Things fall apart: South Africa and the collapse of the Portuguese Empire, 1973–74

Abstract

The April 1974 coup in Lisbon and the ensuing rapid decolonisation of Portugal's colonies marked the birth of the Southern African theatre of the Cold War. It also heralded the steady decline of Pretoria's apartheid regime. This paper seeks to illuminate why South Africa was so profoundly affected by the collapse of Lisbon's authority and the upheaval of the regional status quo that occurred as a result. It argues that in contrast to its creative and formative foreign policy endeavours in Africa, by 1974 South Africa's national security hinged fundamentally on a profound reliance on Lisbon to combat radical black nationalism and on Washington to provide diplomatic cover for their joint efforts. The primary impact of the coup, therefore, was to undermine South Africa's entire security and thereby produce the sense of acute isolation that drove its shift towards the more radical security policies of the late 1970s and 1980s.

Notes

 [1] I would like to thank Tom Young, Sue Onslow, Christian Ostermann, Hermann Giliomee, Bernard Porter, Penelope Gardiner, and Salim Yaqub for their comments on this article, as well as the convenors of and participants in the International Graduate Conference on the Cold War for their insights and assistance. I would also like to thank Neels Muller, Steve d'Agrela, Esta Jones, and Lieutenant Colonel Erika Strydom for their help at various South African archives.

 [2] Estimates of the cost of the wars varied, from 40 to 45% in Declassified Documents Reference System, US Embassy, Lisbon, to State Department, ‘US Policy Assessment’, 3 April 1968, to over 30% in Central Intelligence Agency Reading Room, CIA Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, ‘The Coup in Portugal’, 26 April 1974.

 [3] See the relaxed, even bullish tone of South African assessments of the Caetano regime's strength prior to the coup, such as in South African Department of Foreign Affairs Archives, 1/14/10, 1, Portugal's African Territories, R. J. Montgomery, Ambassador, Lisbon, to Brand Fourie, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Pretoria, ‘Die Toestand in Portugal: Dr Caetano se Familie-Praatjie’, 3 April 1974; or SADFAA, 1/22/1 OS, 16, Angola: Political Situation and Developments, E. M. Malone, Consul-General, Luanda, to Fourie, ‘Angola: The Progress of the War’, 4 February 1974.

 [4] Robert M. Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990 (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 39–40.

 [5] See the effusive American assessments of South Africa's robust strength in DDRS, CIA Office of Current Intelligence, Intelligence Memorandum, ‘South Africa on the Crest of the Wave’, 30 August 1966, and DDRS, Edward K. Hamilton, National Security Council, to Walt W. Rostow, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, ‘Assassination of Hendrik Verwoerd’, 6 September 1966.

 [6] J. Barber and J. Barratt, South Africa's Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security, 1945–1988 (Johannesburg: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 10.

 [7] Heribert Adam, Modernizing Racial Domination: South Africa's Political Dynamics (Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1971), 101–102.

 [8] Witney W. Schneidman, Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire (Lanham, MD; Oxford: University Press of America, 2004), 144.

 [9] Dan O'Meara, Forty Lost Years: The Apartheid State and the Politics of the National Party, 1948–1994 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1996), 224.

[10] For more on Botha and his ‘total strategy’, see especially Chris Alden, Apartheid's Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996); Philip H. Frankel, Pretoria's Praetorians: Civil-Military Relations in South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Kenneth W. Grundy, The Rise of the South African Security Establishment: An Essay on the Changing Locus of State Power (The South African Institute of International Affairs, 1983); Robert Davies and Dan O'Meara, “Total Strategy in Southern Africa: An Analysis of South African Regional Policy since 1978,” Journal of Southern African Studies 11, no. 2 (April 1985), 191–196.

[11] The quality literature on South Africa's transition from the self-assurance of the early 1970s to the uncertainty of the late 1970s is hardly voluminous, but for the best studies of various aspects see: for the military dimension, Alden, Apartheid's Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State; for the domestic politics, O'Meara, Forty Lost Years: The Apartheid State and the Politics of the National Party, 1948–1994; for the economic angle, Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990; and for the impact on Afrikanderdom generally, Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (London: C. Hurst, 2003).

