Cape of Storms (C)

Heard, former editor of the South African newspaper the Cape Times , turns his considerable journalistic talents to a largely autobiographical chronicle of life under apartheid. Particularly telling is his lucid account of the erosion of African and ``colored'' rights, from the `` informal segregation'' of the early 1950s to the paranoid, law-entrenched apartheid of `` the great white chief Prime Minister H.F. Verwoerd'' in the later '50s and '60s. Heard, who is white, dramatically recounts such significant events as 1960's nonviolent anti-passbook march (directed against documents that Africans had to carry at all times in urban areas) and the government's unscrupulous response. He recalls some difficulties of writing news stories under apartheid: it was so easy to inadvertently run afoul of the law by quoting `` banned'' people that editors had their lawyers maintain tickler files of those the government deemed `` unquotable.'' Heard also describes obtaining his famous 1985 London interview (reproduced here in full) with Oliver Tambo, leader-in-exile of the then-outlawed African National Congress; publication of this piece led the government to charge Heard under its Internal Security Act. (Oct.)