Ian Smith, the last prime minister of white-ruled Rhodesia, whose attempts to resist black rule dragged the country now known as Zimbabwe into civil war, has died. He was 88.

Smith died Nov. 20 in the South African city of Cape Town, where he spent his final years with his family. He had been ailinfor some time and recently suffered a stroke.

To many white Rhodesians, he was a kind of idol — "good old Smithy." To most blacks, his rule symbolized the worst of racial oppression.

"I don't believe in black majority rule ever for Rhodesia, not in a thousand years," the former Royal Air Force pilot once famously said.