First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Odd Arne Westad, for his help and advice throughout my work. I am especially grateful to Dorothy Robinson for meeting me and being so kind in answering all my queries. Moreover, I am indebted to Dr Wayne Dooling, my former lecturer at SOAS, for his interest in my study and for his support; to Lucy McCann, for access to the AAM Archive; and to Christabel Gurney and all the people that have assisted me in my research. My mom deserves my gratitude for her confidence in me and for always being there for me. My flatmate Neshemah has to be thanked for sharing the good and bad moments, and so, of course, do Marco, the Bartocci family and my friends Diana, Lele, and Maddi for their moral support.
Britain, in its unique position as the former colonial power and the major investing country in South Africa, had been one of the main targets of Black South Africans' diplomatic efforts since the establishment of the Union in 1910. By the end of World War Two and the following election of the Nationalist Party in 1948, most of the hopes for British support of the predicament of Black South Africans had shifted to the United Nations (UN) and the newly independent African states. Nevertheless, because of its economic and historic links Britain, and London in particular, continued to hold a special relationship with South Africa. From the 1950's, British support did eventually start to come, not from the Government though, but from anti-apartheid and church groups, and sections of the Labour and Liberal Parties. Moreover, ever since the 1940's, a growing number of South Africans had been arriving in London, which, after Sharpeville and the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), became a centre for the exiled liberation movements to continue their struggle from abroad.(1)
In 1959, following a call for the boycott of South African goods by the ANC, a Boycott Movement was started in London. In April of the following year, as the emergency situation in South Africa intensified, the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) was formed to co-ordinate all the anti-apartheid work and to keep South Africa's apartheid policy in the forefront of British politics. The Movement was able to attract a wide and diverse range of support, from the British Communist, Liberal and Labour Parties, to the Trade Union Congress (TUC), individual MPs, the NUS, several Churches, and other organisations working against apartheid. From the onset, the Movement, which "operated [ ] as an instrument of solidarity with the people of South Africa", was characterised by an "umbilical cord relationship with the [liberation] struggle".(2) For the next forty years the AAM campaigned for a sports, cultural, academic, consumer, arms and economic boycott of South Africa to help bring apartheid to an end.
This dissertation will analyse the influence of the AAM on the British Government's policy towards South Africa during the Rivonia trial of 1963-4 up until the end of 1964 after the coming to power of the Labour Party in October of that year. It will concentrate on the impact of two different yet overlapping campaigns undertaken by the AAM in that period. The first is the Rivonia Campaign, which was launched in direct response to the Rivonia trial and which became attached to the wider concern with sanctions. From the point of view of public opinion, the campaign was highly successful as it alerted virtually the entire world. But, as in the case of sanctions, the AAM pressures on the British Government to exert its influence on the South Africans for the prevention of death penalty being imposed on the accused fell on deaf ears. Because of its strategic and economic interests, which gave Britain a stake in the preservation of the status quo in South Africa, Britain treated South Africa "half-ally and half-untouchable at the same time"(3). The British Government, though, also had to be careful that its policy would not upset African countries, where British interests were also involved. The implications of these irreconcilable interests for British policy towards South Africa will be addressed.
Second was the long-running campaign for Britain to impose economic sanctions, implemented through collective action at the UN. In these early days, one of the major achievements on this issue was the holding of the International Conference for Economic Sanctions Against South Africa in London in April 1964. However, although the Conference managed to attract a large number of international personalities, its findings failed to bring about any significant shift in British policy towards South Africa. In order to understand why this was so, Britain's economic and strategic interests in South Africa, as well as the British Government's opinion of the AAM and its supporters, will be examined.
As it will emerge, the AAM had high hopes for the coming to power of the Labour Party in Britain in October 1964. But the new Labour Government, like the previous one, was not prepared to take any bold initiative. The arms embargo announced in November 1964 excluded the "existing contracts". Thus, under the secret arrangements of the Simonstown agreement, Britain continued to supply arms and military equipment to South Africa. In addition, Britain took no action on the economic boycott and refused to finance the UN recommended Defence and Aid Fund. One year after its election the policy of the Labour Government had become "a severe disappointment to all opponents of apartheid".(4)
Chapter I will introduce the origins of the AAM and its history up until 1963 while Chapter II will look at concurrent events in South Africa in the early 1960's: the turn to violence by the ANC in 1961 and the Rivonia raid of July 1963. Chapter III will describe the AAM response to the Rivonia trial. Chapter IV will analyse the economic and strategic interests underlying British policy towards South Africa and Chapter V will examine the stance that the British Government took during the Rivonia trial and its voting pattern in the UN (as a result of those interests). In Chapter VI the relative importance of a secret representation made by the British to the South African Government (as a result of a special request by Nigeria) will be discussed. Chapter VII will deal with the question of sanctions, with special reference to the Conference for Economic Sanctions and to the British Government's position in this respect. Lastly, I will analyse the AAM faith in the new Labour Government and the emerging disillusionment after its first few months in office.
Relatively little has been written on the history of the AAM, so this dissertation is for the most part based on primary sources. In 1998, AAM papers were donated to Rhodes House Library in Oxford and, although they will only become available to the public in 2002, I have been able to research the AAM Annual Reports and the minutes of the National Committee (the policy-making body of the AAM, meeting no less than three times a year) and Executive Committee (elected by the National Committee to carry out the work of the AAM and meeting on a monthly basis). Some early publications produced by the AAM have also been used. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity of discussing my work with former AAM activists Dorothy Robinson (Administrative Secretary, 1962-65) and Christabel Gurney (editor of Anti-Apartheid News, 1969-79) both of whom provided some invaluable help. For my analysis of British policy I have relied on documents from the Foreign Office, Cabinet and Prime Minister's Correspondence, which are held at the Public Records Office in London. Finally, for a view on the internal political situation in South Africa I have worked on ANC periodical, pamphlets, published documents and biographies and speeches of ANC leaders.
The late 1950's and early 1960's were years of hope for Africa south of the Sahara. By 1960, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria had already been granted their independence while the rest of the African colonies were either negotiating with their metropolitan powers or engaging in wars of liberation. Even in South Africa, the most highly developed industrial country in Africa, the prospects of liberation from White minority rule seemed a very real possibility.
