“Consideration of the external threat to South Africa should not be a matter of party politics. One sometimes has the impression that talk of a “total onslaught” is regarded in some quarters as an exaggerated slogan used as a device for enhancing national unity and gaining support for the party in power. But, on the other hand, if public opinion is to be adequately informed and educated, there is more to it than simply playing on the spectre of “godless Marxism”. Obviously Soviet ambition and expansionism are not the only external threat with which South Africa is faced, but they are, potentially if not actually, surely its most disturbing and powerful component. It behoves us to assess it as carefully, dispassionately and comprehensively as we can.”
