No 5 Keep your friends close-and your rivals even closer

Many of the guests Mandela invited to the house he built in Qunu were people whom,he intimated to me,he did not wholly trust.He had them to dinner,he called to consult with them,he flattered them and gave them gifts.Mandela is a man of invincible charm-and he has often used that charm to even greater effect on his rivals than on his allies.



On Rubben Island,Mandela would always include in his brain trust men he neither liked nor relied on.One person he became close to was Chris Hani,the fiery chief of staff of the ANC's military wing.There were some who thought Hani was conspiring against Mandela,but Mandela cozied up to him.It wasn't just Hani,says Ramaphosa,It was also the big industrialists,the mining families,the opposition.He would pick up the phone and call them on their birthdays.He would go to family funerals.He saw it as an opportunity.When Mandela emerged from prison,he famously include his jailers among his friends and put leaders who had kept him in prision in his first cabinet.Yet I well knew that he despised some of these men.




There were times he washed his hands of people- and times when,like so many people of great charm,he allowed himself to be charmed.Mandela initially developed a quick rapport with South African President FW. de Klerk,which is why he later left so betrayed when De Klerk attacked him in public.Mandela believed that embracing his rivals was a way of controlling them,they were more dangerous on their own than within his circle of influence.He cherished loyalty,but he was never obsessed by it.After all,he used to say,people act in their own interest.It was simply a fact of human nature,not a flaw or a defect.The flip side of being an optimist-and he is one-is trusting people too mcuh.But Mandela recognized that the way to deal with those he didn't trust was to neutralize them with charm.