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Sullivan's most notable failure has been on the issue of GM's manufacturing operations in South Africa. He stirred the first stockholders' meeting that he attended as a director with a passionate denunciation of apartheid and a call for complete GM withdrawal from South Africa, but has never convinced his fellow directors that a pullout would in any way help blacks in that country. Sullivan has swallowed this failure gracefully and now concentrates on getting GM to improve the pay and promotion opportunities of its black South African employees and put up money to build better housing for them.
There is some question about how much of the black gains at GM can be credited to Sullivan personally and how much might have happened anyway. Sullivan concedes that the GM board had begun to take a more "humanist" attitude toward blacks and other minorities before he joined it, but he tries to accelerate the progress. His technique is to develop bench marks toward which GM should strive (some current ones: 100 black dealerships and $100 million a year in purchases from black-owned companies, both by 1978) and then meet personally at least twice a year with a dozen key GM staff people to "discuss, update and push." Says Sullivan: "Broadly considering all the affirmative efforts we are making—dealers, suppliers, investment, job opportunities—I think GM is the leader or close to it" in helping blacks. Then, with a boardroom infighter's pluck, he adds, "Still, that's not enough—by far."