Rhoodie's Story

What is Pretoria's "John Dean"up to?

The National Party government of Prime Minister P.W. Botha is sitting nervously atop a scandal that steadily grows worse and worse. Playing the John Dean role, in this South African version of Watergate, is Eschel Rhoodie, 45, the former Secretary of Pretoria's Department of Information. Rhoodie, who is now living in self-imposed exile in Europe and South America, was in charge of a multimillion-dollar slush fund that his department used to secure favorable publicity for South Africa's policies in both the foreign and domestic press. To accomplish this end at home. Rhoodie has charged that the government of former Prime Minister (now State President) John Vorster clandestinely-and illegally-poured some $37 million into an avidly pro-government tabloid, The Citizen. In the U.S., according to stories published by the Rand Daily Mail of Johannesburg, the slush fund was used to finance an equally illegal but unsuccessful attempt in 1974 to purchase the Washington Star, some four years before the paper was sold to Time Inc.

Rhoodie contends that at least six Cabinet ministers, including P.W. Botha, knew about the information department's connection with The Citizen, as well as its role in other secret projects. All the officials concerned have denied this allegation, but the scandal has already led to the resignation of one ranking Cabinet member: former Minister of Information Cornelius P. Mulder, who was Rhoodie's supervisor. Some observers believe Vorster must surely have known about the slush fund; there are also suspicions that his awareness of the impending scandal may have been an important reason behind his sudden retirement as Prime Minister last September.

Rhoodie is now hinting that he has a lot more to talk about. Among the rumored topics: bribery involving U.S. and other foreign officials and disclosure of Pretoria's role in backing the Biafran rebels during the Nigerian civil war. Two weeks ago, Rhoodie had a rendezvous in Paris with General Hendrik van den Bergh, 64, former head of South Africa's notorious Bureau of State Security (BOSS), and an industrialist named Josias van Zyl, 31, who offered Rhoodie a sales job in one of his companies. What the two men wanted in return was Rhoodie's promise not to say anything further, and not to make public the contents of tapes and documents that Rhoodie claims would embarrass the South African government.

The curious Paris meeting raised many questions. Was the flamboyant Rhoodie, who has been accused of high living and free spending during his years as Pretoria's influence peddler, trying to gain some kind of immunity from prosecution? He is currently wanted in the Transvaal, Prime Minister Botha an nounced last week, on grounds of "fraud and possibly theft." Furthermore, if Van den Bergh was a former superspook, why did he clumsily allow the press to discover the details of the Paris meeting? If he and Van Zyl were acting in their government's behalf, why did South African officials seize their passports soon after they had returned from Paris? And if Van Zyl is as successful a businessman as he is supposed to be, why are several of his companies in the process of liquidation, and why does he have a recent record of passing a bad check and not paying his bills?

Whatever Rhoodie said to his com patriots in Paris, it seems clear that the South African press already has enough information to proceed with its own investigations of Pretoria's Watergate. One night last week, the Rand Daily Mail went to press with a story containing Rhoodie's charges about the role allegedly played in the scandal by Justice Minister James Kruger. At 2:30 in the morning, the Cape Supreme Court ordered the Mail to delete several paragraphs from the sto ry. The paper's editors complied, printing a final edition with 6 in. of blank space on the front page.

By using its muscle, the Botha government may have the power to suppress some of the most distressing details of the emerging scandal. But it can hardly make them disappear. Whether or not Eschel Rhoodie is armed only with "harmless caps in a toy gun," as one National Party M.P. prefers to believe, many white South-Africans are looking more cynically than ever before at their ruling party. --

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