1. Ian Smith was the country's first leader to be born and raised in Rhodesia, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965 in opposition to their demands for the implementation of majority rule as a condition for independence.
Ian Smith left that party in 1961 in protest over the territory's new constitution, and went on to co-found the Rhodesian Front the following year.
Ian Smith became deputy prime minister following the Front's December 1962 election victory, and he stepped up to the premiership after Field resigned in April 1964, two months before the first events that led to the Bush War took place.
Ian Smith led the Front to four election victories over the course of his premiership; despite sporadic negotiations with moderate leader Abel Muzorewa over the course of the war, his support came exclusively from the white minority, with the black majority being widely disenfranchised under the country's electoral system.
Ian Smith's criticisms persisted after his 1987 retirement: he dedicated much of his 1997 memoir, The Great Betrayal, to condemning Mugabe, UK politicians, and defending his premiership.
In 2005, Ian Smith moved to South Africa for medical treatment, where he died two years later at the age of 88.
Ian Smith's ashes were subsequently repatriated and scattered at his farm.
Ian Smith's father, John Douglas "Jock" Smith, was born in Northumberland and was raised in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland; he was the son of a cattle breeder and butcher.
Ian Smith had emigrated to Rhodesia as a nineteen-year-old in 1898, and became a prominent rancher, butcher, miner and garage owner in Selukwe.
Ian Smith always told me that we're entitled to our half of the country and the blacks are entitled to theirs.
Ian Smith enrolled at the start of 1938, reading for a Bachelor of Commerce degree.
Ian Smith, who was about halfway through his university course, later described feeling patriotically compelled to put his studies aside to "fight for Britain and all that it represented".
Ian Smith engineered his recruitment into the Royal Air Force in spite of this rule during 1940, suppressing mention of his studies, and formally joined in September 1941.
Ian Smith hoped to be stationed in Britain, but was posted to the Middle East instead; there he joined No 237 Squadron RAF, flying Hurricanes.
In October 1943, in Egypt, Ian Smith crashed his Hurricane after his throttle malfunctioned during a dawn takeoff.
Ian Smith again turned down the offer of a billet in Rhodesia and returned to active service in April 1945 with No 130 Squadron, by then based in western Germany.
Ian Smith flew combat missions there, "[having] a little bit of fun shooting up odd things", he recalled, until the war in Europe ended on 8 May 1945 with Germany's surrender.
Ian Smith remained with No 130 Squadron for the rest of his service, flying with the unit to Denmark and Norway, and was discharged at the end of 1945 with the rank of flight lieutenant.
Ian Smith retained reasonable proficiency in Italian for the rest of his life, albeit reportedly with an "atrocious" accent.
Ian Smith showed little interest in leaving Rhodesia and decided that he would finish at university, then come home and buy his own farm.
Ian Smith became spokesman for the university's ex-servicemen, senior student of his hall and chairman of the students' representative council.
Ian Smith turned down the presidency of the rowing club, saying it would be one administrative commitment too many, but agreed to coach the crew.
Ian Smith attended dedicated courses for ex-servicemen at Gwebi during 1947 and 1948, learning skills such as ploughing, herding and milking; he gained practical experience at Taylor's dairy farm near Selukwe and on a tobacco ranch at Marandellas.
Meanwhile, Ian Smith negotiated the purchase of a piece of rough land near Selukwe, bounded by the Lundi and Impali Rivers and bisected by a clear stream.
Ian Smith canvassed around the geographically very large Selukwe constituency and quickly won considerable popularity.
On 15 September 1948, Ian Smith defeated Cilliers and the Labour candidate Egon Klifborg with 361 votes out of 747, and thereby became Member of Parliament for Selukwe.
Ian Smith was one of the few to raise the independence issue at this time, according to his memoirs because his "instinct and training told me to be prepared for every contingency".
Ian Smith was uncertain about the Federal project, but publicly supported it after the mostly white electorate approved it in a referendum in April 1953.
Ian Smith told the Rhodesia Herald that now it had been decided to pursue Federation, it was in Southern Rhodesia's best interests for everybody to try to make it succeed.
Ian Smith received his first political office in November 1958, following that month's Federal election, after one of Welensky's Federal Cabinet ministers requested Ian Smith's appointment as a Parliamentary Secretary in the new United Federal Party government.
At the UFP vote on the constitution on 22 February 1961, Ian Smith was the only member out of 280 to vote against it.
Ian Smith lent his support to the "United Group", an awkward coalition wherein Winston Field's conservative Dominion Party closed ranks with Sir Robert Tredgold and other liberals against the constitutional proposals, despite opposing them for totally contradictory reasons.
