The Post-Sharpeville Crisis

Abstract

The period which intervened between the signing of the Simonstown Agreements and the opening months of 1960 initially witnessed a continued British desire to appear forthcoming in negotiations on the African Defence Pact, which remained South Africa’s major diplomatic preoccupation. Despite the reservation which Britain had attached to the Simonstown correspondence when it was registered as a Treaty at the United Nations, therefore, and perhaps because the powerful Welensky in the Central African Federation was also pressing for the scheme,¹ as late as September 1957 the United Kingdom reiterated its belief in the importance of a multilateral conference on regional defence in Southern Africa, after yet another visit by the South African Defence Minister (Erasmus) to London.² Nevertheless, it is clear that already Britain was under even greater pressure to establish public distance between itself and the South African regime and that, in addition, the Union’s economic grip on the United Kingdom had perceptibly — if only temporarily — weakened. As a result, the African Defence Pact was now even less likely to come to fruition.