In his chairman’s address of Rembrandt Beherende Beleggings in 1996 Rupert referred to those who came and went in the first ten years, and those who returned and stayed to the end. ‘There are few of us left who had the faith. I think only Dr Stals and I truly believed. We kept on believing that these things were possible; that he who does not believe in miracles, is not a realist.’ Stals, chairman of Voorbrand, became Rembrandt’s first chairman, with Rupert the first managing director. When Stals was appointed to the cabinet in 1948, he was succeeded as chairman by Dr Nic Diederichs. In addition to Stals and Rupert, other members of Rembrandt’s first board were CC (Oupa) Kriel, DWR (Dirk) Hertzog, IM (Ivan Makepeace) Lombard, JH (Jan) Steyn and RL (Roulou) Barry.
Rupert confirmed his high regard for Stals in an article published in Tegniek in September 1950, on the occasion of his mentor’s 70th birthday, shortly before his death in 1951. Stals’s ‘refinement of spirit’ – one of the highest compliments Rupert could pay a person – had left an indelible impression: ‘I have never in all my life encountered someone who, to my mind, is a more perfect, honest, sincere Christian.’3
With the move to Stellenbosch Rupert also linked up with a division of the Afrikaner-Broederbond (AB) in the new environment. Between September 1945 and January 1947 discussions on economic affairs were conducted in the AB in which he participated as one of some 40 members who were representative of the biggest Afrikaans businesses. During this period the earlier debate between a socialist and a free-market approach was concluded with a commitment of loyalty to free-market principles.4
In these discussions, where Rupert argued for the free-market system, he also pleaded for a better understanding between North and South (a division in Afrikaner politics marked by suspicion and distrust that dragged on for many years) and for the bigger institutions to help create circumstances more favourable to the development and growth of the smaller enterprises. As Rupert himself put it, ‘I stated my views’ within the AB where there were great differences on a variety of issues. Among other things, he advocated coexistence.
At a bondsraad meeting of 4-5 October 1956 where the Afrikaner’s economic aspirations were high on the agenda, some speakers proposed a quota system as a ‘powerful instrument’ to ensure a foothold in trade and industry for young and emerging Afrikaans businesses. The executive council of the AB was requested to lobby members of the cabinet to find a basis ‘on which Afrikaner enterprises can be favoured to a greater extent by means of the allocation of quotas.’ Rupert, who delivered one of three papers at the bondsraad, pointed out, however, that an own business style, realism, enthusiasm and loyalty were the most important requirements for success. A second speaker, Dr AD Wassenaar of Sanlam, emphasised that, over and above outside forces obstructing the advancement of Afrikaners, the major obstacles lay in Afrikaners’ own view of and approach to their problems.
The executive council responded ‘rather unenthusiastically’ to resolutions about matters like a quota system, an idea also propagated earlier by Dr Hendrik Verwoerd. Quota systems, which would again figure in the new government’s transformation plans and affirmative action after the ANC came to power in 1994, were scrapped from the executive council’s agenda within a few months after the bondsraad decisions of 1956.5
Rupert gradually saw less need for an organisation such as the AB after 1948, ‘when our own people had come to power’. His father had been opposed to secret societies and never joined the AB, even though his friend Ds Jozua Naudé had been a founder and the first president. John Rupert believed that a secret society always gave rise to machinations and intrigue. His father’s view made Rupert increasingly uncomfortable with participation in the AB; as he put it, it had become ’an absurdity’ and ‘counterproductive’ over time. In the 1960s an AB circular noted that he had only attended two of the year’s monthly meetings of the Helderberg division.6 Eventually his membership lapsed. But he never violated the confidentiality of the organisation, as did Beyers Naudé (a member for 22 years and the chairman of an AB division in Emmarentia) and Albert Geyser (who was never considered for AB membership).
In response to an allegation in Dan O’Meara’s book Volkskapitalisme that ‘the Bond-connection was vitally important to the early development of Rembrandt’, Hertzog wrote in an internal memorandum: ‘The members of the Broederbond, the Reddingsdaadbond and also many other people supported Rembrandt, but it is nonsense to say it was founded by the Broederbond.’ He concluded: ‘Rembrandt met a need at the time to bring the Afrikaner into business life on a sound basis and thereafter became widely known on account of its pioneering work in 50/50 partnership with all the benefits this entailed in terms of international and inter-group cooperation. For this and for the consistently high quality of its products and services Rembrandt will remain known, regardless of the mud flung from time to time by those who have their own axes to grind.’7
Rupert is adamant that membership of the AB was never used as a criterion for appointments. ‘AB membership was to me no reason for preferential treatment.’ It was also his policy not to force anyone in his group to speak Afrikaans. One such English-speaker with whom he would have a long association visited Stellenbosch in 1946 – the London marketing expert Patrick O’Neill-Dunne of Rothmans, for whom a draft contract was drawn up to assist with the marketing of Rothmans’ products in South Africa. Dirk Hertzog recalls how O’Neill-Dunne once commented on their struggle against the mighty UTC: ‘You two boys trying to bash British American Tobacco make me think of two fleas crawling up the back of an elephant with rape in their mind!’8
O’Neill-Dunne was entitled to 2,5% of Rembrandt’s net profit, which also applied to Rupert as the managing director. This led to a far-reaching decision in 1949 that would provide an early foundation for his philosophy as businessman-benefactor. Rupert requested the board to use this 2,5 percent of the net profit to which he was entitled for good deeds and worthy causes, a decision that would eventually lead to numerous philanthropic actions and foundations, as well as important strategic partnerships in the area of social responsibility.
An old flourmill next to the Berg River in Paarl was adapted to serve as the group’s first cigarette factory. In 1947 the first two cigarette machines arrived from Canada, bought with the help of Dawid de Waal Meyer, South Africa’s trade commissioner in Montreal, from a small Dunhill factory that had folded after the war. At the beginning of 1948, as Rupert put it, ‘with two old primitive machines we at last took the plunge to start making cigarettes, with overseas expertise and South African capital.’
The small band of pioneers took the risk of venturing into an industry with a long history. Tobacco smoking dates back to ancient North and South American civilisations. In the 16th century Sir Walter Raleigh popularised pipe smoking at the English court, and in Spain tobacco plants were used medicinally. By the 17th century the use of tobacco had been prohibited in Austria, China, Persia (where a tobacco dealer was burnt at the stake) and tsarist Russia (first offenders were flogged, a second offence meant the death penalty). Still the smoking habit spread. In 1880 two Americans, James A Bonsack and James Buchanan Duke, designed and patented machines to manufacture cigarettes. Especially in wartime tobacco consumption rocketed. During World War I Gen. John Pershing said: ‘You ask me what we need to win the war? I answer tobacco as much as bullets.’ Pres. FD Roosevelt regarded it as essential war material during World War II and exempted tobacco growers from military duty. The non-smoker Adolf Hitler, by contrast, launched the first anti-smoking campaign of modern times in the 1930s and the tobacco rations of Nazi soldiers were restricted to six cigarettes a day.
The cigarette industry was also boosted by the film industry. Ordinary people could not afford the yachts, fur coats and luxury goods displayed by Hollywood stars in films, but they could smoke the cigarettes their screen idols were enjoying so freely. Cigarette consumption rose after World War II and peaked in the 1950s.9 Opposition to smoking started