Michael Young

Michael Young was a mediator in the talks that ended apartheid in South Africa (portrayed by Jonny Lee Miller)

“In February 1986 of a despairing year, a man in his early forties steered a hired car on to the freeway that leads out of Cape Town into the vast South African interior.” That man, introduced at the outset of Robert Harvey’s extraordinary history, The Fall of Apartheid, was Michael Young, then head of public affairs and communication for Consolidated Goldfields. Young’s lonely drive marked the start of an odyssey that would find him mediating top-secret negotiations between the African National Congress and the Afrikaner establishment, bringing the adversaries face to face in a series of covert discussions in the UK. The talks exposed Young to surveillance, risk of assassination and the disavowal of his activities and loss of his job if his mission became known. Against all odds, he paved the way for a more formal and public negotiating process that led to democracy in South Africa. Early in his career, Young was an advisor to British Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Prime Minister Edward Heath, until he broke with the Conservative
Party after the election of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1979. He is currently chairman of
Michael Young Associates, which specializes in strategic planning, change management and conflict
resolution.

In South Africa, They Proved That Peace is Possible
Endgame Starring William Hurt, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jonny Lee MillerbbMASTERPIECE Contemporary season premiereb Sunday, October 25, 2009 on PBS