The Front ranged from former UFP members, including Ian Smith, who advocated gradual transition and a government based on merit and electoral qualifications, to the Dominion Party's more right-wing members, some of whom held explicitly segregationist views not dissimilar to those of South Africa's National Party.
Ian Smith asserted that the RF worked to thwart "this mad idea of a hand-over, of a sell-out of the European and his civilisation, indeed of everything he had put into his country".
Ian Smith set a general election for 14 December 1962.
Ian Smith was the first Southern Rhodesian prime minister to have been born in the country, something that he thought profoundly altered the character of the dispute with Britain.
The RF's replacement of Field with Ian Smith drew criticism from the British Labour leader Harold Wilson, who called it "brutal", while John Johnston, the British High Commissioner in Salisbury, indicated his disapproval by refusing to meet Ian Smith for two weeks after he took office.
Ian Smith announced his Cabinet on his first day in office, 14 April 1964.
Ian Smith increased the number of ministers from 10 to 11, redistributed portfolios, and made three new appointments.
Ian Smith, who had been to the UK only four times before 1964 and never more than briefly, was labelled a "raw colonial" by Whitehall.
Ian Smith was almost immediately engaged in a dispute with the UK government, which he claimed had forsaken British ideals, and the Commonwealth, which he said had abandoned its own founding principles amid the Wind of Change.
Ian Smith accused both of isolating Southern Rhodesia because it still respected these values.
Three months later, Ian Smith accepted the British condition that the independence terms had to be acceptable to majority opinion, but impasse immediately developed regarding the mechanism by which black views would be gauged.
Labour's narrow victory in the October 1964 UK general election meant that Ian Smith would be negotiating not with Douglas-Home but with Harold Wilson, who was far less accommodating towards the RF stand.
Ian Smith declared acceptability to majority opinion to have been demonstrated after a largely white referendum and an indaba of tribal chiefs and headmen both decisively backed independence under the 1961 constitution in October and November 1964, but black nationalists and the UK government dismissed the indaba as insufficiently representative of the black community.
Ian Smith ignored this, expressing confusion as to what he had done to provoke it.
Little progress was made when two prime ministers met in person in January 1965, when Ian Smith travelled to London for Sir Winston Churchill's funeral.
Amid rumours that UDI was imminent, Ian Smith arrived in London on 4 October 1965 with the declared intent of settling the independence issue, but flew home eight days later with the matter unresolved.
Ian Smith proposed a Royal Commission to test public opinion in Rhodesia regarding independence under the 1961 constitution, and suggested that the UK might safeguard black representation in the Rhodesian parliament by withdrawing relevant devolved powers.
Security Council Resolutions 216 and 217, adopted in the days following Ian Smith's declaration, denounced UDI as an illegitimate "usurpation of power by a racist settler minority", and called on nations not to entertain diplomatic or economic relations.
When Ian Smith continued to receive oil through South Africa and Portuguese Mozambique, Wilson posted a Royal Navy squadron to the Mozambique Channel in March 1966.
Wilson predicted in January 1966 that the various boycotts would force Ian Smith to give in "within a matter of weeks rather than months", but the British sanctions had little effect on Rhodesia, largely because South Africa and Portugal went on trading with it, providing it with oil and other key resources.
Meanwhile, throughout the 1960s and '70s, Ian Smith hired pseudoarchaeologists with the aim to preserve the myth that Great Zimbabwe was the product of a mysterious foreign civilisation.
Ian Smith's government forced Peter Garlake, who argued that it was the work of the Karanga, into exile.
Wilson insisted on the abandonment of the 1965 constitution, the dissolution of the post-UDI government in favour of a "broad-based" multiracial interim administration and a period under a British governor, conditions that Ian Smith saw as tantamount to surrender, particularly as the UK proposed to draft and introduce the new constitution only after a fresh test of opinion under UK control.
Whitehall accepted the proposals, but Salisbury turned them down; Ian Smith announced on 5 December 1966 that while he and his ministers were largely satisfied with the terms, the Cabinet did not feel it could responsibly abandon the 1965 constitution while so much uncertainty surrounded the transition and the new "mythical constitution yet to be evolved".
Ian Smith's team accepted the principle of the blocking quarter but agreement could not be reached on the technicalities of it; the involvement of the UK Privy Council was rejected by Ian Smith as a "ridiculous" provision that would prejudice Rhodesia's sovereignty.
Ian Smith's government began exploring a republican constitution in March 1967.
Talks between Douglas-Home and Ian Smith began with a lengthy meeting in Salisbury in April 1971 and continued until a tentative understanding was reached in early November.
Portugal's withdrawal made Rhodesia hugely dependent on South Africa, but Ian Smith still insisted that he held a strong position.
