Kennedy's visit to the other white house

While Robert Kennedy’s 1966 visit to “Die Withuis” at Stellenbosch University was frowned upon by the authorities, students gave him a rapturous welcome, writes Michael Morris.

Thirty years after Robert Kennedy visited South Africa in 1966, delivering his”Ripple of Hope” speech at UCT, his wife Ethel and other members of the family came back for another visit - and thereby hangs a tale.

An arguably under-reported feature of the visit of the young presidential hopeful - who, even as he toured South Africa in June 1966, was honing his campaign to reach the White House in the 1968 US elections - was his appearance at another “white house”, this one in Stellenbosch, where his party was thunderously received.

This occasion was recorded in the Weekend Argus last month - but, regrettably, readers wouldn’t have known it, because the caption erroneously identified the image as showing Kennedy’s visit to UCT. It was, in fact, a picture of his visit a day later to the Simonsberg mens’ residence, known as “Die Withuis”, at Stellenbosch University.

Aggrieved Matie Tom Glover, who was a student and Simonsberg resident at the time, alerted us to the error, and then shared some fascinating details about those distant events - and the subsequent visit of the Kennedy family in 1996.

He described how the Kennedys “were invited to Simonsberg (in 1966) despite total and extreme opposition from the university authorities”.

Rector HB Thom threatened the residence’s house committee with expulsion “should anything untoward happen. Nothing did”.

Elaborating on the theme of his UCT speech, the senator “spoke of how, over time, the spirited and positive actions of every individual could be harnessed for the greater good”, sentiments, Glover said, which sat well with the Simonsberg motto, “Noblesse Oblige”.

Kennedy, in turn, “was subjected to some interesting and thought-provoking debate on his views vis a vis a solution at that time for South Africa - altogether an exciting and exhilarating experience for us young students”.

“In his opening speech, residence primarius, Willem van Drimmelin (later an advocate and much-loved radio commentator), welcomed Robert and Ethel to Die Withuis’ and wished them every success in their endeavours to make Washington’s White House their permanent home in the 1968 elections.”

Robert Kennedy, of course, was shot on June 6, 1968, and died a day later.

The Kennedys’ visit to Simonsberg in 1966 was attended by a moment of alarm, too. Glover recalled how the “English-speakers among us were instructed to stay close to the Kennedys as they moved towards the dining hall in case a question needed to be answered”.

“The traditional greeting or means of applause at Simonsberg is for the 250-odd students to hammer all sorts of hell’ out of those oak dining tables with their soup spoons. I was immediately behind Ethel Kennedy as they entered the hall, and she reeled back in shock at this sudden thunderous racket. She later told us she thought it was an assassination attempt - which was a serious fear at that time.”

A fitting sequel followed 30 years later, in 1996, when Ethel Kennedy and other members of her family paid a return visit to South Africa and to Stellenbosch.

“The attitude, then, of the university authorities was naturally the reverse of what it had been in 1966; the Kennedy Clan was wholeheartedly welcomed to a luncheon party at the university and to a dinner at Lanzerac Hotel that evening. Simonsberg, which had dared to pave the way 30 years earlier, was totally ignored,” Glover recalled.

But the “manne” of the residence would not be so easily put down.

“True to our Withuisgees’, the residence organised a fleet of VIP cars, which awaited the American party outside the luncheon venue, from where the entire entourage was hijacked’ to Simonsberg.

“On arrival at the Res, Ethel said: Now this is the Stellenbosch I remember!”

The Kennedys were taken to the famous dining hall - named, incidentally, after “Chief Molefe”, the head waiter who had served Robert Kennedy’s party in the ‘60s - where a specially inscribed soup spoon was presented to Mrs Kennedy, and thereafter, “a convivial afternoon was spent in the Koshuis Pub”.

Reflecting on his student days, Glover recalled that Simonsberg had a reputation as the home of the less conventionally minded, more truculent, of Stellenbosch’s students, who, as a result of Van Drimmelin’s efforts, were exposed to the critical thinking of the likes of scholars NicOlivier, Sampie Terreblanche and Johan Degenaar.

Students in this circle included business tycoons Christo Wiese and Whitey Basson, who are now well known.

Glover acknowledged that if the ferment at Simonsberg was not overtly anti-apartheid in character, it challenged the conservatism and dictatorial style of a prevailing ethos nurtured by the university leadership, the Afrikaanse Studentebond and the NG Kerk.

“Our focus was to achieve freedom from the arrogant and dictatorial attitude of the authorities.

“In hindsight, although we did not appreciate it at the time, our little group was part of the emergence of the Verligte Beweging’ (Enlightened Movement) described later by Wimpie de Klerk (FW’s brother) to distinguish the divide between enlightened and conservative (verligte and verkrampte) Afrikaners.”

At the time, the enlightened Simonsbergers launched their own newspaper, “Die Forum”, in opposition to the official student paper “Die Matie”.

“Christo Wiese was on the editorial committee, and the first issue contained a letter of congratulations from a certain Whitey Basson of Wilgenhof Mens’ Res.

“We were gatvol’ with the arrogance of the student leadership and the university authorities, as well as the almost docile acceptance of authority by the student body at large. Prof Thom’s high-handed attitude towards the Kennedy visit was a classic example of this.

“We wanted to be able to express our views without Big Brother watching over us,” Glover recalled.

Cape Argus