South Africa Eyeball to Eyeball

Reagan, Congress and a sanctions veto

By the time President Reagan finally vetoed a congressional bill that would have imposed strong new economic sanctions against South Africa, the event seemed almost as anticlimactic as the Administration had probably hoped it would be. Last Friday at 8 p.m., scarcely four hours before the bill would have become law without the President's signature, the White House announced that, as expected, Reagan had vetoed it. Portions of the measure, said the President, would "seriously impede the prospects for a peaceful end to apartheid and the establishment of a free and open society for all in South Africa." The U.S., he...

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