THE American republic survived Richard Nixon. SA’s will survive Jacob Zuma. Of that John Campbell sounded confident when I spoke to him this week about his new book. He has called it Morning in SA. No “u”.

If you’re looking for a Washington establishment view on SA, Campbell is a good place to start. His state department career began in 1975. It included a stint in Pretoria as political counsellor between 1993 and 1996 and culminated in Nigeria, where he was ambassador from 2004 to 2007.

He is now the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. The Nixon-Zuma analogy was his, not mine.

Full article: LETTER FROM WASHINGTON: Deeper truths remain intact under the froth | Columnists | BDlive