< Introduction spare parts or haggling over petrol coupons, exchanging, gossip, going shopping or playing bridge, immediate problems seemed more pressing than longer-term fears. Returning to the suburbs in the evening, and set- tling down with a drink, perhaps after a swim, a jog, or a set of tennis, White Rhodesians had often decided to ‘wait and see’. On 4 March the shock was too traumatic to be wholly absorbed by the daily round of activity, but the greater calm of the afternoon was strengthened by the evening news. The ‘terrorist’ leader, introduced on television as ‘Comrade Robert Mugabe’, promised reconciliation rather than revenge. He would honour the Lancaster House agreement of December 1979, thereby guaranteeing White pension and property rights, and he had invited Lieutenant-General Peter Walls, the Commander of the Security Forces, to head a new integrated army. Within a few minutes the satanic monster of the morning, was being we P wT nee “MOZAMBIQUE _ ay Major ratays apr ads ieee tog a REPLBLICOE el ____ SOUTH AFRICA 3 Map 1.1. Rhodesia in 1970