SOUTH AFRICA HINTS AT CONDITIONAL RELEASE FOR JAILED BLACK LEADERS

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President P. W. Botha held out the possibility for the first time today of a conditional release for Nelson Mandela, the country's best-known black nationalist leader, who has been in jail for over two decades and who is regarded by many South African black people as their true leader. There was no immediate response from Mr. Mandela, 66 years old, who is in Pollsmoor maximum-security prison in Cape Town, or from members of his family. Some South African commentators, however, said the purpose of Mr. Botha's offer seemed to be to shift responsibility for Mr. Mandela's continued incarceration away from the white authorities and onto the shoulders of Mr. Mandela himself. Previously, Mr. Mandela, who was sentenced in 1964 to life imprisonment on charges of sabotage and plotting a violent revolution, has spurned offers of release in the nominally independent tribal homeland of the Transkei, which is reserved for people of Xhosa ethnic origin, like Mr. Mandela. He has not been offered release in those parts of South Africa deemed by the authorities to lie outside the tribal homelands.