Alec Smith

Zimbabwe National Army chaplain

Alexander Douglas Smith (known as Alec Smith; 25 May 1949 – 19 January 2006) was a Zimbabwe National Army chaplain and son of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith.

Smith grew up on the family farm in Selukwe (now Shurugwi), a small mining and farming town with a population in the 1950s of around 8,500 (8,000 Black and 500 White). His father Ian Smith had married Janet Watt in late 1948, after returning from war service with a facial disfigurement resulting from crashing his Hurricane whilst taking off from an airfield in Egypt. Watt was a South African school teacher who had previously been married to Piet Duvenage, a South African who had died as the result of a sporting accident while playing rugby. At the time Watt met Smith, she was struggling to support herself and two young children on a modest teacher's salary. Ian Smith adopted Watt's two children, Robert and Jean, from her earlier marriage and brought them up, as his own, with Alec. Alec's relations with his mother were always more difficult than those he had with his father. In April 1964, one month shy of his fifteenth birthday, Smith's father became Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. The younger Smith later suggested that this had caused his family life to suffer. He attended Chaplin High School, and in 1970, Smith began studying law at Rhodes University in South Africa. On his own for the first time, he became increasingly alienated from his background and neglected his studies, falling into drug and alcohol abuse. Smith first came to public attention at this time by applying for a British passport while declaring that he did not agree with his father's political views and still considered himself a loyal British subject. He was expelled from the university at the end of his first year in 1971. Whilst returning from a subsequent holiday in Portuguese ruled Mozambique, Smith was found to be in possession of 200 grams of cannabis by the South African authorities. He was convicted of drug trafficking, fined and given a suspended prison sentence. Returning to Rhodesia, Smith held a number of odd jobs. He also served without distinction as a conscript in the Rhodesian Security Forces. In 1972, Smith declared himself a born again Christian, stating that God had freed him from his past debauchery and helped him see the injustice of racial discrimination. He aligned himself with the Moral Rearmament group, held public meetings promoting majority rule, and befriended a number of Black nationalist leaders.

By 1976, the Rhodesian Bush War was escalating and many White soldiers were recalled to active duty. Smith was called up, but declined to serve and relocated overseas to London. His half brother Robert, similarly alienated from Rhodesian politics, had been living in the United Kingdom since 1970. The elder Smith seemed to accept his son's decision and the two remained in regular contact via letter and telephone. Whilst living in London, Smith met Elisabeth Knudsen, an exchange student from Norway. The couple eventually married in Oslo, in June 1979, but his parents, despite being invited, were denied entry to attend the ceremony by the Norwegian government. Ian Smith later related considerable bitterness over the refusal of the international community to recognise Rhodesia, and described the Norway incident as 'the final straw'.

Smith finally returned to Zimbabwe between December 1979 and March 1980. He remained ostracised by some White Zimbabweans who considered him a traitor, and more than a few Black Zimbabweans who refused to accept him due to his family. However, he and Elisabeth settled into an otherwise mundane family life, reconciling with his father. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Smith held a number of jobs including, from 1991 to 1996, managing director of a professional football team, the Black Aces. Although not an ordained priest, he became a reserve chaplain in the new Zimbabwe National Army. Alec and Elisabeth Smith had three children – two daughters and one son. Smith later became his father's business partner. In this capacity, he assisted in the editing of his father's memoirs and assumed the management of the family's agricultural interests, including the estate at Shurugwi. In 1984, he wrote a semi autobiographical account of the struggle for majority rule in Rhodesia titled Now I Call Him Brother. It was claimed that the book was ghost written for Alec by the professional writer Rebecca de Saintonge.