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In April 1979, 64 percent of the black citizens of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) lined up at the polls to vote in the first democratic election in the history of that southern African nation. Two-thirds of them supported Abel Muzorewa, a bishop in the United Methodist Church. He was the first black prime minister of a country only 4 percent white. Muzorewa's victory put an end to the 14-year political odyssey of outgoing prime minister Ian Smith, the stubborn World War II veteran who had infamously announced in 1976, "I do not believe in black majority rule--not in a thousand years." Fortunately for the country's blacks, majority rule came sooner than Smith had in mind.

Less than a year after Muzorewa's victory, however, in February 1980, another election was held in Zimbabwe. This time, Robert Mugabe, the Marxist who had fought a seven-year guerrilla war against Rhodesia's white-led government, won 64 percent of the vote, after a campaign marked by widespread intimidation, outright violence, and Mugabe's threat to continue the civil war if he lost. Mugabe became prime minister and was toasted by the international community and media as a new sort of African leader. "I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible," Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, had gushed to the Times of London in 1978. The rest, as they say, is history.

That second election is widely known and cited: 1980 is the famous year Zimbabwe won its independence from Great Britain and power was transferred from an obstinate white ruler to a liberation hero. But the circumstances of the first election, and the story of the man who won it, have been lost to the past. As the Mugabe regime--responsible for the torture and murder of thousands, starvation, genocide, the world's highest inflation and lowest life expectancy--teeters on the brink of disaster after 27 years of authoritarian rule, it is instructive to go back and examine what happened in those crucial intervening months.

To understand the genesis of that oft-forgotten 1979 election, it is necessary to revisit Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, when the British colony joined the United States as the only territory in history to separate successfully from the British Empire without its consent. Five years earlier, in a speech to the South African parliament, British prime minister Harold Macmillan had warned that the "wind of change" was blowing through Africa. "Whether we like it or not," Macmillan said, "this growth of national consciousness is a political fact." Rhodesian whites would not stand for the British policy of "No Independence Before Majority African Rule," however, and in 1964 they overwhelmingly elected Smith premier. When the Rhodesian government reached an impasse with the British over conditions for autonomy, Smith, widely supported by the country's whites, declared Rhodesia independent. And so, on November 11, 1965, the sun abruptly set on another outpost of the British Empire.

The move was immediately condemned as illegal ("an act of treason") by the British government, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations. Independent Rhodesia was not recognized by any country; even apartheid South Africa sent no ambassador to Salisbury, the capital. Britain and the U.N. imposed economic sanctions, and many Rhodesians worried that an oil embargo would cripple their landlocked country.

Over the next decade there followed a series of failed negotiations between the two sides. The British demanded majority rule, but would consider at most a phased plan that would gradually bring a black government to power. Smith, whose Rhodesian Front party was consistently reelected, would have none of it. He spoke of Rhodesia's defense of "Western, Christian civilization" and out-maneuvered a succession of British prime ministers, who all had to contend with the embarrassing "Rhodesia problem." Somehow, this tenacious little former colony held out against the world's once-great British Empire, busting sanctions, increasing white immigration, and keeping domestic black political opposition at bay with a succession of authoritarian laws that effectively banned political dissent.

Smith's obstinacy played a role in emboldening--and radicalizing--his enemies. The refusal of the country's whites to accept black rule created the vacuum in which leaders like Robert Mugabe, of the Chinese-backed Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU), and Joshua Nkomo, of the Soviet-supported Zimbabwean African People's Union (ZAPU), emerged. In 1972, these two organizations started a civil war, aiming to overthrow the white regime by force. ZANU and ZAPU viewed Smith as a mortal enemy, but they were hardly more pleas

October 11, 2002, 9:00 a.m. Carterpalooza! Jimmy Carter, our ?model ex-president.? By Jay Nordlinger, NR Managing Editor EDITOR'S NOTE: Former president Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11, 2002. In the May 20, 2002, issue of National Review, and in an online column around the same time, Jay Nordlinger provided an alternative read on the Carter presidency, and post-presidency. For the print magazine piece click here.... The NRO column is reprinted below.

A ll right, I?ve got Carter on my mind, so look out. Why Carter? Didn?t he leave office in 1981 (the same day the mullahs decided to spring the hostages, lest RR send a few up their gazoo)? Yes, but he?s back in the news, yapping absurdly about the Middle East and getting ready to visit Castro down in Cuba (May 12 to May 17).

For several days, I rooted around in all things Carter, preparing for a piece that appears in the new NR (?There He Goes Again: Jimmy Carter, Our ?Model Ex-President??). I?m not done with our 39th prez — not nearly done — and I wanted to share some things with Impromptus-ites that I couldn?t quite get off my chest in the magazine. Up for a kind of Carterpalooza? I didn?t think so, but try a little of it anyway. The below items will be more or less at random, although I?ll try to impose a speck of order on them. If you have forgotten about Carter, you will be reminded.

I, personally, have always been sort of fascinated by the man (and his family, and his home environs). I suppose I?ve read just about everything significant ever written about him. (Does anyone know what the phrase ?Lordy, Lordy, Jim Jack Gordy? could possibly mean? If so, you are a fellow Carterologist.) I have followed Jimmy C. since the Democratic primaries of 1976. The other day, in conversation with someone, I described his chronicler Douglas Brinkley as ?a great admirer of Carter who?s not blind to his faults.? I suppose I?d describe myself as a great critic of Carter?s who?s not blind to his virtues.

Anyway, let?s Carter away.

For years, Carter has been a thorn in the side of presidents, acting as a kind of ?anti-president,? as Lance Morrow once put it in an essay for Time. You recall how Carter irked Clinton on Haiti and North Korea. His low moment, however, came during the run-up to the Gulf War, when he wrote members of the U.N. Security Council — including Mitterrand?s France and Communist China — urging them to thwart the Bush administration?s effort. Our government found out about it when the Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney, called the defense secretary, Dick Cheney, and said, ?What the . . .?? Some people actually allowed themselves to utter the word ?treason.?

Sometimes, Carter says he would never act at odds with the government; at other times, he talks about a higher law, a