Pieter Kenyon Fleming-Voltelyn van der Byl (11 November 1923 – 15 November 1999) was a Rhodesian politician who served as his country's Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1979 as a member of the Rhodesian Front (RF). A close associate of Prime Minister Ian Smith, Van der Byl opposed attempts to compromise with the British government and domestic black nationalist opposition on the issue of majority rule throughout most of his time in government. However, in the late 1970s, he supported the moves which led to majority rule and internationally recognised independence for Zimbabwe.
Van der Byl was born and raised in Cape Town, the son of the South African politician P V van der Byl, and served in the Middle East and Europe during the Second World War. After a high-flying international education, he moved to the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1950 to manage family farms. He went into politics in the early 1960s through his involvement with farming trade bodies, and became a government minister responsible for propaganda. One of the leading agitators for Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, Van der Byl was afterwards responsible for introducing press censorship. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to persuade international opinion to recognise Rhodesia, but was popular among members of his own party.
Promoted to the cabinet in 1968, Van der Byl became a spokesman for the Rhodesian government and crafted a public image as a die-hard supporter of continued white minority rule. In 1974 he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence at a time when Rhodesia's only remaining ally, South Africa, was supplying military aid. His extreme views and brusque manner made him a surprising choice for a diplomat (a November 1976 profile in The Times described him as "a man calculated to give offence"David Spanier, "Rhodesia's Foreign Minister a man calculated to give offence", The Times, Thursday 4 November 1976, page 7). After offending the South African government, Van der Byl was removed from the Defence Ministry.
In the late 1970s Van der Byl was willing to endorse the Smith government's negotiations with moderate black nationalist leaders and rejected attempts by international missions to broker an agreement. He served in the short-lived government of Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979, following the Internal Settlement. After the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe in 1980, Van der Byl remained in politics and close to Ian Smith; he loudly attacked former RF colleagues who had gone over to support Robert Mugabe. He retired to South Africa after the Mugabe government abolished the parliamentary seats reserved for whites in 1987, and died in 1999 at the age of 76.
Family and early life Van der Byl was born in Cape Town, the son of Joyce Clare Fleming, a Scot, and Afrikaner Major Pieter Voltelyn Graham van der Byl, a member of Jan Smuts' South African cabinet during World War II. Like his father, Van der Byl was educated at the Diocesan College in RondeboschRhodesian Personalities: Pieter Kenyon Fleming-Voltelyn van der Byl but his studies were interrupted by war in 1941.Obituary: Pieter van der Byl: Rich, white aristocrat behind Rhodesia's bid to stop black rule, Dan van der Vat, The Guardian, 30 November 1999, p. 22 He served with the South African Army during the Second World War and served with the British 7th Queen's Own Hussars; he saw active service in the Middle East, Italy and Austria.
After being demobilised, Van der Byl studied law at Pembroke College, Cambridge,List of Members of Cambridge University where his aristocratic manner stood out. "P. K." was always elegantly dressed and coiffured, and acquired the nickname "the Piccadilly Dutchman". He obtained a Third-class degree in his Part II Law examinations in 1947,Historical Register of Cambridge University, supplement 1941–1950 (Cambridge University Press, 1952), p. 208 and went on from Cambridge to study at Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration from 1947 to 1948 (although he did not obtain a degree at the latter).Harvard Alumni Directory 1986, p. 1256. Van der Byl is counted in the Class of 1949. He also studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.: The main players
One of the most conspicuous features of Van der Byl was his manner of speech: although his ancestry was Cape Dutch and his early life was in Cape Town, South Africa, he had what were described (by Chris Whitehead, editor of Rhodesians Worldwide) as "what he thought was an aristocratic English nasal drawl and imperial English mannerisms".PK, Chris Whitehead Rhodesian personalities Whitehead was of the opinion that Van der Byl had "adopted" this accent, in common with others who heard him like Denis Hills, who wrote of Van der Byl having "a flow of mannered phrases which he delivers in a flawed Guards officer accent".Rebel People, Denis Hills, George Allen and Unwin, 1978, page 204 This Rhodesian newspaper cartoon shows another reaction.
This personal characteristic was intensely irritating to many people including South African government ministers, but Van der Byl's aristocratic mannerisms appeared uncontentious to many Rhodesian whites. They believed that his "nasal drawl" was the product of his time as an officer in the Hussars and his Cambridge education: William Higham described him as "a popular Minister of Defence who, despite his British upper crust accent – undoubtedly honed during his swashbuckling career as an officer in the hussars – hailed from a noble Cape family."
