Harry Oppenheimer

Harry Frederick Oppenheimer, voice of reason, died on August 19th 2000, aged 91

Visitors from democracies to white-ruled South Africa would, if they were important enough, usually be received by the prime minister and then, to protect their reputation for fair-mindedness, meet Harry Oppenheimer. In 1960, Harold Macmillan, Britain’s prime minister, had a talk with Mr Oppenheimer on the eve of his speech to a dismayed South African parliament: “The wind of change is blowing through this continent.” In 1982, Mr Oppenheimer’s guest was Henry Kissinger, America’s ever-travelling fixer, then in South Africa to observe that the wind was gathering strength.

The Macmillans and the Kissingers of the world felt at ease with Harry Oppenheimer. After enduring a government lecture on white supremacism, it was comforting to dine with Mr Oppenheimer in his splendid home in Johannesburg with its Goyas and Degas and other emblems of good taste; and hear his liberal-minded views delivered in quiet Oxford English. The answer to racial oppression, he said, lay in financial prosperity. In a growth economy, new, well-paid jobs would be open to blacks, who would join the middle class. Apartheid would hinder such a development. It had to go.

Mr Oppenheimer of course spoke with authority. His knowledge of economics had been honed in Oxford under Roy Harrod, a pioneer in the study of growth. He had succeeded his father as head of the Anglo American Corporation, vastly expanding its assets. It now had a stake in almost every large business in South Africa, and a very large stake in some, namely diamonds, gold and other desirable minerals.

In South African terms, Mr Oppenheimer was a humane employer. He built decent housing for many of the blacks he employed; he encouraged the creation of black trade unions and provided advanced education for blacks, some of whom gained important jobs in his companies. He liked to quote Thomas Jefferson’s dictum that it was impossible to have democracy in an uneducated country. Still, Mr Oppenheimer had his critics. His sentiments were fine, but, with such a hold on the South African economy, could he not have hastened reform?

The answer is perhaps he could have; but probably not. Some liberals may have chided Harry Oppenheimer for his too-quiet opposition, and complained that his miners were often brutally treated by their unliberal overseers. But many Afrikaner whites simply loathed him. Politicians such as Jaap Marais (Obituary, August 19th) feared that even talk about reform would undermine white rule, just as in China today the communist leaders fiercely refuse to acknowledge the possibility of any alternative form of government. Mr Marais believed that Harry Oppenheimer’s industrial power would have to be broken if white supremacy were to survive. His views were too extreme for even the Nationalist government; nevertheless, during the first 34 years after the National Party took power in 1948, Mr Oppenheimer, the country’s foremost businessman, was never asked to dine with the prime minister. Mr Kissinger persuaded the reformist P. W. Botha to break bread, albeit reluctantly, with the outsider in 1982. Mr Botha’s theme was “adapt or die”. Mr Oppenheimer praised him for his bravery and subsequently he had meetings with Mr Botha’s successor, F. W. de Klerk. He was no longer the outsider.

In an interview a few years ago Harry Oppenheimer said he had tried to build a “better sort of society and a better sort of country”. At a personal level he had triedto keep alive “what I considered a voice of common sense and humanity”. It was the sort of summing up that a politician might offer. Mr Oppenheimer was for ten years a member of parliament for the United Party, which disintegrated when defeated by the Nationalists. Had it retained power, he would probably have become finance minister, and possibly prime minister. The subsequent history of South Africa would have been different, but not all that much. Mr Oppenheimer would have introduced democracy gradually over a period. The National Party held things up because they did not accept what “had to happen”.

After taking over Anglo American Mr Oppenheimer was content to keep politics as a hobby, supporting the Progressive Party and its sole member of parliament, Helen Suzman. In the wider world he became known, through his chairmanship of De Beers, as the king of diamonds, and was a presence on lists of the richest people. He had 25 years as chairman, but for years after his retirement he would turn up at the company’s offices at 44 Main Street, Johannesburg, “to talk to my friends – they even ask my views from time to time”. He acknowledged that making money was the measure of success in business, but “one seeks success more than money after a certain point”. As for diamonds, they were bought out of vanity. What about gold, another great source of wealth for Anglo American? People bought gold, he said, because they were “too stupid to think of any other monetary system that will work”. Harry Oppenheimer had never forgotten his economics. n