Aug 20, 2000 - 01:51 PM Gold and Diamond Magnate Harry Oppenheimer Dies at 91 By Ravi Nessman Associated Press Writer JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Harry Oppenheimer, the billionaire South African businessman who led the world's largest diamond and gold mining companies for a quarter century and spoke out against apartheid, has died. He was 91. Oppenheimer was admitted to the intensive care unit Friday at a Johannesburg hospital with abdominal pains and a severe headache, Clifford Elphick, a spokesman for the Oppenheimer family, told the South African Press Association. He died Saturday night. The exact cause of death was unclear. As chairman of diamond giant De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd., Oppenheimer was credited with marketing diamonds as the ultimate gift of love - an advertising campaign that culminated with the famous "A Diamond is Forever" slogan. Oppenheimer's family was reported to be worth $2.5 billion, according to Forbes magazine's 1997 list of the world's super rich. Oppenheimer, arguably South Africa's most respected businessman, was also a vocal opponent of his country's racist regime that sanctioned apartheid for decades. "Disagreeable though it may be, we must admit that the racial policy which has been pursued here over the last 40 years has made South Africa stink in the nostrils of decent, humane people around the world," Oppenheimer said in a speech in 1989. But Oppenheimer's role as the leading businessman in South Africa made his position within the racist regime ambiguous. His labor-intensive mines thrived on a migrant labor system that forced black workers to live apart from their families, and his companies paid black workers far less than whites. His economic success was also considered crucial to the survival of the apartheid government, which ruled until South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994. "Harry Oppenheimer was a man of great intellect, huge personal charm and extraordinary generous philanthropy," said Tony Leon, leader of the opposition Democratic Party. "He was also first and foremost a non-racial liberal." The Oppenheimer dynasty began in 1917, when Harry Oppenheimer's father, Ernest, founded the Anglo American Corp., a mining company. Ernest Oppenheimer took control of De Beers in 1929. After finishing college in England, Harry Oppenheimer became heavily immersed in his father's businesses and in South African politics. He was elected as an opposition member of Parliament in 1948, while he was already managing director of Anglo American. Upon his father's death in 1957, Harry Oppenheimer resigned his parliamentary seat and took command of both Anglo American and De Beers. He greatly diversified Anglo American's international holdings and turned De Beers into a cartel that still controls the vast majority of the world's diamond markets. Under Oppenheimer's leadership, De Beers made huge profits, not only by selling diamonds, but by stockpiling them in times of great supply to increase their price artificially. "We wish to acknowledge the contribution Mr. Oppenheimer made in building the economy of our country, as well as ... creating employment for hundreds of thousands of South Africans as well as citizens of our neighboring countries," said Nat Serache, spokesman for the ruling African National Congress. Even during the darkest days of international sanctions against South African companies, Oppenheimer managed to prosper by using an inscrutably tangled web of holdings to mask his international business deals. Oppenheimer retired in 1982 as Anglo American chairman and in 1984 for De Beers. "Never dictatorial, his style rather was one of rational argument and persuasion, and his influence on the course of politics in South Africa, as well as business, was as remarkable as it was pervasive," said Anglo-American chairman, Julian Ogilvy-Thompson. Oppenheimer had also served in the ceremonial post of chancellor of the University of Cape Town, and he was chairman of the Urban Foundation, an organization to promote black housing and education formed by local businessmen after racial unrest in 1976. Oppenheimer is survived by his wife, Bridget; his daughter, Mary; and his son, Nicholas, who is chairman of De Beers and AngloGold. --------------------------------------------------------------------<e|- <FONT COLOR="#000099">Old school buds here: </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/8020/6/_/475667/_/966803693/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> --------------------------------------------------------------------|e>-