During the 1950's, the South African liberation movement had grown into a mass movement under the leadership of the Congress Movement (a non-racial anti-apartheid front which included the ANC, the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), and was supported by the underground South African Communist Party (SACP)) through mass protests, stay-at-homes, and passive resistance. As the South African Government retaliated with increasingly repressive measures by outlawing all forms of political protest and arresting or placing bans on all the opposition leaders, in the late 50's the ANC turned to boycott. In April 1959, the ANC President Chief Albert Lutuli called for an economic boycott of the products of the Nationalist-controlled firms which was to start on 26 June (known as South Africa Freedom Day). As fewer and fewer options remained open for the continuation of the struggle, the ANC and the other liberation movements were increasingly aware of the importance of international support for the domestic fight. In its report to the Annual Conference of December 1959, the ANC National Executive Committee stated: "The economic boycott in South Africa has unlimited potentialities. When our purchasing power is combined with that of sympathetic organisations overseas we wield a devastating weapon".(5)
In the UK, campaigning against apartheid had been going on in the 1950's as part of the wider support for the anti-colonial movements.(6) Decolonisation helped to throw into even greater prominence the plight of the non-White population of South Africa. The Committee of African Organisations (CAO), provided a platform bringing together various bodies such as Fenner Brockway's Movement for Colonial Freedom (MCF, formed in 1954), the Africa Bureau (1952), and Christian Action (1946), as well as prominent churchmen (e.g. Trevor Huddleston, Michael Scott of the Africa Bureau, Canon John Collins of Christian Action), and a growing number of South African exiles (e.g. Vella Pillay, Rosalynde Ainslie, Abdul Minty, Tennyson Makiwane - who later played a prominent role in the founding of the AAM). Pickets outside South Africa House and meetings in Hyde Park were held, funds were raised for the defence and the families of the people arrested during the Defiance Campaign of 1952 and later for the accused in the Treason Trial. Several Labour Party constituencies and Labour MPs, the TUC and the British Communist Party were also involved in the campaigning.
In response to Chief Lutuli's appeal, the CAO organised a 24-hour vigil outside South Africa House followed by a meeting at Holborn Hall on June 26, 1959. In the next months, a Boycott Sub-Committee continued the campaign through poster parades, pickets and the distribution of leaflets (listing the South African goods to be avoided) outside shopping centres. The campaign, however, was only partially successful as it failed to gather enough support. Although some individual Labour constituencies decided to back the boycott, the Party did not consider anti-colonialism an important issue in the October 1959 election campaign. Mobilising Conservative support for the boycott proved to be an even more difficult task.
The following year the Committee launched a "Boycott Month", scheduled for March 1960 and coinciding in South Africa with major anti-pass demonstrations led by the ANC and the PAC. International outcry over the Sharpeville shootings of 21 March 1960, meant that this time the Boycott Movement in Britain took deeper roots. After its third consecutive electoral defeat, the Labour Party proclaimed 1960 "Africa Year" and, joined by the TUC, readily supported the March Boycott Month, thus adding a vital impetus to the campaign.(7) The Conservative Party, on the other hand, felt that they too had to formally condemn apartheid. Yet, despite Harold Macmillan's speech to the South African Parliament on February 3, 1960, about a "wind of change" sweeping all over Africa, "attempts which are being made in Britain today to organise a consumer boycott of South African goods" were strongly rejected.(8) The Boycott Movement, however, managed to attract the support of a few individual members of the Conservative Party, such as Lord Altrincham and Humphrey Berkeley MP, who became sponsor of the AAM in 1962.
After March 1960, it was decided that the Boycott Movement should carry on as the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Its aims were: "to continue the boycott of South African goods; to support the South African United Front's [created abroad by members of the ANC, the PAC, SAIC and South West Africa National Union in June 1960] calls for economic and other sanctions on the South African Government; to promote regular propaganda against apartheid; to react to special situations in South Africa".(9) While boycotts had outlived their usefulness in South Africa, where the outlawed liberation movement turned to sabotage as the first step towards armed struggle, in Britain they acquired a new significance as part of a strategy to cripple the apartheid economy from the outside.
In the first few years after it was founded, the AAM was facing some financial and organisational problems. Abdul Minty (Honorary Secretary, 1962-65) recalls: "we had no budget, not even five or ten shillings".(10) The first AAM office at 200 Gower Street was a room in the basement of Dr David Pitt's (an AAM member) surgery. In March of 1961, the building was set on fire; through the NUS, the AAM found another place at 15 Endsleigh St.(11) In October 1964, the AAM moved once more to Charlotte St, where it remained until 1983. Dorothy Robinson, who became Administrative Secretary in 1962, was, until the fall of 1964, the only paid (and, still, part-time) worker in the organisation. Nevertheless, thanks to the dedicated commitment of its individual members and to the support of the MCF, the CAO and other friendly organisations and sympathisers, the AAM managed to survive.
After Sharpeville, the AAM, together with Afro-Asian and Caribbean countries, concentrated its efforts on the exclusion of South Africa from the Commonwealth. In March 1961, Labour MP Barbara Castle (who became the AAM Honorary President in the first half of 1962) was very helpful in organising a 72-hour vigil outside the Commonwealth Conference in London. Pressures for South Africa to leave the Commonwealth eventually led to the first major success when, after the proclamation of the Republic in May 1961, Verwoerd (South Africa's Prime Minster) withdrew South Africa's application for renewed membership.(12) The AAM also campaigned for an end to the export of armaments to South Africa and to expose the growing links between the three White supremacies in Southern Africa. In 1962, it published Rosalynde Ainslie's The Unholy Alliance booklet "so that the phrase 'unholy alliance' now leaves no doubt that it refers to Verwoerd, Salazar and Welensky".(13) In 1962, Abdul Minty represented the AAM and Dennis Brutus's SANROC at the Olympic Conference in Baden Baden, and material about racialism in South African sport was sent to the International Olympic Committee thus securing the exclusion of South Africa from the Olympics.
However, it was the Rivonia trial which boosted the fortunes of the movement by transforming it from an organisation responding to events in South Africa to a self-inspiring movement.
After Sharpeville, the ineffectiveness of non-violent methods of struggle had led some African leaders to embark on a path of violence. In December 1961, after careful consideration, some ANC and SACP members announced the birth of Umkonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) as "an independent body [ ] under the overall political guidance" of the "national liberation movement" .(14) The turn to violence was explained as a strategic necessity:
"The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defence of our people, our future and our freedom".(15)
Since the time was not yet ripe for guerrilla activity, selective sabotage was chosen as "a new road for the liberation of the people"(16) of South Africa. Meanwhile, as preparations were being made for the beginning of armed resistance, Nelson Mandela (Commander in Chief of Umkonto) travelled throughout Africa in 1962 to secure the help of the independent African states for the training in guerrilla warfare.
