'No Prime Minister could want a better leader of the opposition': Sir De Villiers Graaff, the United Party and the apartheid State, 1956-1977

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Periodical article

Title:	'No Prime Minister could want a better leader of the opposition': Sir De Villiers Graaff, the United Party and the apartheid State, 1956-1977
Author:	Mouton, F.A.
Year:	2014
Periodical:	African Historical Review (ISSN 1753-2531)
Volume:	46
Issue:	1
Pages:	48-69
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	politicians United Party political opposition apartheid political history
About person:	De Villiers Graaff (1913-1999)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/17532523.2014.911437
Abstract:	As leader of the United Party and the official parliamentary opposition in South Africa between 1956 and 1977, Sir De Villiers Graaff bolstered the apartheid State and destroyed his own party in the process. This article, by investigating Graaff's personality and politics, concludes that he was a man of integrity and decency who loathed the impractical, vicious and cruel nature of apartheid, but that his lack of political acumen, vision and ruthlessness, made him a disastrous party leader. Despite his honest intentions he was the best leader of the parliamentary opposition the apartheid State could have wished for. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]