Considered a moderate within the Rhodesian Front, he was one of a few white ministers included in the cabinets of premier Abel Muzorewa of Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979, and by Robert Mugabe in 1980.

Smith was born on 19 April 1922 on the Kintyre peninsula of Argyll, Scotland, either in Campbeltown[1][2] or at his family's Corran farm in Clachan.

[1] In 1965, the year of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence, Smith was elected to the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly for the Marandellas constituency.

[1][3][4][12][13] At that time, Smith was described as the Rhodesian Front's "most liberal MP" and a moderate within the party who opposed press censorship and favoured a settlement with Britain.

[11][14][15][16][17] He was reelected to Parliament in the 1970 election with 72.5 percent of the vote against independent candidate Thomas Edridge, a Wedza farmer and member of the Rhodesia Tobacco Association's governing council.

[18] In April 1970, the month of the election, Smith criticized the RTA and other commodities boards for their political involvement, and accused them of lobbying against him in other government ministries.

[1][3][7][10][12] He was returned to Parliament in the 1977 election with 86 percent of the vote against William John Raymond Pratt of the right-wing Rhodesian Action Party.

In the fall of 1979, he attended the Lancaster House Conference as part of Zimbabwe Rhodesia premier Abel Muzorewa's delegation.

[23] After the conference, which ended the Rhodesian Bush War and led to the creation of the independent Zimbabwe, he kept in personal touch with nationalist leaders Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo.

[5] In the country's first multiracial elections in 1980, Smith was reelected unopposed as MP for Borrowdale, one of the twenty seats reserved for whites.