On July 11, 1963, the South African police raided the headquarter of Umkonto We Sizwe at a farm in Rivonia, a suburb outside Johannesburg. A huge amount of evidence was confiscated, including a document, "Operation Maybuye" (Come Back), which outlined a plan for guerrilla war and violent revolution. Three months later 11 men, representing virtually the whole of Umkonto High Command, were on trial in Pretoria. The accused, among whom Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela (who had been in prison since November 1962 serving a five-year sentence for leaving the country illegally and organising the three-days stay-at-home of May 1961), Govan Mbeki, Dennis Goldberg, Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada, Lionel Bernstein and Raymond Mhlaba, were charged with 222 acts of sabotage, committed between August 1961 and August 1963, and for inciting to commit sabotage in preparation of guerrilla warfare, armed invasion of the country and violent revolution in South Africa. Under the 1962 Sabotage Act, the accused faced the death sentence. The accused pleaded not guilty and refuted that the decision had been made to start a guerrilla had been made; they admitted, however, of being members of Umkonto.
Although the ANC was struggling to minimise the seriousness of the arrest by claiming that it would "lead to a redoubling of the efforts to bring down the Verwoerd regime of repression, plunder and tyranny"(17). Rivonia was a major setback for the underground liberation movement. As Anthony Sampson reported:
"The ANC is certainly not dead. [ ] But the individual African leadership which has been prominent for the past ten years is now effectively incapacitated inside the Republic".(18)
The Rivonia trial and the smashing of the underground transformed the ANC into an organisation in exile; the External Mission, which had been set up by the ANC Deputy President Oliver Tambo after March 1960, assumed the leadership for the entire ANC.(19) The mobilisation of international support was now crucial if the lives of Mandela, Sisulu and the others were to be saved.
On October 8, 1963 (the day the Rivonia trial began), Oliver Tambo addressed the UN General Assembly with these words: "I cannot believe that the United Nations can stand by calmly watching what I submit is genocide masquerading under the guise of a civilised dispensation of justice".(20) Three days later, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution, by a vote of 106 to 1 (South Africa), condemning the South African Government's apartheid policy and calling for the end of all political trials and the unconditional release of political prisoners. Britain, the US, France and Australia, however, abstained on the operative paragraph requesting the abandonment of the "arbitrary trial now in progress".(21)
In November 1963, World Campaign for the Release of South African Political Prisoners (WCRSAPP) was set up in London under the auspices of the AAM as a separate but attached committee. Its purpose was "to organise support for the implementation of the [October] UN resolution".(22) Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal MP) was Secretary, Humphrey Berkeley MP (who had played an important role in the long-running campaign for the abolition of capital punishment in the UK) was Chairman, and Dick Taverne (Labour MP) was Treasurer. The World Campaign Committee included representatives (as well as from the AAM) from the Africa Bureau, the Defence and Aid Fund, the MCF, Christian Action, the Society of Friends, the United Nations Association; Amnesty International, two South African refugees (Sonja Bunting and Harold Wolpe), the SAIC and the ANC also participated as observers. Similar committees were established abroad.
At a time when the internal opposition in South Africa had been severely hampered, the AAM played a crucial role in keeping the apartheid issue alive by organising international pressure. The Rivonia campaign represented, as ANC activist Ruth First put it to the AAM National Committee, "a rope of strength to people in South Africa".(23) Throughout the spring and summer of 1964, the AAM and the WCRSAPP worked to ensure that the Rivonia trial received the widest possible publicity. 197,387 signatures were collected for a world-wide petition demanding the release of political prisoners and presented at the UN. Solidarity messages were sent to the accused and their families by British MPs and other personalities. Lobbies of Parliament and Early Day Petitions were organised so that the matter would be debated in the House of Commons. AAM members who were MPs at the same time (e.g. Barbara Castle, Jeremy Thorpe, Humphrey Berkeley) played a good role in the House as they were not afraid to exert their pressure inside the government.
In March, Tambo appealed to the UN Special Committee on Apartheid (established in November 1962) to express the "feeling that not enough is being done at the international level to challenge [ ] the South African Government".(24) His appeal was followed by a WARSAPP memorandum to all the major governments and the Special Committee, who were asked "to consider how best, by diplomatic, political, economic and other pressures" they may exert their "influence to save the lives of [ ] brave opponents to apartheid". In particular, the UK and US governments, "whose pressures would be felt most strongly in South Africa", and "who themselves voted for an end to the Rivonia trial and the release of all South African political prisoners", were implored "to use their great influence and prestige".(25)
In May, the AAM wrote a letter to the British Prime Minister and representations to the Government were also made to express concern about the outcome of the trial. An AAM delegation led by AAM President Barbara Castle MP, and including Lord Gardiner QC, Eric Lubbock MP, Abdul Minty, and Vernon Kunene (from the ANC), met the Minister of State at the Foreign Office on May 19 to present yet another memorandum on the question of what the British Government could do, should do, and had done about the Rivonia trial. The memorandum solicited the Government to act by making clear to the South African Government that the passing of death sentences "would seriously imperil the relations between the two governments", by requesting "the cancellation of all the death sentences imposed on political prisoners and the release of political detainees", and by offering asylum to the Rivonia accused and all other political prisoners.(26)
As the trial drew to a close, the campaign was stepped up. Fifty British MPs, led by Berkeley, marched from the House to the South African Embassy to present a petition signed by over 100 MPs. A three-day vigil was held outside the Embassy during the days preceding the sentence. On June 11, 1964, Justice Quartus De Wet found eight of the defendants guilty and the following day they were sentenced to life imprisonment.
When he pronounced his verdict, the South African judge referred to the unprecedented international action around the trial. Indeed, the AAM had succeeded in activating a mass national and international campaign so that it could "with justification claim that the world-wide support for the men on trial contributed to the fact that they were not given the death sentence".(27) Moreover, for the first time, thousands of people had become involved in the activities of the Movement, whose work had been "internationally recognised by the press and speeches in the UN Security Council as a major factor in the outcome of the trial".(28) But as far as the British Government was concerned, the Rivonia Campaign had failed, at least on the surface, to break its "ignoble silence".(29) Before turning to the Government's behaviour during Rivonia, the reasons underlying this silence will be examined next.
