Minutes Executive Board Meeting, September 15, 1977

Contents: Attendance. 3. The board voted to accept, with regret and wishes for future success, the resignation of Goler Butcher who has been appointed Assistant Administrator for Africa of the Agency for International Development (US AID.) 4. A draft statement was circulated concerning the recent death in detention of Steve Biko, honorary president of the Black People's Convention in South Africa. William Johnston noted 390 people died in South African prisons in the last year, with discussion about this count. 6. The probable attendance of South African representatives at an international police convention to be held in Los Angeles was discussed. 8. Consideration of National Conference. 9. Prexy Nesbitt reported on progress on the bank campaign, circulating an updated list of banks making loans to South Africa, based on research exposing Export-Import loans from regional banks in many parts of the country. United Electrical workers are withdrawing funds from Chase Manhattan, the Rational Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students was also withdrawing funds, and George Houser reported that the International Executive Board of the UAW voted to withdraw funds and went on record to support ACOA's efforts to stop financial support to South Africa. Nesbitt recently met with groups on the West Coast to further coordinate plans; a meeting of the Committee to Oppose Bank Loans to South Africa sponsors was scheduled for the following Monday. 10. Washington: Edgar Lockwood said he had little "inside" information to report, but noted that the administration had pushed through its foreign aid request with considerable funds in relation to southern Africa, with Senate right-wingers achieving a "stand-off" whose practical effect would be to make direct aid to Mozambique or Angola unlikely. He noted that the current Anglo-American proposals on Rhodesia supported the idea of no corporate expropriation. 11. Polisario. The minutes say William Booth presented his report on the World Conference Against Apartheid held in Lagos, Nigeria. Paul Irish reported on his trip to the International Conference to Support the Peoples of Zimbabwe and Namibia in Maputo, Mozambique and subsequently to Swaziland, Botswana, Zambia and the Lisbon Anti-Apartheid Conference. Elizabeth Landis reported on the Namibia negotiations, Justice Steyn's takeover of administration, an upcoming SWAPO meeting in Launda, and the probable trip of the western "contact group" to South Africa. George Houser noted that, in a recent conversation, Donald McHenry, who chairs the western five contact group, expressed no indication of support for SWAPO's claim to Walvis Bay. The minutes discuss South African exiles in New York, Marvin Rich, direct mail, Schneider and Rich, the State Department, the denial of visas, Mayor Thomas Bradley, the Coalition for the Liberation of Southern Africa, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Polisario Front, Michael Davis, Dorothy Hibbert, Janet Hooper, Tilden LeMelle, Gail Morlan, David Robinson, Jennifer Davis, Richard Knight, and Raphael Gould.