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AFRICA. It is Vance's goal to arrange a truce conference among all participants in the Rhodesian guerrilla fighting before it degenerates into an international war, with possible Soviet-Cuban intervention on the model of Angola and Ethiopia. The problem is complex. Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith has responded to black nationalist demands with what he calls an internal settlement, drawing moderate black leaders into his government and giving them shared power with the whites during a transition period. Smith and his supporters argue that they have granted the basic principle of eventual black rule. This "internal settlement," however, excludes the Patriotic Front guerrilla fighters based in neighboring Zambia and Mozambique and led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, respectively. With the Patriotic Front already receiving Soviet supplies, U.S. officials fear that the war cannot be ended without a political agreement among all factions, and that growing Soviet-Cuban support of the guerrillas could prove disastrous. As of last week, the guerrilla leaders had not agreed to a meeting of involved parties, and Smith and his internal-settlement co-leaders were refusing, apparently in the belief that the Patriotic Front would come in only on terms that guaranteed its own dominance of Rhodesia. Vance, not optimistic, told reporters he was determined to "go the last mile."
RUSSIA. The increasing Soviet involvement in Africa was high on Vance's agenda in two days of scheduled talks with the Soviets' veteran Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko. Of even greater significance was Vance's determination to try to reassert the value of détente and edge the long-stalled SALT conference a bit closer toward agreement. By now, six months after SALT I expired, both sides have agreed to a reduction of about 10% in the 2,400 strategic launchers permitted under the Vladivostok accord of 1974. There are still some highly sticky and technical details to be worked out for limiting the U.S. cruise missile and the Soviets' Backfire bomber. But if all goes well, there will be another meeting with Gromyko in New York in May, then more detailed negotiations by the technicians in Geneva and finally, just possibly, a summit conference between Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev before the end of the year.
Should all this happen—via the slow, patient maneuvering toward a high-level spectacular—it would be perfectly typical of Cy Vance's role as Secretary of State and of his relationship to Carter, a President who wants to determine and proclaim his own foreign policy. Vance, they both agreed from the start, was to be Carter's counselor and advocate, his loyal lieutenant. Vance came to office in the wake of a man who had almost redefined the position of Secretary of State—Henry Kissinger, student of Bismarck, self-styled gunslinger, secret envoy to China, Nobel prizewinner, wit and bon vivant. At his height, Kissinger personally embodied U.S. foreign policy. The wounded Nixon of 1973-74 and the somewhat innocent Ford of 1974-76 were both heavily dependent upon him. No successor was going to duplicate the Kissinger role, and Vance never wanted to. "Henry is a genius, no question about it," he once told a friend, "but I have my own strengths, my own way of doing things."