"In a logical world it should be hard to explain why Ian Smith, who took over a country where he was already legally governing without a shot, without a murder, a trial or even a coup, is a wicked, lawless villain unfit to be negotiated with by decent men, whereas those who seize their country by force and shoot, arrest or exile the existing rulers, and then set up a military dictatorship, are immediately recognized as the praiseworthy heads of a respectable legal movement." Those words were written by the well known authoress Mrs Elsbeth Huxley in the National Review of Washington. Honest men and women throughout the civilized world are as puzzled as she is. Why is Rhodesia being treated like an headstrong adolescent. Was she not ripe for independence? Had she been unwilling to negotiate terms and give guarantees? Brig. Andrew Skeen is in a unique position to provide the answers. he was the High Commissioner for Southern Rhodesia in London from July to November 1965 until that day he was informed he was "no longer acceptable to the British Government as High Commissioner." Along with many personal sidelights he gives the inside story of the protracted struggle between a young country claiming the right to sever parental apronstrings, and a mother country unwilling to accept the justice of that claim. It is a story of Rhodesia's fight for independence; it may also be the story of England's biggest blunder. A worthy addition to any library on Rhodesia.

 

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