Wachuku as Foreign Affairs Minister of Nigeria preferred quiet diplomacy, especially with the two major Anglo-American powers: Great Britain and the United States – in search of solutions to continental and international problems. For example, there was a lot of hue and cry as a result of the Rivonia Trial in South Africa in 1963 following the arrest of Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Denis Goldberg, Raymond Mhlaba, Andrew Mlangeni, Lionel Bernstein and others. They and Nelson Mandela, who was serving term on his 1962 conviction, were charged with "sabotage and ... conspiracy to overthrow the Government by revolution and by assisting an armed invasion of South Africa by foreign troops." These charges were treasonable and carried the death penalty. Wachuku quietly invited Lord Head, the British High Commissioner in Lagos and also United States' Ambassador Joseph Palmer II – and strongly urged them to intercede with their governments to prevail on the apartheid regime in South Africa – not to impose the death penalty on Nelson Mandela and others. Wachuku employed the same quiet consultation on the matter with US Secretary of State Dean Rusk and British Foreign Secretary Lord Home. Subsequently, Lionel Bernstein was acquitted and Mandela and the rest were given life imprisonment terms.