Promoted to the cabinet in 1968, Van der Byl became a spokesman for the Rhodesian government and crafted a public image as a die-hard supporter of continued white minority rule.

In the late 1970s Van der Byl was willing to endorse the Smith government's negotiations with moderate black nationalist leaders and rejected attempts by international missions to broker an agreement.

After the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe in 1980, Van der Byl remained in politics and close to Ian Smith; he loudly attacked former RF colleagues who had gone over to support Robert Mugabe.

[9] This personal characteristic was intensely irritating to many people including South African government ministers, but Van der Byl's aristocratic mannerisms appeared uncontentious to many Rhodesian whites.

"[11] He welcomed the move as it allowed him to indulge his hobby of big game hunting: in that year in Angola, then under Portuguese rule, he set a world record for the biggest elephant shot, which stood until 1955.

[14] In 1963, Winston Field appointed Van der Byl as a junior government whip,[13] and on 16 March 1964 he was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Justice with responsibility for the Information Service.

[19] Speaking in Parliament he described the aims of his Department as "not merely to disseminate information from an interesting point of view but to play its part in fighting the propaganda battle on behalf of the country".

[20] He defined propaganda as "simply the propagation of the faith and the belief in any particular ideology or thing", and also stated that the department would seek the "resuscitation of the determination of the European to survive and fight for his rights".

[citation needed] Despite his enthusiasm for propaganda, Van der Byl was outraged when the BBC subsequently set up a radio station at Francistown in Botswana which broadcast for 27 months, criticising UDI and urging Rhodesians to revoke it.

Dr Ahrn Palley, the lone white opposition MP, described the powers as "censorship gone mad", and insisted that there would no longer be any guarantee that anything published in the newspapers was authentic.

[31] In 1967 Van der Byl was reported by Malcolm Smith, the former editor of the Herald, as remarking that a high degree of self-censorship was required, and support for the government was essential.

[citation needed] Shortly after UDI, 46 academics working at University College, a racially non-segregated institution, in Rhodesia wrote to The Times in London, denouncing the move.

However, when Van der Byl made informal approaches in April 1966 to see if he might visit Britain "for social reasons" during a tour of Europe, the Commonwealth Relations Office replied that he would not be recognised as enjoying any form of recognition or immunity.

[12] Writing in South Africa's Daily Dispatch, Michael Hartnack remarked that many in the Rhodesian Front believed him to be "a 19th century-style connoisseur, a man of culture and an aristocrat-statesman", adding that "poseurs are an incipient hazard in any unsophisticated society.

When Abel Muzorewa had his passport withdrawn in September 1972 after returning from a successful visit to London, the government did not attempt to counter the rumour that its action was taken following Van der Byl's personal order.

Visiting British journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, who knew Van der Byl socially, reported seeing a copy of Mein Kampf on his coffee table.

Max Hastings, then reporting for the Evening Standard, described him as "that grotesque parody of a Dornford Yates English gentleman" and said that he and Smith "would have seemed ludicrous figures, had they not possessed the power of life and death over millions of people"; Van der Byl had him deported.

[42] While still popular with the Rhodesian Front members, he was criticised at the 1972 Party Congress for his lack of success in improving Rhodesia's image around the world; however, he retained the confidence of Ian Smith and was kept on in a government reshuffle on 24 May 1973.

Clad in immaculately tailored battledress, he would fly by helicopter to a beleaguered army outpost; wearing dark glasses and sporting a swagger stick, deliver a rousing speech for the benefit of the troops and the TV cameras – then return to Salisbury in time for dinner.

[n 1] In a successful attempt to win global sympathy, ZANU clamoured that Nyadzonya had been full of unarmed refugees, leading most international opinion to condemn the Rhodesian raid as a massacre.

Van der Byl responded in a speech on 8 August which asserted that "The terrorists who are trained and equipped outside our border and who invade our country with the willing help of other governments are here for a much wider purpose than the overthrow of Rhodesia.

"[2] Smith decided that he "clearly ... had no option"[59] and on 9 September 1976 executed a sudden cabinet reshuffle that ended Van der Byl's tenure as Defence Minister.

Because, what is being presented to us here is a degree of humiliation ... At this conference, which was organised by Britain with American support, Van der Byl rejected the idea of an interim British presence in Rhodesia during a transition to majority rule, which was identified as one of the few ways of persuading the Patriotic Front to endorse a settlement.

[67] Later that month, Van der Byl was finding pressure put on him by more moderate voices within Rhodesia and hinted that the government might amend the Land Tenure Act, which effectively split the country into sections reserved for each racial group.

He also remarked that Bishop Abel Muzorewa "can be said to represent the African in this country",[68] which indicated the direction in which the Smith government was hoping to travel: an accommodation with moderate voices within Rhodesia was likely to be a better end than a capitulation to the Patriotic Front.

[77] As the date for the full implementation of the internal settlement grew nearer, Van der Byl's profile decreased, but he remained active in politics: he was elected unopposed for the whites-only Gatooma/Hartley seat to the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia House of Assembly.

The weekend after the agreement, he called on the Rhodesian Front to revitalise itself as the only true representative of Europeans in Rhodesia,[78] and he ascribed the result of the conference to "a succession of perfidious British governments".

[80] Van der Byl had been elected unopposed to the new House of Assembly for Gatooma/Hartley and remained a close associate of Smith, becoming vice-president of the 'Republican Front' (later renamed the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe).

The government minister Dr Edson Zvobgo responded with a poem referring to the number of rebels killed fighting troops under Van der Byl's command.

[85] In 1983 Van der Byl had inherited from his mother a property described as "the magnificent estate .. near Caledon in the Western Cape," and following the end of his political career had no need to keep a home in Zimbabwe, so he quit the place.