The British Government's strong concern with South Africa's stability stemmed from what Sir Alec Douglas Home called "our special interests"(30) in the Republic. In economic terms, they consisted of over 900 million pounds worth of investment and of an annual volume of export trade of some 250 million pounds, including "invisibles".(31) Britain was also "mindful of the intimate relationship to the Republic of the High Commission Territories, which are dependent to a great extent upon South Africa for their economic life",(32) and which represented a potential area of conflict because of their strategic position - being outside South Africa's political and police control and within the area of Greater Southern Africa at the same time. Strategically, South Africa was important to Britain's defence requirements because of the facilities Britain enjoyed at the Simonstown naval base. The 1957 Simonstown military treaty gave Britain overflying and staging rights at the base in peacetime and war, even when South Africa was not belligerent. Moreover, the sea route around the Cape represented a key communication link with the Middle East and the Far East to Western defences against Communism, especially as Egypt was so hostile.(33) Under the Simonstown agreement Britain was also supplying weapons to the South Africans, although pledging at the UN not to provide weapons which could be used for internal repression. Finally, the perennial "kith and kin" feeling was a further factor bringing Britain and South Africa together.
British policy accordingly had to balance Britain's short against its long-term interests. Britain's economic stake, strategic interests, and its position in the High Commission Territories meant that it could not afford to break off relations with South Africa. At the same time, Britain should try not to convey the impression that its "association with Dr Verwoerd's Government is particularly warm or close" because of the harmful consequences it would have on Black African opinion and of the possibility that, in a not too distant future, political power might pass to the African majority of the population.(34) "Indeed", as Sir Alec Douglas Home suggested in his guidelines on UK policy to the new Ambassador in June 1963, "we must make clear that we disagree fundamentally with the Nationalist policies and are using what influence we have, and what means we can legitimately employ, to persuade the [South African] Government to respond to world opinion". Nevertheless, Britain had to face the fact that it could not "go beyond a certain point without risk of grave damage to [its] special interests".(35)
Throughout the Rivonia trial, demands for the intervention of the British Government were dismissed under the pretext that representations to the South Africans would be negatively received by them thus prejudicing the chances of commuting the sentences after the verdict was reached.(36) As Minister of State Mr Peter Thomas explained to the AAM delegation to the Foreign Office in May 1964, while South Africa was already fully aware of the Government's concern and of the very deep feelings held in Britain about the Rivonia trial, nothing could be done until the end of the trial for representations might be resented by the South African Government as an attempt to interfere with the court. What was holding back the British Government, however, was most likely the fear of South African retaliation.(37) As domestic and international pressure around the trial mounted and South Africa's isolation increased, Britain's position became more and more uncomfortable.
Following Tambo's second appeal to the UN and the WARSAPP memorandum, the Special Committee on Apartheid presented its report to the Security Council in April. The report suggested that the Security Council should require the South African Government to desist from all measures against persons who opposed their radical policies. If South Africa did not comply with this within a brief time limit, the Security Council should take new mandatory steps. The Special Committee also urged all the Heads of State to intervene with the South African Government to prevent the death sentences to be passed on the accused in the Rivonia and other political trials.
Discussions for sanctions against South Africa at the UN centred on the contention that South Africa represented a threat to international peace. If so designated, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, international action would no longer be regarded as interference with the internal affairs of a country and the Security Council could order mandatory measures. While Afro-Asian and Socialist states (which were the prime movers on the question of economic sanctions and of a total arms embargo) described the situation in South Africa with Chapter VII language to persuade the Security Council to impose sanctions, the three major Western powers, Britain, the US and France, consistently refused to accept this argument.
On June 9, 1964, just two days before the final verdict was reached, the UN Security Council passed a resolution urging the South African Government to end the trial in progress and grant amnesty to the defendants and all other political prisoners already sentenced to death. Britain, together with the US, France and Brazil, abstained. In the months preceding the Security Council debate Britain had been working with the US for a moderate UN resolution, which, while criticising South Africa's apartheid policy, would fall short of defining the situation in South Africa as a danger to international peace. A common British-American stand increased their chance of directing the course of events in the UN negotiations with the Africans. By gaining the initiative, Britain (and the US) wanted to avoid a situation in which it would have to react to an unsatisfactory African draft putting the question of apartheid in the context of Chapter VII of the Charter.(38) Another reason why the British Government was keen on getting the US involved in the South African question was that they did not want to find themselves "alone in doubtful company [i.e. South African]"(39) if they had to defy participation in international action.
Although the British and US Governments agreed in principle on the fact that no support could be given for immediate sanctions, or for sanctions within a fixed time scale, British opposition to any such plan was even stronger than that of the Americans'. First, there was a difference in the British and American approach to sanctions. The US, in fact, consented to the idea of a Security Council study group on the logistics of sanctions as a device to gain time, at least until the judgement of the International Commission of Jurists on South West Africa (where South Africa was accused of acting illegally). But the British Government was wary of getting embroiled in any discussion of sanctions as they feared it would imply a willingness to impose them - if not immediately, at some later stage. Rather, Britain thought it would be safer to stick to the line of principle that sanctions could not be used to change the political complexion of any country, be it Cuba, China, South Africa or any other.(40) Secondly, Britain was prepared to veto a Security Council resolution which contained the language of Chapter VII of the Charter in order not to give up its economic, strategic and trade interests in South Africa. The Americans, on the other hand, although willing to stretch things as far as they possibly could, were reluctant to use their veto (which would upset African opinion), and would have probably tried to shelter behind a British veto.(41)
During a parliamentary debate on June 15, 1964, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs R. A. Butler explained that Britain's reasons for abstaining at the UN had been the timing and the possible adverse effects on the verdicts. Britain's actions had, according to Butler, been governed entirely by what was in the best interest of the convicted men themselves.(42) Commenting on Butler's statements in the House of Commons, The Guardian wrote:
"Wherever plans are discussed to end the subjection of Black South Africans, Britain counsels delay, restraint, vacillation. To the rest of the world, and doubtless to the South African Government as well, Britain appears to be engaged in a prolonged fighting defence of South African interests, with never a point conceded until it has been overrun".(43)
At the heart of British policy, which appeared to the opponents of apartheid as that of a "safety net under the [South African] Government",(44) lay a "sharpening dilemma" between "keeping on terms with the regime on the one hand, and avoiding outrage to Black African opinion on the other".(45)