Ian Smith believed that South African interests would be better served by collaborating with black African governments over a Rhodesian settlement; he hoped that success in this might win South Africa some international legitimacy and allow it to retain apartheid.
Ian Smith afterwards held direct talks with Nkomo and ZAPU in Salisbury, but these led nowhere; Nkomo proposed an immediate transition to an interim government headed by himself, which Ian Smith rejected.
On 20 March 1976, Ian Smith gave a televised speech including what became his most quoted utterance.
Ian Smith cut off talks, introduced martial law across most of the country and ordered reprisal attacks on guerrilla positions.
Ian Smith was included as Minister without portfolio; Nkomo promptly dubbed him the "Minister with all the portfolios".
Lord Soames arrived in Salisbury later the same day to become Southern Rhodesia's last Governor; among other things he announced that Ian Smith would be granted amnesty for declaring independence.
Ian Smith was the only member of any delegation to openly oppose the accords; he refused to attend the signing ceremony and boycotted the post-agreement party, instead having dinner with former RAF comrades and Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader.
Mugabe was not impressed and, according to Ian Smith, refused to ever meet him again.
Ian Smith spoke gloomily about Zimbabwe's future prospects, repeatedly accused the Mugabe administration of corruption, malevolence and general incompetence, and criticised Mugabe's support for a one-party system.
Ian Smith told reporters all this was "part of the game to intimidate me and so demoralise the whites".
Ian Smith remained convinced that nobody would stand up for white Zimbabweans if they did not stick together and defend their interests in parliament.
The government's confiscation of his passport and two refusals of its return prevented him from going, so in April 1983 Ian Smith successfully applied for a British passport.
The CAZ was very successful in the 1985 parliamentary election, winning 15 of the 20 white seats; Ian Smith won decisively in Bulawayo Central.
Ian Smith described Lilford afterwards as a man "who was prepared to die for [his] principles", but refused to openly discuss any possible political motive, saying simply that "it would be premature to come to conclusions".
Ian Smith was declared a "fifth columnist" by the Information Minister Nathan Shamuyarira in February 1987 after he advised a group of South African businessmen that they could survive economic sanctions if white South Africans stood together.
Ian Smith's salary was stopped during the suspension, but the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe ruled in 1989 this had been done illegally and violated Smith's constitutional rights.
The result was the short-lived United Front, which Ian Smith agreed to chair, saying he had no more political ambitions and could therefore be regarded as a neutral figurehead.
The remainder of the collaboration formed the Forum Party, in which Ian Smith decided not to take a leading role.
The elderly Ian Smith lived in an unassuming house in Harare where, according to David Blair, "the front gate always stood open and virtually anyone who walked up the drive would be invited in for tea".
Ian Smith still owned Gwenoro, but employed a manager to run it after Janet's death in 1994.
Ian Smith's enduring popularity among white Zimbabweans was evidenced by the long queues they formed to have him sign copies of the book on its release in Harare in December 1997.
Not all of the country's whites admired Ian Smith; some felt that his obstinate refusal to acknowledge what they saw as past errors caused the whole white community to be resented and viewed with suspicion.
Five months later, in England to address the Oxford Union, Ian Smith described Mugabe as "mentally deranged".
The President announced in response that Ian Smith would be arrested and tried for genocide if he ever came back to Zimbabwe, a threat that Ian Smith mocked.
Half a year later, Ian Smith lost his Zimbabwean passport as a result of further tightening of the law regarding multiple citizenship.
Ian Smith claimed that his Zimbabwean citizenship had been illegally revoked and that he was now stateless, an assertion disputed by the Minister of Home Affairs, John Nkomo, who said that Ian Smith could stay in the country, but would not receive a new Zimbabwean passport until he renounced his right to British nationality.
In 2002, Ian Smith challenged Mugabe to come with him to a township to see who got the best welcome.
Ian Smith travelled to South Africa for medical treatment in 2005, and moved into a retirement home overlooking the sea in St James, a southern suburb of Cape Town.
Ian Smith was reportedly devastated by the death of his son Alec from a heart attack at London Heathrow Airport in January 2006.
The elder Ian Smith had referred to his son as "my rock".
Ian Smith's ashes were returned to Zimbabwe and scattered by his family at Gwenoro.
Ian Smith was finally struck off the voters' roll in April 2013, along with 345,000 other dead people.
We never suffered the way we are suffering now because Ian Smith took care of the economy that supported all people and they had enough to eat.
Godwin took a similar line, describing the emergency powers Smith used to combat black nationalists as "draconian"; he pointed out that these "levers of repression" had formed the base for much of what Mugabe later did.