. And, of course, Mandela was doing something that Viljoen had not expected. He was doing the general the courtesy of speaking to him in his own language.

Mandela had gauged the mood just right, establishing his bona fides with Viljoen as a man with whom he could talk and expect to be understood. But the real substance of the encounter came at the end of their conversation over that same cup of tea. Braam and Niehaus were eavesdropping at just the right time.

“I hope you understand how difficult it is for white people to trust that things are going to go right with the ANC in power,” Constand Viljoen said, adding, “I am not sure if you realize it, Mr. Mandela, but this can be stopped.”

By “this,” Viljoen meant the peaceful transition to black rule. He stopped short of saying it in so many words, but he was clearly indicating to Mandela that there would be military intervention and the right wing, aided by the SADF, could take over if the Afrikaners were not given a chunk of sovereign territory inside South Africa’s borders.

Gravely, Mandela replied: “Look, General, I know that the military forces you can muster are powerful and well-armed and well-trained; and that they are far more powerful than mine. Militarily we cannot fight you; we cannot win. If, however, you do go to war, you assuredly will not win either, not in the long run. Because, one, the international community will be totally behind us. And, two, we are too many, and you cannot kill us all.