Britain was very anxious about the reactions of Black African states to its policy towards South Africa. Because of its economic links with African countries (especially those of the Commonwealth, to whom British exports were "much larger than to South Africa")(46) and its colonial past, Britain was particularly vulnerable to African opposition to South Africa. Indeed, "the African countries of the Commonwealth could, if they chose, inflict much harm to [British] economic interest".(47) Moreover, if there was a breach with the African Commonwealth countries, to whom Britain provided the bulk of aid, the US would probably step in to fill it.(48)
Nigeria represented the main danger to Britain. Through its leading position in Africa it could organise co-ordinated retaliation, undermine British interests in Nigeria itself, or turn to other Western states (e.g. the US) to exert its influence on Britain.(49) Impatience with "the compromise of British policy towards South Africa" had also created the feeling that unless Britain broke off trade relations with South Africa, Nigeria would withdraw from the Commonwealth.(50)
In mid-April, the Nigerian Foreign Minister F. M. Wachuku spoke to the British Ambassador in Lagos to express Nigeria's concern over the fate of the accused in the Rivonia trial (from whom the Nigerians had received an appeal). Although the Nigerian Government was still hoping for a peaceful settlement in South Africa, they could not do anything themselves as they had no diplomatic contacts with the South African Government. So, they made a special request to the British Government to try to arrange for influence to be brought to bear on the South African Government. A similar request was made to the US Government.(51)
A few days later, the Foreign Office reached the conclusion that Sir Hugh Stephenson, the UK Ambassador to South Africa, should approach the South African Government on the Nigerian request. (The British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas Home commented on this matter in a personal note, enquiring why, if the Nigerians had asked them, they had not yet acted). (52) So far, the British Government had refused to intervene, either officially or privately, despite pressures from the AAM and other anti-apartheid bodies in Britain and abroad. The Nigerian request significantly prompted them to make a move, though a cautious one. On April 23, Stephenson met Dr Muller (South Africa's Foreign Minister) to convey the Nigerian message that the execution of Mandela and the others would greatly weaken the position of those like the Nigerian Government who tried to counsel moderation. However, the South African reaction to the British informal representation, led the Ambassador to remark: "If we let it be known that we have made any sort of representations to the South African Government on this subject, we shall gravely prejudice the chances of their commuting the death sentences".(53) Therefore, Britain's official attitude remained, until the end, that it would not be appropriate to take any action while the trial was in progress and the matter was sub judice; the news of the British representation never leaked outside the Government's ranks.
The UN debate on economic sanctions had been paralleled in Britain by an escalating campaign led by the AAM, especially since the November 1962 General Assembly resolution calling for economic and other sanctions against South Africa. In the summer of 1963, a Steering Committee, with Ronald Segal (a South African, editor of Penguin African Library) as Convenor and the AAM as sponsor, was set up in view of an international conference on sanctions to be held in London in April 1964.(54) The aim of the Conference was to work out the practicability of economic sanctions and their implications on the economies of South Africa, the UK, the US and the Protectorates. Knowing that the strongest opposition to the application of sanctions came from the West (and within the West, Britain), the Committee made every effort to attract as wide and varied a number of speakers and participants as possible so that the Conference findings would be regarded as objective. Through the ANC, whose representatives were involved in the work for the Conference, the Steering Committee was able to access many African Governments, a number of whom agreed to become patrons. Representatives from those Governments in the forefront of the campaign for sanctions as well as from all the major political parties in countries opposing sanctions, several youth organisations, and trade union federations were all invited to participate.(55)
The International Conference for Economic Sanctions Against South Africa, convened by Segal under the sponsorship of the AAM, took place in Friends House, on Euston Rd, between the 14 and the 17 April. The Conference had a list of well-known international personalities as well as governmental delegations from thirty countries and unofficial representatives from fourteen others. The Tunisian Foreign Minister Mr Mongi Slim acted as Chairman. The Conference established the necessity, the legality and the practicability of internationally organised sanctions against South Africa, whose policies were seen to have become a direct threat to peace and security in Africa and the world. Its findings also pointed out that in order to be effective, a programme of sanctions would need the active participation of Britain and the US, who were also the main obstacle to the implementation of such a policy.(56)
The AAM was quite enthusiastic about the outcome of the Conference, which was perceived as a major success because of "the new seriousness with which the use of economic sanctions against South Africa is now regarded".(57) The Conference was also significant because of the international recognition the AAM received. For the first time, the AAM leaders met a delegation of the UN Special Committee on Apartheid, and a long-lasting working relationship was then established between the two organisations. During an AAM public meeting held at the end of the Conference, Mr Diallo Telli, the Special Committee Chairman, acknowledged the AAM as "in fact one of the most active and effective factors in the general international struggle against the dangerous and criminal racial policy" of the apartheid regime.(58)
Britain's response to the Conference was partly shaped by the Government's opinion of its organisers, and partly by its potential consequences on the UN debate about South Africa. Despite the Steering Committee's endeavours to avoid being associated with particular political influences, this was what occurred. John Wilson described Segal, the Conference Convenor, as, although a "man of substance", someone "for our own information suspected of being a Communist sympathiser";(59) the AAM, on the other hand, was, to put it quite simply, "under Communist control".(60)
Although it was decided that no official observers should attend the Conference, the British Government was taking a keen interest in it. The main reason for such interest was that the Conference papers were to be circulated as a UN document and used by the Special Committee on Apartheid in its forthcoming report. The most likely effect of the Conference was to reinforce the already strong pressure at the UN for action against South Africa in the context of the Rivonia trial or of South West Africa. The countries that were pressing for sanctions at the UN hoped that if South Africa was put in the position of defying the International Court of Jurists over South West Africa, the great powers could be persuaded to take part in sanctions. "The American disposition to fall with this view" meant "that it must be taken seriously".(61) Therefore, the Government felt they had to "be prepared [ ] to comment in a convincing and properly informed manner upon any [of the Conference] conclusions".(62)
Through some of its "friendly contacts" the Foreign Office managed to get hold of seven of the papers to be discussed at the Conference beforehand. Special attention was given to Worswick's paper(63) on the effects of sanctions on the British economy. If his arguments were accepted by the UN or if they were not effectively criticised, they would "apply a fortiori to the case of Cuba", thus making it more difficult for the British Government "to resist American pressure [ ] to cease exporting goods to Cuba".(64) The papers were studied in detail and a draft on points of rebuttal was produced. For instance, the effects of a possible blockade to enforce sanctions, the time it would take to bring the South African Government to its knees, and what would happen next were questioned.(65) In the end, the British Government concluded that the Conference was unlikely to convince the opponents of sanctions in the UN. Britain, for its part, remained firm in its view that the imposition of sanctions would be unconstitutional "because we do not accept that this situation in South Africa constitutes a threat to international peace and security and we do not in any case believe that sanctions would have the effect of persuading the South African Government to change its policies".(66)
