Abstract
Two months after the Nairobi Conference in August 1951, the Conservatives defeated Britain’s Labour government at the polls and Churchill, though aged seventy-seven and in declining health, returned to power. Despite his youthful experiences as a war correspondent in South Africa during the Boer war and his great personal friendship with Smuts,1 Churchill had provided little public evidence of close interest in developments in the country after the National Party’s own famous election victory in 1948. As Leader of the Opposition, he spoke only twice on South Africa in the House of Commons, once on the Seretse Khama affair2 and once in tribute to Smuts following the General’s death.3 On neither occasion did he attack the new South African government. Moreover, during his second premiership he spoke only once on a substantive South African question, and that was merely to reiterate, on 13 April 1954, the British view that the High Commission Territories would not be transferred to the Union without prior consultation of the inhabitants and parliamentary discussion (though this certainly caused ripples in South Africa).4
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Notes and References
See, for example, Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (London: Sphere, 1968), pp. 66–70; and John Colville, The Churchillians (London: Weidenfeld, 1981), pp. 134–5.
Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (New York: Chelsea House, 1974).
A. L. Geyer, Vierjaar in Highveld (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1969), p. 50.
Churchill to Smuts, 22 May 1949, Jean van der Poel (ed.), Selections from the Smuts Papers, vol. VII (Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 298.
Smuts to Churchill, 23 May 1949, Ibid, p. 299.
Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 15–17, 21.
Univ. of Stellenbosch, Report of an ‘Off the Record’ Conversation between Mr Winston Churchill & a Small Group of Commonwealth Representatives at a Luncheon at the UK High Commissioner’s Residence [Ottawa] on Jan. 12 1952, Malan Papers, 1/1/2756; for a more explicit remark of the same kind in a similar context, see H. B. Thom, D. F. Malan (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1980), p. 278.
PRO, UK High Commissioner in South Africa to CRO, 13 Nov. 1951, DEFE7/176.
Ibid, 17 Nov. 1951.
Ibid, 11 Dec. 1951, DEFE7/177.
PRO, Royal Naval Base at Simonstown. Dec. 1951, DO35/2369.
Anthony Seldon, Churchill’s Indian Summer: The Conservative Government, 1951–55 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1981), pp. 95, 336–7.
PRO, Liesching to Le Rougetel, 2 Jan. 1952, DO35/2369.
Ritchie Ovendale, ‘Egypt and the Suez Base Agreement’, in John W. Young (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Churchill’s Peacetime Administration 1951–1955 (Leicester University Press, 1988), pp. 135–8.
John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, vol. 2: 1941— April 1955 (London: Sceptre, 1987), p. 298.
On the South African constitutional crisis of 1951–6, see Gwendolen M. Carter, The Politics of Inequality: South Africa Since 1948 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1958), chap. 4.
PRO, Cabinet Defence Committee, D(52) 1st Meeting, 12 Mar. 1952, CAB131/12.
Seldon, Churchill’s Indian Summer, p. 312, and Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten: The Official Biography (London: Collins, 1985), pp. 526–7, 530.
Ibid, p. 314, and Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 291; c.f. Eric J. Grove, Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy Since World War II (London: The Bodley Head, 1987), pp. 83, 85, 114.
PRO, British Overseas Obligations. Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs, 18 June 1952, C(52)202, CAB129/53.
PRO, UK High Commissioner in South Africa to CRO, 6 May 1953, ibid.
Evelyn Schuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–56 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986), p. 61.
Joe Garner, The Commonwealth Office, 1925–68 (London: Heinemann, 1978), p. 285.
PRO, Swinton to Alexander, 21 Dec. 1953, ADM116/6050.
PRO, Churchill to Lord Swinton, 24 Dcc. 1953, ADM116/6050.
PRO, Parker (MoD) to Musgrave (MOS), 10 Apr. 1954, DEFE7/178.
PRO, MoD: Visit to the United Kingdom of Mr. Erasmus … (including briefs on Global Defence Planning, Middle East Planning, and Commonwealth Contribution to Middle East Defence), 30 Aug. 1954, DEFE7/84l.
Lord Swinton, Simonstown Naval Base: South African Desire for Transfer, D (54) 30, 21 July 1954, ibid.
PRO, Note of Discussions with the South African Minister of Defence on Friday, 10 Sept. 1954, DO35/5479.
Ibid.
PRO, Churchill to First Lord, S of S for Foreign Affairs, Minister of Defence, and S of S for Commonwealth Relations, 25 Aug. 1954, ADM116/5979.
PRO, Alexander to Churchill, 1 Sept. 1954, ADM116/6050.
PRO, Allan Noble (Adm) to Churchill, 28 Aug. 1954, DEFE7/841.
Churchill to Alexander, 30 Aug. 1954, ibid.
PRO, Head of M Branch, Admiralty, to Parliamentary Secretary, 7 Sept. 1954, ADM116/5979.
PRO, Swinton to Liesching, 2 Sept. 1954, and W. L. Dale (Legal Adviser to the CRO) to Sir Saville Garner (CRO), 6 Scpt. 1954: FO371/108148.
PRO, Note of Discussions with the South African Minister of Defence on Friday, 10 Sept. 1954, DO35/5479; and Alexander to Churchill, 14 Sept. 1954, DO35/5479.
PRO, South African Defence Talks. Memorandum by the Minister of Defence and the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. C. (54) 291, 15 Sept. 1954, CAB129/70.
PRO, Erasmus to Alexander, 6 Sept. 1954, FO371/108148.
PRO, Defence Discussions with South Africans, with particular reference to their Proposal for an African Regional Pact. Note of Discussion between Officials, 9 Sept. 1954, FO371/108148.
PRO, Note of Discussions with the South African Minister of Defence on Friday, 10 Sept. 1954, DO35/5479.
PRO, Simonstown. [Note by] Swinton, 21 Feb. 1955, DEFE13/36.
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© 1992 G. R. Berridge
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Berridge, G.R. (1992). The Churchill Factor, 1951–4. In: South Africa, the Colonial Powers and ‘African Defence’. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376366_4
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