david ottaway, you don't always get to pick your history.ere they lucky that it was nelson mandela and his comrades sitting across the table when it came time to talk about what the future country would look like? >> definitely lucky. you don't find too many statesmen like nelson mandela anywhere in the world. he really stabilized the country in this transition period when there were enormous tensions between blacks and whites and really almost civil war in the two factions of the black community. and the leadership particularly the first two years after he got out, and there was enormous provecatioprove provocation, and they decided to go through negotiations and he really made the difference. >> glenda talked about the differences inside black opinion. did they realize they were talking to a man who didn't want to nationalize the economy and send the white people packing like they did in other african states. >> they hadn't heard from him in 27 years. they didn't even know what he looked like because it was prohibited to even public his pi

david ottaway, you don't always get to pick your history.ere they lucky that it was nelson mandela and his comrades sitting across the table when it came time to talk about what the future country would look like? >> definitely lucky. you don't find too many statesmen like nelson mandela anywhere in the world. he really stabilized the country in this transition period when there were enormous tensions between blacks and whites and really almost civil war in the two factions of the black community. and the leadership particularly the first two years after he got out, and there was enormous provecatioprove provocation, and they decided to go through negotiations and he really made the difference. >> glenda talked about the differences inside black opinion. did they realize they were talking to a man who didn't want to nationalize the economy and send the white people packing like they did in other african states. >> they hadn't heard from him in 27 years. they didn't even know what he looked like because it was prohibited to even public his pi