[12] Pieter Wolvaardt, Tom Wheeler, and Werner Scholtz, From Verwoerd to Mandela: South African Diplomats Remember, 3 vols. (Pretoria: Crink, 2010); Theresa Papenfus, Pik Botha and His Times (Pretoria: Litera, 2010); Herbert Beukes, From Garies to Washington (Milnerton, SA: CED Book Printers, 2011); Paulo Correia and Grietjie Verhoef, ‘Portugal and South Africa: Close Allies or Unwilling Partners in Southern Africa During the Cold War?,’ South African Journal of Military Studies 37, no. 1 (2009); Sue Onslow, Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation (London: Routledge, 2009).

[13] See for instance United States National Archives, Access to Archival Databases, Central Foreign Policy Files, Record Group 59, Records of the State Department, John G. Hurd, US Ambassador to South Africa, Pretoria, to State Department, ‘Concern About Portuguese Situation Continues in SA’, 3 May 1974.

[14] All translations are the author's. The language of the document titles in the footnotes will indicate that of the original.

[15] See for instance DDRS, State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, ‘Portugal Will Not Be Moved By Exhortation to Leave Africa’, 8 December 1970; SADFAA, 1/14/6, 15, Portugal Colonial Policy, Address to the Nation by Caetano, 15 January 1973; SADFAA, 1/14/6, 15, Portugal Colonial Policy, Official Visit of Rui Patricio to South Africa, Transcript of Speech by Patricio, March 1973; SADFAA, 1/14/20, 2, Portugal Annual Reports From, R. J. Montgomery, ‘Annual Report 1972’, to Fourie, 21 March 1973.

[16] Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990, p. 39.

[17] The literature on outward policy is weak, the best being Roger Pfister, Apartheid South Africa and African States: From Pariah to Middle Power, 1961–1994, International Library of African Studies (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 39–68. Vorster's outward policy was also widely known as ‘dialogue’, but for consistency's sake the one term has been used here.

[18] Kenneth W. Grundy, Confrontation and Accommodation in Southern Africa: The Limits of Independence (Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1973), 241.

[19] Gerald Ford Library, National Security Adviser: Presidential Country Files for Africa, 1974–1977, Box 7, Cutler to Secretary of State, Washington, D. C., ‘Angola: GOZ Contemplates UN Action’, 16 January 1976.

[20] Adrian Guelke, Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid: South Africa and World Politics (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 116.

[21] Colin Legum, A Republic in Trouble: South Africa, 1972–73 (London: Rex Collings, 1973).

[22] It should be noted that South Africa did provide Portugal with some unspecified aid to counter the initial uprisings in Angola prior to 1964: Correia and Verhoef, ‘Portugal and South Africa: Close Allies or Unwilling Partners in Southern Africa During the Cold War?,’ 58–9.

[23] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, Full Report, ‘Onderhoud Met Dr. Salazar’, H. L. T Taswell, 14 and 19 August 1964.

[24] For SA assistance to Tshombe see USNA, Central Foreign Policy Files, Record Group 59, Records of the State Department, Records of the Bureau of African Affairs, 1958–1966, Box 51, Def-19 Military Assistance (SA-Congo) 1964, Peter Hooper, Deputy Director, Office of Southern African Affairs, Bureau of African Affairs, State Department, to Governor Mennen Williams, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, ‘Tshombe Request for South African Assistance’, 11 August 1964. The other documents in this folder make it clear that Pretoria had also allowed numerous mercenaries to head to the Congo to assist Tshombe. See also Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill, NC; London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 126. Taswell was then South Africa's Special Emissary to Southern Rhodesia, and had previously been the High Commissioner in Salisbury (1959–61), Consul in Luanda (1956–59), and Consul in Elizabethville (1946–56). He would later become South Africa's Ambassador in Washington and its Permanent Representative at the UN.

[25] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, Full Report, ‘Onderhoud Met Dr. Salazar’, H. L. T Taswell, 14 and 19 August 1964. See also the testimony of General Constand Viljoen, Chief of the South African Defence Force (1980–85), Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Armed Forces Hearing, Cape Town, 8 October 1997, 14: ‘we had a strategy of keeping the attacking forces as far away from the home or the heartlands of our territory as possible.’

