As black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela was recovering from tuberculosis in a clinic near Pollsmoor Prison last month, rumors circulated that his 26-year confinement would soon end. Instead of freeing Mandela, however, the South African government last week installed him in a guarded, one-story stucco house on the Verster Prison Farm, 35 miles east of Cape Town.
The spacious, Spanish-style house comes complete with a pool, patio, rose garden and prison-provided meal service. The government obviously hopes to loosen the restraints on Mandela, 70, so slowly that a final release will seem anticlimactic. Pretoria said it will allow Mandela's family "unlimited...