Rhodesian UDI
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Rhodesian UDI edited by Michael D. Kandiah ICBH Oral History Programme Rhodesian UDI The ICBH gratefully acknowledges the support of the Public Record Office and the Institute of Historical Research for this event ICBH Oral History Programme Programme Director: Dr Michael D. Kandiah © Institute of Contemporary British History, 2001 All rights reserved. This material is made available for use for personal research and study. We give per- mission for the entire files to be downloaded to your computer for such personal use only. For reproduction or further distribution of all or part of the file (except as constitutes fair dealing), permission must be sought from ICBH. Published by Institute of Contemporary British History King’s College London Strand London WC2R 2LS ISBN: 1 871348 70 6 Rhodesian UDI Held 6 September 2000 at the Public Record Office, London Chaired by Robert Holland Papers by Richard Coggins and Sue Onslow Seminars edited by Michael Kandiah Institute of Contemporary British History Contents List of Contributors 9 Citation Guidance 11 The British Government and Rhodesian UDI Richard Coggins 13 The Conservative Party and Rhodesian UDI Sue Onslow 23 Seminar Session I: Labour Government and Party 29 edited by Michael Kandiah Seminar Session II: Conservatives and UDI 49 edited by Michael Kandiah Commentary Colin Legum 69 Document: Unilateral Declaration of Independence 73 Chronology 75 Contributors Editor: MICHAEL D. KANDIAH Director of the Witness Seminar Programme, Institute of Contemporary British History Session 1 Labour Government and Party Chair: ROBERT HOLLAND Institute of Commonwealth Studies Paper-giver: RICHARD COGGINS The Queen’s College, Oxford Witnesses: GEORGE CUNNINGHAM Commonwealth Relations Office 1956-63. DR DAVID KERR Labour Councillor, Wandsworth, and then MP for Wandsworth and PPS to the Minister of State in the Foreign and Common- wealth Office, 1967-69. M. J. MORIARTY Civil Servant, Cabinet Office 1965-67 SIR JOHN PESTELL Secretary/Controller to Governor of Southern Rhodesia, 1965- 69. SIR ALBERT ROBINSON High Commissioner in London for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1961-63. SIR OLIVER WRIGHT Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. In the audience: CARL WATTS University of Birmingham Session II Conservatives and UDI Chair: ROBERT HOLLAND Institute of Commonwealth Studies Paper-giver: SUE ONSLOW London School of Economics Witnesses: SIR DOUGLAS Conservative MP for Cheltenham 1964-74 DODDS-PARKER JAMES LEMKIN Conservative activist SIR IAN LLOYD Conservative MP for Portsmouth Langstone, and Economic Adviser to British and Commonwealth Shipping CHARLES LONGBOTTOM Conservative MP for York, 1959-66, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, 1961-63 SIR JOHN PAGE Conservative MP for Harrow West SIR TEDDY TAYLOR MP for Glasgow Cathcart SIR PEREGRINE Deputy Editor, Sunday Telegraph, 1961-76 WORSTHORNE SIR OLIVER WRIGHT Private Secretary to the Prime Minister From the floor: CHRISTABEL GURNEY Anti-Apartheid Archives S. ADEYINKA ODUBENA CARL WATTS University of Birmingham KAYE WHITEMAN formerly of the Commonwealth Commission Citation Guidance References to this and other witness seminars should take the following form: Witness name, in ‘Witness Seminar Title’, seminar held [date of seminar], (In- stitute of Contemporary British History, [date of publication], [full internet ad- dress of seminar]), page number of reference [use the number given in the header at the top of the page referenced]. For example, referring to Sir Teddy Taylor’s comments on the Young Progressive Group of the Conservative Party: Sir Teddy Taylor, in ‘Rhodesian UDI’, seminar held 6 September 2000 (Institute of Contemporary British History, 2002, http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/ groups/ich/witness/diplomatic/RhodesiaUDI.aspx), p.58. For Harvard reference style, use (ICBH Witness Seminar, date of publication) in the text, and the following style in the bibliography: ‘Witness Seminar Title’, held [date of seminar], Institute of Contemporary Brit- ish History, [date of publication], [full internet address of seminar]. For fuller guidance on the citation of all types of electronic sources, please refer to the H-Net Guide at: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/about/citation/general.html 12 Rhodesian UDI © Institute of Contemporary British History, 2001. Not to be reproduced without permission. The British Government and Rhodesian UDI1 Richard Coggins The Queen’s College, Oxford Southern Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965 created arguably the most intractable problem in British foreign and colonial policy in the post-war period. For 15 years successive UK governments sought to end the rebellion by the white