Invictus - Carlin [70]
Few could withstand Mandela’s charm offensives—not even De Klerk, not even when they were campaigning against each other in the run-up to the April 27 elections, not even after they had gone head-to-head in a U.S.-style live TV debate. De Klerk, young enough to be Mandela’s son, proved sharper and better prepared than his adversary. Then, as the debate was reaching its conclusion, Mandela reached out and shook the president’s hand, praising him as “a true son of Africa.” De Klerk, flabbergasted, could only accept the handshake and put on his best smile, though he knew that in so doing Mandela was landing a knockout punch.
“I felt, and everybody felt, that I was winning on points,” De Klerk would recall. “Then he really pulled up level again by suddenly reaching out, praising me, and taking my hand in front of all the television cameras. That might have been preplanned. I think it was a political move. But I do think that the majority of his media triumphs were an instinctive reaction from him. I think he has a wonderful talent in that regard.” A few days after the debate, De Klerk himself made a gracious public statement. During his very last press conference before the election, he was asked his opinion of his opponent. “Nelson Mandela,” replied De Klerk, spreading out his hands as if in surrender, “is a man of destiny.”
As part of the election campaign Mandela went on a nighttime talk show on Johannesburg’s Radio 702 to answer callers’ questions live. Eddie von Maltitz, the first Volksfront warrior to enter the World Trade Centre during the raid, was down on his farm with some of his “kommandos,” listening to 702. Urged by his comrades to call in and give the “kaffir” a piece of his mind, Von Maltitz obliged. For a full three minutes he ranted and raved at Mandela—communism that, terrorists the other, the destruction of our culture, civilized standards, and norms. He ended with a brutally direct threat. “This country will be embroiled in a bloodbath if you carry on walking with the Communist thugs.”
After a tense pause, Mandela replied, “Well, Eddie, I regard you as a worthy South African and I have no doubt that if we were to sit down and exchange views I will come closer to you and you will come closer to me. Let’s talk, Eddie.”
“Uh . . . Right, okay, Mr. Mandela,” Eddie muttered in confusion. “Thank you,” and he hung up.
At his farm three months later, while Eddie still wore a green military jumpsuit, light green camouflage boots, and a 9mm pistol tucked into his waist, he was a changed man, He had stopped training his kommandos; he had abandoned his preparations for war. The exchange on Radio 702 had changed everything. “That was what got me thinking,” he said. The new ANC premier of the Orange Free State, where he lived, was the man who pushed him over the edge. The premier’s name was “Terror” Lekota, known as such because of his lethal goal-scoring on the soccer field. Lekota, who had spent time on Robben Island during Mandela’s later years there, had many of Mandela’s instincts. He made it his first mission on coming to power to win over the Free State’s Afrikaner farmers. If he roped in Von Maltitz, he would go a long way toward corralling the rest. Lekota himself called Von Maltitz and invited him to his birthday party at his residence in the state capital, Bloemfontein. Von Maltitz said no, but Lekota insisted. He called again. “Please, Eddie, I’d really like you to come.” Von Maltitz said he would talk to his men and get back to him. “We talked and figured, what could we lose?” Von Maltitz recalled. “So when he called back the next time I said yes.”
Von Maltitz turned up at what he called “the big house” in Bloemfontein fully armed. “I did not want to do a Piet Retief with Dingaan,” he said. He went into the house and joined the party, where black people predominated,