After going underground Mr. Oliver Tambo spent many months wandering through Africa, and it was only finally when he reached Egypt that he could establish a temporary base. He and other exiled leaders found that international support for ANC or PAC insurrection in South Africa was just not forthcoming.

The exiled leadership had to find its feet in the whole field of African and international diplomacy, and they had yet to learn that governments of all ideological persuasions were motivated by their own national interests. They had to learn too that the world was not filled with governments and peoples prepared to sacrifice their interests in altruistic action to aid a revolution in a country which was unrelated to their real day-to-day vested interests.  Western support for the exiled leadership amounted to no more than eventually granting them freedom of travel and the right to set up exiled offices. They found that those countries which were more sympathetic to them lacked the means with which to assist them materially.

It was in these circumstances that the South African Communist Party, which had been allied to the ANC in South Africa since its inception, played an important role in mobilising Russian support for the ANC. What support was forthcoming from the West was confined to support for humanitarian needs.

A compounding problem in the experience of the exiled leadership was the unmanageable conflict between the ANC and the PAC. The external world was faced with two groups both claiming legitimacy as revolutionaries. The international community was again and again confronted with internecine conflicts between them.