[26] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, ‘Onderhoud Met Dr Salazar’, Uiters Geheim report of two meetings with Salazar, H. L. T. Taswell, late August 1964.

[27] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, report by H.r L. T. Taswell of his trip to Lisbon, to Brigadier Hendrik van den Bergh, Veiligsheidspolisie, Pretoria, ‘Financial Support for ex-French Foreign Legion troops in Mozambique and Congo’, Uiters Geheim, 27 August 1964.

[28] Schneidman, Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire, 21. South African documents show that France had been supplying Lisbon with weapons as early as June, so this was simply an extension of an existing business relationship: SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, Certificate, Colonel Thoux, L'Adjoint Technique du Département, ‘Expansion-Exportation’, Paris, 15 July 1964.

[29] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, Full Report, ‘Onderhoud Met Dr. Salazar’, H. L. T Taswell, 14 and 19 August 1964. A State Department analysis concurred: ‘From point of view of its own national interest, South Africa would like to see Tshombe succeed in unifying Congo. Internal chaos and possibility of Communist incursions in Congo is a source of real concern to South Africa. Because of this, SAG would probably be prepared render assistance without publicity and in fashion least likely to do damage to Tshombe.’ See USNA, Central Foreign Policy Files, Record Group 59, Records of the State Department, Recordsof the Bureau of African Affairs, 1958–1966, Box 51, Def-19 Military Assistance (SA-Congo) 1964, Peter Hooper, Deputy Director, Office of Southern African Affairs, Bureau of African Affairs, State Department, to Governor Mennen Williams, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, ‘Tshombe Request for South African Assistance’, 11 August 1964. See also Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976, 126–128.

[30] Correia and Verhoef, ‘Portugal and South Africa: Close Allies or Unwilling Partners in Southern Africa During the Cold War?,’ 59–60.

[31] SANDFA, Group 2 – MVV/P. W. Botha, Box 155, BGG/203/3/3/1, Defence Headquarters report, ‘A Review of the Campaign in East and South East Angola 1968 to End of January 1970’, March 1970.

[32] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, unknown official, to J. E. De Meneses Rosa, Ambassador of Portugal, ‘R25 Million Military Loan to Portugal’, 16 July 1969. See also SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, Loan Agreement Between the South African Reserve Bank and the Govt of the Republic of Portugal, 12 February 1970.

[33] Deduced from tables in Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990, 44. It is difficult to gauge from these piecemeal agreements the total amount of assistance South Africa gave to Portugal. What is clear is that the sums involved – as further illustrated later – represented a huge outlay in terms of South Africa's overall defence budget.

[34] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, Departement van Verdediging, Report, ‘Versoek om Bystand: Portugal’, 13 March 1969.

[35] The relationship between the two countries was evidently very close, but this did not mean that both sides did not have their complaints, Portugal about the limited aid offered by South Africa, and South Africa about the Portuguese inability to achieve results or allow their direct involvement: Correia and Verhoef, ‘Portugal and South Africa: Close Allies or Unwilling Partners in Southern Africa During the Cold War?’

[36] See the far-reaching discussions between Foreign Minister Hilgard Muller and Patricio in SADFAA, 1/14/3, 1, Portugal Relations With SA, ‘Discussion Between the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr The Hon. H. Muller and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, His Excellency Dr Rui D'Espiney Patricio’, Pretoria, 23–24 June 1971; and SADFAA, 1/14/3, 5, Portugal Relations With South Africa, Montgomery, Lisbon, to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Note Pursuant to Meeting Between Dr Rui Patricio, Portuguese Minister for Foriegn Affairs, and Dr Muller, South African Minister for Foreign Affairs, on 13 September 1972’, 14 September 1972.

[37] SADFAA, 1/14/3, 5, Portugal Relations With South Africa, Montgomery, Lisbon, to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Besoek aan die Republiek: Dr Rui Patricio, Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs’, 14 March 1973.

[38] SADFAA, 1/14/6, 15, Portugal Colonial Policy, Speech by Rui Patricio, Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lourenco Marques, 11 March 1973.

[39] South African National Defence Force Archives, