Balthazar Johannes Vorster

Vorster, John

 orig. Balthazar Johannes Vorster

(born Dec. 13, 1915, Jamestown, Cape Province, S.Af.—died Sept. 10, 1983, Cape Town) South African prime minister (1966–78). Vorster was arrested in 1942 for supporting Germany in World War II. In the 1948 elections he was rejected by the National Party as too extreme, but his support grew in the 1950s. As minister of justice (1961–66) under Hendrik Verwoerd, he rigidly enforced apartheid. When Verwoerd was assassinated, Vorster was chosen to replace him. In the 1970s he sent troops into Angola against its Soviet- and Cuban-supported government. He resigned in 1978 and took the ceremonial post of president, but a scandal forced his resignation.

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Vorster, Balthazar Johannes 

Born Dec. 13, 1915, in Jamestown, Cape Province. State figure of the Republic of South Africa.

Vorster is a lawyer by education. During World War II, he advocated collaboration with fascist Germany, for which he was imprisoned in a camp for pro-fascist sympathizers from 1942 to 1944. From 1961 to 1966 he was minister of justice, police, and prisons in the government of H. Verwoerd. From 1966 to 1978 he was prime minister and leader of the Nationalist Party. The policy of the Vorster government was aimed at further strengthening apartheid, continuing the illegal occupation of the territory of Namibia, and subjugating a number of young African states to the influence of the Republic of South Africa. In 1975–76 the Vorster government sanctioned the armed incursion of South African troops into the territory of the People’s Republic of Angola; the incursion ended in complete failure.