Move to Rhodesia Van der Byl moved to Southern Rhodesia in 1950 to manage some of his family's tobacco farming interests, hoping to make his own fortune. Having visited the country many times as a youth, he remarked that after reading about the profits to be made from tobacco he "suddenly got a rush of blood to the crotch about the tobacco boom and decided I was going to go up there and make the family fortune in a place I liked and wanted to be in." He welcomed the move as it allowed him to indulge his hobby of big game hunting: in that year in Angola, then under Portuguese rule, he set a world record for the biggest elephant shot, which stood until 1955."Pieter van der Byl" (obituary), The Times, 10 January 2000, p. 19
In 1957 Van der Byl was made a Director of the United Dominions Corporation (Rhodesia) Ltd, having already become an active member of the Rhodesia Tobacco Association. In 1956, he was elected by the members of the Selous–Gadzema district to represent them on the Tobacco Association council. He was also Deputy Chair of the Selous Farmers' Association in 1957. His first involvement in government was in 1960 when the Rhodesia Tobacco Association made him one of their representatives on the National Native Labour Commission, on which he served for two years. In 1961, he also represented the Rhodesia Tobacco Association on the council of the Rhodesian National Farmers' Union."Who's Who of Southern Africa 1971", Rhodesia, Central and East Africa Section, Combined Publishers (Pty.) Ltd, Johannesburg 1971, p. 1286–154 He was recognised as a leading spokesman for Rhodesian tobacco farmers.
Dominion Party politician Winston Field had also led the Rhodesia Tobacco Association, and Van der Byl agreed with him on politics in general. He joined the Rhodesian Front when it was set up under Field's leadership. At the 1962 general election, Van der Byl was elected comfortably to the Legislative Assembly for the Hartley constituency, a rural area to the south-west of Salisbury.Source Book of Parliamentary Elections and Referenda in Southern Rhodesia 1898–1962 ed. by F.M.G. Willson (Department of Government, University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Salisbury, 1963), p. 197
Political career
Ministerial office In 1963, Winston Field appointed Van der Byl as a junior government whip, and on 16 March 1964 he was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Justice with responsibility for the Information Service."Holders of Administrative and Ministerial Office 1894–1964 and Members of the Legislative Council 1899–1923 and the Legislative Assembly 1924–1964" by F.M.G. Willson and G.C. Passmore, University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1965. Although the Van der Byl family were identified as strongly liberal in South African politics, he became identified with the right wing of the party and helped to depose Field from the premiership in early April 1964, when Field failed to persuade the British government to grant Southern Rhodesia its independence. The new Prime Minister, Ian Smith, appointed him Deputy Minister for Information. At this time, Van der Byl's chief adviser was a South African called Ivor Benson, who also served as press censor.The Radical Right: A World Directory, Ciarán Ó Maoláin (editor), Longman, 1987, page 244 Benson believed that an international communist conspiracy was plotting to overthrow white rule in Rhodesia.The Impact of anti-communism on white Rhodesian political culture c.1920–1980, D Lowry, in Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation, Sue Onslow, (editor) Routledge, 2009, page 94
Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on 12 August 1964 he attacked proposals for greater independence for broadcasters by referring to what he perceived to be the social effect in Britain:
To suggest that the BBC, forming opinion in the minds of the people of England, has been an influence for good in any way, when you consider the criminality of large areas of London; when you consider the Mods and Rockers, and all those other things; when you consider the total moral underminings which have been taking place in England, much to all our distress, in the last fifteen to twenty years, the Hon. Member can hardly bring that up as an argument in favour of the freedom of broadcasting. Rhodesia: The Road to Rebellion, James P. Barber, Institute of Race Relations, 1967, page 291
By the end of 1964, Van der Byl and his Ministry had control of broadcasting in Rhodesia.Robert Blake, "A History of Rhodesia", Eyre Methuen, 1977, p. 367 Speaking in Parliament he described the aims of his Department as "not merely to disseminate information from an interesting point of view but to play its part in fighting the propaganda battle on behalf of the country". Rhodesia: The Road to Rebellion, James P. Barber, Institute of Race Relations, 1967, page 293 He defined propaganda as "simply the propagation of the faith and the belief in any particular ideology or thing", and also stated that the department would seek the "resuscitation of the determination of the European to survive and fight for his rights". Rhodesia: The Road to Rebellion, James P. Barber, Institute of Race Relations, 1967, page 293
1965 election In May 1965 the Rhodesian Front government went to the country in a general election with Van der Byl one of the leading campaigners. Discussion of unilaterally declaring independence had already begun. Van der Byl argued that only a small fraction of Rhodesian business opposed it; however, his campaign speeches typically included an argument against business involvement in politics. He cited Johannesburg mining interests' support for the Progressive Party in South Africa, big business support for the Nazi Party in Germany, and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia being financed by United States big business.Larry W. Bowman, "Politics in Rhodesia: White Power in an African State", Harvard University Press, 1973, p. 80, citing Rhodesia Herald, 30 April 1965 and 5 May 1965