The British Government's suppositions about the impact of the Conference on the UN proved to be correct, and during the Security debate in June Britain managed to avoid the question of mandatory sanctions through its collaboration with the US. Nevertheless, indignation of world public opinion over Rivonia forced Britain to give in on the idea of a UN study of possible measures to end apartheid, although the UK representative at the UN made clear that this did not in any way mean that Britain entertained any support for sanctions should it be found that they were practicable. On June 18, 1964, Britain and the US voted in favour of the establishment of an Expert Committee of Representatives of each member of the Security Council to "undertake a technical and practical study and a report to the Security Council as to the feasibility, effectiveness and the implications of measures which could, as appropriate, be taken by the Security Council under the UN Charter".(67) For the AAM, one of its future tasks would be to ensure that "by the time this matter is again before the UN [ ] there is no doubt that public feeling in this country is in support of sanctions against South Africa".(68)
"The present climate of public opinion and the enormous support generated by the Rivonia Campaign, encourage us to believe that apartheid can emerge as an important election issue, and that our members and supporters have it in their power to insist that the next Government is ready to act to help end apartheid".(69)
The above remark by the AAM Executive Committee is indicative of the feeling, within the AAM, about the October 1964 General Election in Britain. In the first half of 1964, the AAM distributed a pre-election questionnaire among the candidates in order to bring the question of apartheid into the election debate. Candidates were asked to state whether they would be prepared to support, if elected, collective sanctions against South Africa through the UN, a total arms embargo, the exclusion of white-only teams in international sports, and the campaign for the release of political prisoners.(70) The majority of the Labour and Liberal candidates who agreed to reply, answered affirmatively, while a number of them acknowledged the questionnaire and expressed their support for the AAM without though answering the individual questions.(71)
Labour support for the AAM and statements by Labour leaders while in opposition suggested that, if elected, the Labour Party would take positive steps for an ending of apartheid. On 17 March 1963, Labour Party leader Harold Wilson had spoken at an AAM "No Arms for South Africa" rally in Trafalgar Sq pledging that "a Labour Government, through the UN and elsewhere, will do everything in our power by international action" to cease the supply of arms to South Africa for "as long as apartheid continues".(72) Wilson's statement led the AAM to believe that with the election of a Labour Government it would not be long before a complete embargo on arms supplies to South Africa became a reality.(73) Moreover, the valuable support received in the past "from the Labour Movement and the broad sympathy of the new Labour Government with the anti-apartheid struggle" offered "the opportunity of real advance for [the AAM] policy in 1965". The aim for 1965, then, would be "to convert official sympathy into concrete acts".(74)
When Labour assumed power in October 1964, however, the Labour Party's commitment to anti-apartheid had already started to erode. During the April Sanctions Conference, Wilson told a press conference in London that the Labour Party was "not in favour of trade sanctions partly because, even if fully effective, they would harm the people we are most concerned about - the Africans and those white South Africans who are having to maintain some standard of decency there".(75) Oil sanctions, on the other hand, were regarded "as an act near war, to be contemplated only if there were something in the nature of aggressive action by South Africa".(76) Despite the Labour Party's opposition to sanctions, the AAM still hoped that the new Labour Government would be more sensitive to the demands of public opinion than the previous Government.
The Labour Government, however, continued to disagree with sanctions. After Rivonia, Britain had come to the conclusion that Verwoerd's Nationalist Party would continue to be in power for some time. Indeed, the Nationalist Party's dominance within South Africa appeared even more secure than it was a year earlier. And since the British commercial and economic stake in South Africa and its importance to Britain's balance of payments was unlikely to diminish, South Africa was rather confident that Britain, under whatever administration, could be relied upon to resist the application of sanctions.(77)
On November 17, 1964, the Labour Government announced the imposition of an arms embargo, though only in the sense that no future contracts or export licences would be authorised. The existing contracts were to be fulfilled "on the grounds that their cancellation would be liable to entail serious financial and commercial consequences and might endanger [Britain's] staging and overflying rights in South Africa".(78) A few days later the Government decided that the shipment of 16 Buccaneer aircraft (and the necessary spare parts), ordered and partly paid by South Africa during the Conservative Government, should also be allowed. As the aircraft were not needed by Britain and no alternative foreign purchasers could be found, to cancel the contract would have involved "the loss of an export of £25 million and the liability to pay compensation to the South African Government".(79) In 1965, Britain supplied the Buccaneer aircraft, spares and maintenance equipment and continued the shipment of Land Rovers and Saracens. In November 1964, the AAM issued a statement to express its dismay and concern at the exclusions of the embargo and to ask the Government to end the export of all arms, spares and military equipment.
The new Government also refused to join in rendering support to South Africa's political prisoners through the UN recommended Defence and Aid Fund, mainly because of the fear that it would deteriorate British-South African relations. In November 1964 Canon John Collins asked the Government for funds on behalf of the Defence and Aid Fund. Barbara Castle (who had reigned from her position as AAM President in October 1964 because of her appointment as Minister of Overseas Development in Wilson's Government) and Lord Gardiner also personally wrote to the Foreign Office to recommend the Government's participation in the fund. Because of the Fund's association with the ANC and the AAM, the Foreign Office eventually decided against a contribution on the grounds that the persons designed to help had been convicted for attempting the violent overthrow a Government with whom Britain had diplomatic relations. The fact was that "the Communists have to a considerable extent taken control of both the ANC and the AAM" and although the Defence and Aid Fund "is a respectable and liberal organisation [ ] it does include Communists who of course seek to use it for their own purposes".(80)
By the end of 1964, it was quite obvious that having a Labour Government had not made any real difference. As the South African Minister of Defence Mr Fouchθ had said in reaction to the news of the British elections, although there would be some added pinpricks in British-South African relations, Britain's interests in South Africa remained the same.(81)
1964 was a decisive year for the international struggle against apartheid. On the one hand, the Rivonia trial gave a harsh blow to the underground resistance. While Sharpeville had forced the liberation movement underground, the clamp down of the South African Government in 1963-64 severely disabled the internal opposition. Indeed, it would be another decade before the covert opposition inside South Africa could regroup and reorganise itself to pose an effective challenge to the apartheid regime. On the other hand, by the time the Rivonia trial ended in June 1964, the issue of apartheid had been successfully projected onto the international level.