settler regime entrenched in Salisbury. Economic sanctions and political initiatives failed to convince the regime of Ian Smith to agree to concede power to the black majority in the country now known as Zim- babwe.2 While decolonisation of other British African colonies had proceeded along a relatively linear constitutional path in the 1960s, Rhodesia’s independence as Zimbabwe did not arrive until 1980 after a protracted guerrilla war and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. Rhodesian independence raised several conflicting problems for Harold Wilson’s Labour gov- ernment. When Wilson assumed office on 16 October 1964, the only remaining African colonies of any significance were Northern Rhodesia (independent as Zambia twelve days after the British general election), Southern Rhodesia and Bechuanaland. By 1966 the last-named had gained inde- pendence as Botswana, and only Rhodesia remained to vex Wilson’s government until the end of its term. Beset by ongoing economic crisis, the government had to reconcile backbench opinion, sceptical (if not hostile) criticism from the African Commonwealth, and pressure at the United Nations, with the need to dispose of the problem in a practicable way, taking into account essential economic interests in South Africa and Zambia. The principle dilemma for British policy makers was a classic one: balancing considerations of Realpolitik against fundamental principles of democ- racy for the black majority in Rhodesia. The Rhodesian issue should not be divorced from the broader context of British imperial policy in the 1960s. Major international problems including the war in Vietnam, the Six Days’ War in the Middle East, ‘confrontation’ between Britain, Malaysia and Indonesia in the Far East, war between India and Pakistan, and the development of nuclear weapons by the Chinese meant that Rhodesia was not always of the most immediate importance. Longer-term trends also mitigated the importance of UDI: the constant economic pressure on the government, committed to the defence of sterling within the fixed exchange rate system, eventually forced the withdrawal from East of Suez, the cancellation of major defence orders and a reduction of the overseas aid budget. The British government was concerned by the perceived increase in Communist, especially Chi- nese, influence in Africa. This fear was conditioned by the experience of the collapse of the Belgian Congo in 1960-5 and the danger that the USSR and China would exploit the declining influence of Britain to their own ends. Rhodesia played its part in this process by symbolising a new phenomenon in international politics: non-racial democracy became gradually more entrenched as a norm of international politics. This development was a logical outcome of the process of decolonisation itself as more and more African states gained representation at the UN and pressed for those areas of the continent still under colonial rule to be freed. 1 This is a work in progress; please do not cite without permission. 2 For the sake of historical rather than political correctness, ‘Rhodesia’ refers to the British Colony of Southern Rhodesia before 1980, and ‘Zimbabwe’ to the Republic of Zimbabwe established on 18 April 1980. After Zambian independence on 27 Oct. 1964 Southern Rhodesia was almost always abbreviated to Rhodesia. 14 Rhodesian UDI The central question to be addressed is, then, the attitude the British government took towards the Rhodesian problem, both in terms of its particular complexities and the wider world in which the problem arose. The aim of this paper and witness seminar is to assess the influences and con- straints on British policy towards Rhodesia in the immediate post-decolonisation era. With many conflicting demands to reconcile, what were the priorities of policy-makers? Did they change over time? From the answers to this follow several important questions concerning the various measures taken to try to bring the rebellion to an end. Just how committed was Whitehall to non-racial democracy in southern Africa? Would Harold Wilson have accepted a settlement short of ‘No Independence Before Majority Rule’? Were there tensions in Whitehall between, for example, the Commonwealth Relations Office (formally responsible for Rhodesia up to 1968) and the Foreign Office (responsible for the han- dling of the United Nations side and then the whole of Rhodesian policy after 1968)? Were divisions within the Cabinet a significant influence on policy? Without losing sight of this essential issue, six or seven more specific areas can be identified as the most pressing issues for the government. The political nature of the problem, reconciling black and white African nationalism with their competing visions of the future of black political devel- opment, is the crux of the matter.