No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2021
In December 1974, Ian Smith, the leader of the white minority regime in Rhodesia, announced for the first time since declaring his country’s independence from Britain in 1965 that his government was willing to begin direct negotiations with the African liberation movements seeking to achieve majority rule in Rhodesia. The prospect of such talks leading to an end to guerrilla fighting in Rhodesia and a termination of the United Nations authorized sanctions against the illegal Smith regime is dimmed by the fact that the Africans demand African rule for Rhodesia in the near future if not immediately, while Smith and his supporters have refused to consider such a development “in his lifetime.” Still the announcement constituted a step forward which few informed observers would have deemed likely even a few weeks before.
1 See Chartrand, Philip E., “Churchill and Rhodesia in 1921: A Study of British Colonial Decision-Making” (Ph.D. dissertetion, Syracuse University, 1974), pp. 83–92, 127-29Google Scholar.
2 The civil servants’ views were reflected in a report issued by a committee created by Churchill to consider Rhodesia’s future: see Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1273 (April 1921).
3 The texts of Smuts’ telegrams to Churchill can be found in Colonial Office records preserved at the Public Records Office (PRO) in London, file nos. C.O. 537/1182/20615/S and CO. 537/1183/24860/S.
4 Ibid. See the minutes added to the files containing Smuts’ two telegrams.
5 Keith, A.B., ed., Speeches and Documents of the British Empire, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1918-1939), 2 (1938), pp. 414–415 Google Scholar.
6 See, e.g., the Labour Government statement made to the House of Commons on 2 July 1931, Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th series, 254 (1931), pp. 1471-1472; and the letter sent to Rhodesia by the Secretary of State for the Colonies of the National Government in September 1935, PRO file no. D.O. 35/424/11969/120.
7 The Commission Report can be found in Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 5949 (March 1939). Opposition to amalgamation was privately made plain to Prime Minister Churchill by the Secretaries of State for the Colonies and for the Dominions in 1941: “the real issue in this connection is the colour bar... .” See PRO file no. D.O. 35/826/R.8/288.
8 SirWelensky, Roy, Welensky’s 4000 Days (London, 1964), pp. 23–24 Google Scholar.
9 Interview with the author, London, 9 October 1968.
10 On the apartheid policies of the South African government after 1948, see Carter, Gwendolen M., The Politics of Inequality (London, 3rd ed. 1963)Google Scholar.
11 Leys, Colin, European Politics in Southern Rhodesia (London, 1959), pp. 74–97 Google Scholar.
12 See Rotberg, Robert I., The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 214–252 Google Scholar.
13 See debates of 4 March 1952; 29 April 1952; 24 July 1952; 24 March 1953; 4 May 1953; and 6 May 1953 in Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th series, vols. 497,499, 504, 512 and 515.
14 Speech at Chileka Airport, Blantyre, 6 July 1958.
15 Cmnd. 814: Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry (July 1959), esp. p. 1.
16 SirBlundell, Michael, So Rough a Wind (London, 1964), pp. 265–266 Google Scholar.
17 One of the ministers who would have known if such decisions had been made, Iain Macleod, wrote in 1965 that no “dramatic Cabinet decision” was taken in 1959. “What did happen,” wrote Macleod, “was that the tempo accelerated as a result of a score of different deliberate decisions”; see “Britain’s Future Policy in Africa,” Weekend Telegraph, 12 March 1965.
18 In an interview given in 1970, Macleod said that when Macmillan “gave me this post, he knew very well, and indeed it was implicit in the offer, that I was going to operate a different form of regime to that of my predecessor”; $$$cited by Robin Palmer in “European Resistance to African Majority Rule,” African Affairs 72 (July 1973), pp. 258-259. Lord Butler of Saffron-Walden has said in an interview with this author in London, 16 December 1968, that Lennox-Boyd had already decided privately while still at the Colonial Office that the Federation could not be saved, and that Macleod was of the same view at that time.
19 Macmillan: A Study in Ambiguity (London, 1967), p. 195.
20 Macmillan, Harold, Pointing the Way: 1959-1961 (London, 1972), p. 156 Google Scholar.
21 Wilson set forth these other factors subsequently in his book. The Labour Government 1964-1970: A Personal Record (London, 1971), pp. 180ff.
22 Confidential interviews with British government officials and diplomats confirm these private exchanges.
23 The political cynic might conclude that Wilson saw the oil embargo as a politically satisfactory response which could work if South Africa declined to upset the balance; but if South Africa stepped in, the failure of sanctions could be laid at the Republic’s doorstep. However, Wilson’s incautious prediction of “weeks not months” suggests he really believed sanctions would work.
24 The Guardian (London), 15 February 1966, p. 1.
25 Wilson’s own assessment in early 1967 was of a total annual cost approaching 100 million pounds; but figures varied depending on what was included in the term “cost”; see Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th series, 741 (1967), p. 1436.
26 Confidential interviews with British government officials, London, July 1972.
27 South African Scope (October 1975), p. 12.
28 Washington Post, 18 January 1975, p. A1.