Since its birth in the spring of 1960, the AAM's role had been to campaign against apartheid in every possible field, and to inform the public about apartheid and its implications. In the first few years after it was founded the AAM principally functioned in response to events in South Africa. As the situation in South Africa deteriorated, especially after the Rivonia arrests, the AAM was able to offer an extraordinary response by pulling together enormous strength and resources. The major achievement of the Rivonia Campaign was to mobilise, on an unprecedented scale, domestic and world public opinion around the trial, which is what helped to save the lives of Mandela, Sisulu and the others. The AAM also made every effort to press the British Government into adopting an enlightened policy towards South Africa, especially at the UN, and into exerting its influence on the South African Government to prevent the imposition of the death sentences on the accused. Real politik concerns, however, prevailed over anti-apartheid rhetoric in the making of British policy.
Faced with the dilemma of protecting Britain's economic and strategic interests in South Africa without alienating the African states or damaging "irreparably the prospects of future co-operation with an African Government", the British government was at pains to try to dissociate itself from South Africa's apartheid policies whilst at the same time "maintain[ing] a reasonable working relationship with the present government".(82) Pressure from the Nigerian Government eventually convinced Britain to make an unofficial representation to the South Africans. The unfavourable South African reaction to this timid move immediately led Britain to retreat to its position that any kind of intervention would not be in the interest of the Rivonia accused themselves. What the British Government probably had in mind, though, were Britain's "special interests".
Campaigning around the Rivonia trial also gave impetus to the question of sanctions. The International Conference on Sanctions, organised, in large part, by the AAM, represented a major breakthrough in the development of an international sanction-based strategy. The Conference, however, failed to persuade the main opponents of sanctions, namely Britain and the US. At the UN, Britain consistently refused to accept that the situation in South Africa fell under Chapter VII of the Charter. Instead, in collaboration with the US, it worked for a carefully worded appeal on the Rivonia and other political trials to try to appease Afro-Asian countries and public opinion at home and abroad; by early 1965 the issue of sanctions had lost momentum.
Labour support for the AAM created the expectation, when the Party assumed power in October 1964, that the Labour Party would translate its commitment to the anti-apartheid cause into action. The ample loopholes in the arms embargo (which allowed for the continued export of arms), opposition to sanctions, and the denial to support the Defence and Aid Fund were indicative of a high degree of continuity, rather than change, in British policy towards South Africa.
Primary Material:
Unpublished:
AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library, Oxford:
Public Records Office, Kew Gardens, London:
Published:
Karis, T., and Gerhart, G., M., eds., Challenge and Violence, 1953-1964, Volume 3 of Karis, T., and Carter, G., M., eds., From Protest to Challenge. A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1964 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977).
Secondary Sources:
Books:
Austin, D., Britain and South Africa (London: Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs by Oxford U. P., 1966).
Barber, J., The Uneasy Relationship (London: Heinemann Educational Books for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1983).
Johns, S., and Davis, R., H., JR, Mandela, Tambo, and the African National Congress: A Documentary Survey (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1991).
Lodge, T., Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983).
Mandela, N., Long Walk To Freedom (Abacus, 1994)
Meli, F., South Africa Belongs to Us: A History of the ANC (London: James Currey, 1988).
Segal, R., ed., 1964, Sanctions Against South Africa (Penguin, 1964).
Tambo, A., ed., Preparing for Power: Oliver Tambo Speaks, (London: Heinemann, 1987).
Thomas, S., 1996, The Diplomacy of Liberation: The Foreign Relations of the African National Congress Since 1960, (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1996).
Pamphlets:
Ainslie, R., and Robinson, D., The Collaborators (London: the Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1962).
Ainslie, R., The Unholy Alliance (London: the Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1962)
Darnborough, A., Labours Record on Southern Africa: An Examination of Attitudes Before October 1964 and Actions Since (London: Anti-Apartheid Movement,1967).
African National Congress South Africa on trial: Behind the "Rivonia" case (St Mary Cray, 1963)
African National Congress Great Power Conspiracy (Dar es Salaam: African National Congress of South Africa, 1966)
Articles:
The Anti-Apartheid Movement: A 40-year Perspective Symposium, South Africa House, London 25-6 June 1999, http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/aam/symposium.html.
Gurney, C., "A Great Cause. The Origins of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, June 1959-March 1960", http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/aam_origins.html.
Journals:
Apartheid News (London: Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1965: 1-9).
South Africa Freedom News (Dar es Salaam: African National Congress of South Africa, 1963-1964).
Spotlight on South Africa (Dar es Salaam: African National Congress of South Africa, 1963-64).
1. Barber, J., The Uneasy Relationship (London: Heinemann Educational Books for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1983), p. 2.
2. Minty, A., "The AAM - What kind of History?", paper presented at the AAM 40-year Symposium, South Africa House, London, 25-6 June 1999.
3. PRO: CAB 114/119, Sir J. Maud to Lord Home, Cape Town, 14 May 1963.
4. AAM Archive, Annual Report, October 1965.
5. Report of the National Executive Committee of the ANC, Submitted to the Annual Conference, December 12-13, 1959, p. 472 in Karis, T., and Gerhart, G., M., eds., Challenge and Violence, 1953-1964, Volume 3 of Karis, T., and Carter, G., M., From Protest to Challenge. A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1964 Hoover Institution Press: Stanford, 1977.
6. For an early history of the AAM see Gurney, C., "A Great Cause. The Origins of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, June 1959-March 1960", http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/aam/aam_origins.html.
7. However, Labour support for the boycott was, as the Party's leader Hugh Gaitskell carefully explained, a "moral gesture"; its aim was not "to bring the South African government to its knees but to encourage the white nationalists to adopt a new and better frame of mind towards the Africans". Quoted in Gurney, "A Great Cause", p. 17.
8. Macmillan, quoted in Gurney, "A Great Cause", p. 18.
9. AAM Archive, Executive Committee Report to the National Committee, 24 July 1962.
10. Minty, "The AAM - What kind of History?".
11. Four men, members of Oswald Mosley's Union Movement, were arrested in connection with the fire but later acquitted.
12. South Africa, however, continued to enjoy Commonwealth trade preferences with Britain.
13. AAM Archive, AAM Annual Report, October 1963.
14. "Umkonto We Sizwe", flyer "issued by the command of Umkonto We Sizwe" appearing on December 16, 1961, in Karis and Gerhart, eds., Challenge and Violence, p. 716.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. 17 South Africa Freedom News, Dar Es Salaam: African National Congress of South Africa, 12 July 1963.
18. From the Observer, London, 1 March 1964, in Spotlight on South Africa, Dar Es Salaam: African National Congress of South Africa, 6 March 1963.
19. Thomas, S., The Diplomacy of Liberation: The Foreign Relations of the African National Congress Since 1960 (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1996), p. 25.
