ASSASSINATION OF VERWOERD
The death of Hendrik F.. Verwoerd at the hand of an assassin September 6 met with little mourning. The racist-minded prime minister was one of the world's most hated figures since Hitler. However, among the nonwhites in South Africa, the feeling of satisfaction over Verwoerd's end was tempered by fear that it might be utilized by his followers for widespread reprisals against the blacks and colored people. "Thank God it wasn't one of our people who did it," a black African woman was quoted by the press as saying.
The motives of the assasin, Dimitrio Tsafendas, who had been temporarily employed as a parliamentary messenger, were not clear. However his co-workers said he had complained that Verwoerd was doing too much for nonwhites and not enough for "poor whites.
A scramble immediately broke out among Verwoerd's lieutenants over succession to the mantle of top fascist. Whatever modifications the winner might initiate in the regime, opinion was unanimous among observers that these will not be in the direction of a thaw in Verwoerd's barbarous apartheid policies. As the September 11 New York Times put it succinctly, the successor "will inherit the armed forces and police that Dr. Verwoerd built up, his most solid legacy." Only a revolution can sweep away these murderous guardians of South African racisn.
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