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∂AIL %2The Nation%1↓333 6th Ave.↓New York, N.Y. 10014∞

To the Editor:

	Professor Wallerstein's fiery denunciation of Kissinger's peace
efforts in southern Africa intensifies my fear that we are in a prewar
period - pre nuclear war.  Such periods are characterized by the spread of
victory-or-death ideologies.  Wallerstein seems to recognize that what he
wants for South Africa - absolute majority rule - cannot be achieved
without war, but he softens the potential shock to his readers by the
proclamation, customary in speeches advocating war, that war is already in
progress.  I suppose he is reconciled to a million people being killed in
a conventional war, but he doesn't mention the likelihood of a nuclear war
in which tens of millions may be killed even if non-African countries stay
out.

	Majority rule of a united South Africa cannot be achieved without
war, because all previous cases have been disastrous for the whites, and
the revanchist atmosphere that arouses Wallerstein's enthusiasm makes
guarantees of federalism incredible.  The war can't be won by the blacks
without becoming nuclear, because the Boers are the kind of people who
fight with everything they have when pressed to the wall, and since they
will get no outside aid and the blacks will, their only long-term option
is nuclear.

	The left has been encouraged by its victory in Vietnam to favor
war as a way of achieving its objectives.  However, South Vietnam was
totally dependent on the United States, and the left won a political
victory here.  But South Africa is different, and anyone who agrees that a
full-scale war there will be disastrous even for the winner should
consider what compromises are possible.  The problem is not finding %2the
most just settlement%1, but rather finding %2a settlement that both sides
will prefer to war.%1

	It seems to me the blacks and whites will eventually partition
South Africa - but most likely not until a bloody war has convinced both
sides they can't have their "full rights".  %2Apartheid%1 proposes giving
the blacks 13 percent, but they will surely fight rather than accept that,
and the fight will be bad enough for the whites so that they will prefer
giving up more to continuing it.  However, the whites in turn will fight
before accepting 13 percent.  Either side should prefer 40 percent to
nuclear war.  Thus there may be a bargaining range within which a
"peaceful solution" lies, even if South African blacks, like most of us,
have "to accept something less than their right" and incur the contempt of
some American supporters.

	Anyone who values his skin should wish Dr. Kissinger good fortune
in helping find a compromise.  I think they will eventually reach a
compromise without his help, %2but wouldn't it be nice if they could reach
it without killing millions first?%1 The %2Nation%1 has helped convince
those who would like to liberate eastern Europe from Soviet imperialism
that in the nuclear age these objectives must be moderated.  The same is
true here.

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