20. Tambo, O., "Address to the Special Political Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, 8 October 1963", in Tambo, A., ed., Preparing for Power: Oliver Tambo Speaks (London: Heinemann, 1987), p. 46.
21. Quoted in Karis and Gerhart, eds., Challenge and Violence, p. 675.
22. AAM Archive, Minutes of the Executive Committee, 23 October 1963.
23. AAM Archive, Minutes of the National Committee, 25 March 1964.
24. Tambo, O., "Address to the Special Committee Against Apartheid, 12 March 1964", in Tambo, ed., Preparing for Power, p. 50.
25. PRO: FO 371/177036, Memorandum on South African Leaders in danger of sentence of death in the Rivonia trial and the fate of South Africa's political prisoners from the WCRSAPP, March 16, 1964.
26. PRO: FO 371/177036, Record of a meeting between the Minister of State and a delegation from the AAM held at the Foreign Office, May 19, 1964.
27. AAM Archive, Annual Report, October 1964.
28. AAM Archive, Report of the Executive Committee to the National Committee, July 6, 1964.
29. PRO: PREM 11/5178, F. Brockway's MP remark on the British Government's attitude towards the Rivonia trial during a parliamentary debate on the UK's abstention in the Security Council vote on June 9, 1964, 15 June 1964.
30. PRO: FO 371/167557, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Instructions to Sir Hugh Stephenson when he takes up his post as Ambassador: UK policy towards South Africa, 12 June 1963.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. PRO: PREM 11/5112, Prime Minister's reply to a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning South Africa's political trials and the supply of arms, 6 May 1964.
34. PRO: FO 371/167557, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Instructions to Sir Hugh Stephenson when he takes up his post as Ambassador: UK policy towards South Africa, 12 June 1963.
35. Ibid.
36. PRO: PREM 11/5113, Telegram from Sir H. Stephenson, Cape Town, to the Foreign Office, 4 April 1964.
37. The South African Government had in the past threatened the unilateral abrogation of the Simonstown agreement to remind Britain and the US of the possible consequences of their action towards South Africa. See South Africa Freedom News, 11 September 1963.
38. PRO: PREM 11/5178, Telegram on the US Mission instructions for handling the question of apartheid in the Security Council, from New York to the Foreign Office, 8 May 1964.
39. PRO: CAB 114/119, Sir J. Maud, Cape Town, to Lord Home, 14 May 1963,.
40. PRO: PREM 11/5178, Telegram from the Foreign Office to New York, 12 May 1964.
41. PRO: FO 371/177065, Telegram from J. E. Killick, Washington, to J. Wilson, 8 June 1964.
42. PRO: PREM 11/5178, Minutes of a parliamentary debate on the UK abstention in the Security Council vote on June 9, 1964, 15 June 1964.
43. From The Guardian, London, 16 June 1964, in Spotlight On South Africa, 3 July 1964.
44. AAM Archive, Minutes of the National Committee, 25 March 1964.
45. PRO: CAB 114/119, Sir J. Maud, Cape Town, to Lord Home, 14 May 1963.
46. PRO: CAB 114/119, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 30 July 1963.
47. Ibid.
48. PRO: FO 371/177065, Telegram from J. E. Killick (UK Ambassador to the US), Washington, to J. Wilson, 8 June 1964.
49. Barber, Uneasy Relationship, p. 19.
50. The Star, Johannesburg, 9 May 1964, in Spotlight On South Africa, 29 May 1964.
51. PRO: PREM 11/5178, Telegram from UK Ambassador to Nigeria to the UK Embassy in Pretoria, 16 April 1964.
52. Ibid.
53. PRO: PREM 11/5178, Telegram from Sir H. Stephenson, Cape Town, to the Foreign Office, 23 April 1964.
54. AAM Archive, Minutes of the Executive Committee, 20 June 1963.
55. Segal, R., "Introduction", in Segal, R., ed., Sanctions Against South Africa (Penguin, 1964).
56. See the Conference Commissions Reports and their Findings and Recommendations, in Segal, Sanctions Against South Africa.
57. AAM Archive, Annual Report, October 1964.
58. Ibid.
59. PRO: FO 371/17767, Telegram from J. Wilson to the UK mission to the UN, New York, 18th March 1964.
60. PRO: FO 371/17767, Guidelines to Her Majesty's representatives on the Conference of Economic Sanctions, 8 April 1964. Interestingly, further comments on Segal and the AAM in a letter from Wilson to D. C. Debbit (UK Ambassador to Denmark) dated April 3, (ibid.) have been deleted from the original documents.
61. PRO: FO 371/177167, John Wilson, 12 April 1964.
62. PRO: FO 371/177167, Lord Dundee, 9 April 1964.
63. Worswick, G., D., N., "The impact of sanctions on the British economy", in Segal, ed., Sanctions Against South Africa.
64. Ibid.
65. PRO: FO 371/177167, Draft notes on points which might be considered for rebuttal, 6 April 1964.
66. PRO: FO 371/17767, Guidelines to Her Majesty's representatives on the Conference of Economic Sanctions, 8 April 1964.
67. AAM Archive, Annual Report, October 1964.
68. AAM Archive, Report of the Executive Committee to the National Committee, 6 July 1964.
69. Ibid.
70. PRO: FO 371/177036, AAM questionnaire.
71. AAM Archive, Annual Report, October 1964.
72. The text of Wilson's speech appears in Darnborough, A., Labour's Record on Southern Africa: An Examination of Attitudes Before October 1964 and Actions Since, (London: Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1967).
73. AAM Archive, Annual Report, October 1964.
74. AAM Archive, Long-term Programme for 1965.
75. Quoted in the East African Standard, Nairobi, 14 April 1964, in Spotlight on South Africa, 24 April 1964.
76. Ibid.
77. PRO: FO 371/182059, Sir H. Stephenson, South Africa: Annual Review for 1964, 27 December 1964.
78. PRO: CAB 128 CC. 8 (64), Minutes of a Cabinet meeting on the question of arms for South Africa, 12 November 1964.
79. Ibid., 24 November 1964.
80. PRO: FO 371/177072, Minutes of a conversation between J Wilson, Foreign Office, and Lord Chancellor, 18 December 1964.
81. PRO: FO 371/177072, Telegram from Pretoria to the Foreign Office on South African reactions to British elections, 20 October 1964.
82. PRO: FO 371/167557, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Instructions to Sir Hugh Stephenson when he takes up his post as Ambassador: UK policy towards South Africa, 12 June 1963.