(3 of 4)
Usual TV. For a country that had just performed an act of rebellion, Rhodesia was remarkably calm. One big Salisbury liquor store sold out of champagne two hours after the proclamation, but the customary nighttime silence of Salisbury's downtown streets was broken only by occasional drunken cries ("Rhodesia, Rhodesia") and a few blasts of car horns. Most white Rhodesians performed their usual tasks, went home to their usual dinners and sat down to watch their usual TV programs. In the teeming African townships of Highfield and Harare, police doubled their nightly patrols, but all was quiet. The African beer halls, normally raucous with life, were gloomy and deserted.
The rebel government seemed happy enough. Before their first independence Cabinet meeting, Smith and his ministers met on the steps of the Milton Building, slapped each other merrily on the back, traded jokes and snapped pictures of each other. When someone handed Smith half a bottle of South African champagne, he accepted it gratefully. "Now we are launched," he said.
Indeed they were. Smith quickly dismissed Governor Sir Humphrey Gibbs as the Queen's representative, took over the role himself. His government slapped a whole new series of controls on the newly free nation. Imports, exports and foreign travel were rigidly restricted. No foreign exchange could be bought or sold. The government empowered itself to call all white males of 55 or under into the territorial reserve.
Muzzling the Press. On local newspapers, the regime imposed strict censorship and gave itself the power to take over any newspaper it chose "in the interest of public safety." Censors prevented the Rhodesia Herald, which opposed U.D.I., from putting out an independence extra; and when the paper finally appeared the next day, its pages were studded with gaping white blank spaces—one of them 20 in. long—where the censors' scissors had been at work.
Since the country appeared completely calm, censorship seemed hardly necessary, but Smith did not stop there. To protect Rhodesia against an imagined invasion, convoys of troops were ordered to dig in along the Zambesi River border with Zambia, causing President Kenneth Kaunda nervously to declare a state of emergency and order his own small army to dig in on the other side "as a protective measure." Although the chances of a clash seemed slight, it was just the sort of ugly situation that through some unexpected fluke might lead to violence—and a need for British troops.