The White Redoubt, the Great Powers and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1960–1980

418 Pages·2018·2.9 MB·English

by  Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses

Cambridge Imperial & Post-Colonial Studies
The White Redoubt, the Great Powers
and the Struggle for Southern Africa,
1960–1980
Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses, Robert McNamara
Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial
Studies Series
Series Editors
Richard Drayton
Department of History
King’s College London
London, UK
Saul Dubow
Magdalene College
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
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Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses
Robert McNamara
The White Redoubt,
the Great Powers
and the Struggle
for Southern Africa,
1960–1980
Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses Robert McNamara
Department of History School of English and History
Maynooth University Ulster University
Maynooth, Co. Kildare Coleraine, Northern Ireland
Ireland UK
Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series
ISBN 978-1-137-44757-9 ISBN 978-1-137-44758-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44758-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950398
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To our friends and families for their unwavering support
A
cknowledgements
This project was made possible by funding from a number of entities.
The greatest single contribution was made by the Irish Research Council
(in its former guise as IRCHSS), without whose generous funding the
enterprise would not have been possible. Additional financial contribu-
tions were made by the British Academy and the Instituto Camões. To
all three bodies our sincere thanks. We were helped in our research by
a number of individuals. Mel Farrell provided excellent support as an
IRCHSS-funded research assistant: for a whole year we were able to
count on his competence, his organizational skills and his good humour.
We are in his debt. Maynooth University’s Summer Programme for
Undergraduate Research (SPUR) allowed us to employ Ms Siomha
Connolly as a research assistant, working in the Irish National Archives.
She too did excellent work, for which we are very grateful. Leez de
Preez’s assistance in Pretoria was most valuable. We would especially
like to thank Neels Muller at the Department of Foreign Affairs, who
allowed access to the department’s archives at very short notice.
Some of the research that underpins this volume was turned into
university modules, taught at Brown University in 2012–2013 and
Maynooth University ever since. Our thanks to the students who
attended them; their input made a significant contribution to this work.
It is also the case that we were supported by a number of colleagues, to
whom we are grateful: in Maynooth, Marian Lyons, David Lederer and
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
John Paul Newman; at Ulster University, Alan Sharp, Donald MacRaild,
Ian Thatcher and Stanley Black; at Rhodes University, Gary Baines, who
provided us with access to important documentation; and‚ elsewhere‚
John Horne, Onésimo T. Almeida, William Roger Louis, António Costa
Pinto, Sylvia Ellis, Francisco Bethencourt, Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo,
Sue Onslow and Pedro Aires Oliveira.
c
ontents
Part I White States of Emergency
1 Defying the Wind of Change 3
A Solid White Monolith? 3
White States of Emergency (1): Nyasaland 14
White States of Emergency (2): South Africa 20
White States of Emergency (3): Angola 25
2 Rhodesia: Rise of the Rebel State 33
The Break-Up of the Federation 33
Verwoerd, Salazar and the Road to the UDI 43
Saving Rhodesia from Sanctions 56
South Africa, Portugal and the Efforts to End the
UDI 1966–1972 62
3 Portuguese Africa: Rebellion and Resilience 75
The Liberation Movements and Their Challenges 75
The First Battleground: Angola 81
Engagement and Confrontation with Black Africa 89
War Comes to Mozambique 99
American Engagement 105
ix
x CONTENTS
Part II The Rise and Fall of an Unholy Alliance
4 Building the ‘White Redoubt’ 111
The Origins of Military Cooperation 111
The Rhodesian Dimension 121
The Emergence of Exercise ALCORA 126
5 Brothers-in-Arms: ALCORA in Action 137
Threat Estimates 1970–1979 137
Intelligence Cooperation 146
Success in Angola … 151
… and Growing Failure in Mozambique 154
6 First to Fall: Portugal from Coup to Revolution 161
The Indecision of Marcelo Caetano 161
The Carnation Revolution 168
Part III Towards a Constellation of One
7 Decolonization and Détente in Southern Africa:
Mozambique and Rhodesia, 1974–1975 183
Mozambique’s Road to Independence 183
Rhodesia’s New Challenges 200
Hell-Bent on Détente 205
Victoria Falls 216
8 Debacle and Détente Redux: South Africa in Angola
and Rhodesia, 1975–1977 219
Angola Before and After the Alvor Agreement 219
The End of White Angola 225
South African Decision-Making 229
The American Dimension 236
Détente Redux 239
Towards an Internal Settlement 249