Chester Crocker

Chester Arthur Crocker (born October 29, 1941) is an American diplomat and scholar who served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1981 to 1989 in the Reagan administration. Crocker, architect of the U.S. policy of "constructive engagement" towards Southern Africa including apartheid-era South Africa, is credited with setting the terms of Namibian independence.

Crocker was born in New York City in 1941. He attended Ohio State University and graduated with distinction in History in 1963. He obtained a master's degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1965, followed by a Ph.D at the School of Advanced International Studies. From 1969-1970, Crocker was a lecturer in African government and politics at the American University in Washington DC. He was recruited to join the National Security Council by Henry Kissinger in 1970, but returned to academia in 1972 as director of the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University, where he lectured in African politics and international relations. Over the course of the next nine years, Crocker advanced to assistant professor, and finally became associate professor at Georgetown University.

As chairman of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential election campaign's "Africa working group", Crocker sought to change US policy on apartheid South Africa away from what he saw as the confrontational approach adopted by the Carter presidency and towards a new policy which he termed "constructive engagement." Shortly after the election, Crocker attracted the attention of the Reagan transition team with an article he wrote in the winter 1980/81 edition of the Foreign Affairs journal. In the article, Crocker was highly critical of the outgoing Carter administration for its apparent hostility to the white minority government in South Africa, by acquiescing in the United Nations Security Council's imposition of a mandatory arms embargo (UNSCR 418/77) and the UN's demand for the end of South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia (UNSCR 435/78). Crocker’s policy linked the removal of South African forces from Namibia with the removal of Cuban forces from Angola, which many U.S. diplomats considered to be of vital importance. Without Cuban withdrawal, it was deemed unlikely by diplomats that South Africa would see an incentive to begin the removal of its own troops from Namibia. It was hoped that Cuba would view the withdrawal of its troops as a successful conclusion to their efforts in Africa as it would confirm Cuba’s role as a significant player on the diplomatic stage.

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