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The Simonstown Agreements, 1955

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South Africa, the Colonial Powers and ‘African Defence’

Abstract

Conscious of the need to assuage the disappointment suffered by Erasmus in London in September 1954, both on Simons-town and the African Pact, terms of reference for the Admiralty mission to South Africa were swiftly worked out.1 On 15 September these were personally approved by Churchill. Swinton also drew up a Cabinet Paper in which he presented the case for a comprehensive defence agreement with the Union, concluding that ‘a settlement with the South Africans, apart from immensely improving our position in the defence field, would be of definite value in promoting the improvement of our general political relations with the Malan Administration. On this’, he added, ‘we must not forget that our industrial future may be bound up with our ability to obtain South African uranium.’2

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Notes and References

  1. PRO, Campbell to Admiralty, 8 Oct. 1954, DEFE7/1523.

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  2. PRO, Jarrett to Secretary of the Admiralty, Nov. 1954, DEFE13/36.

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  5. PRO, Swinton to Prime Minister, Simonstown and Naval Cooperation with the Union of South Africa. Dec. 1954, DEFE13/36.

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  9. Mons was finally cleared but not until May 1956. See Philip M. Williams, Wars, Plots and Scandals in Post-War France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), chap. 4.

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  28. PRO, Hillier-Fry to Barker (British Embassy, Paris), 12 Mar. 1955, FO371/113481. See also African Department (FO) to British Embassy (Paris), 18 Apr. 1955, where it is reported that, following Louw’s proposal for a Pan-African Conference (including discussion of defence), the French Counsellor had told Schuckburgh that Paris ‘did not think that it would be right to set up anything so formal as a treaty relationship like NATO or SEATO but that it should be something extremely supple and functional which gave the reality of cooperation without the trimmings’; and minute of Schuckburgh, 12 Apr. 1955, FO371/113513.

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  51. Ibid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leicester, UK

    G. R. Berridge (Reader in Politics)

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© 1992 G. R. Berridge

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Berridge, G.R. (1992). The Simonstown Agreements, 1955. In: South Africa, the Colonial Powers and ‘African Defence’. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376366_5

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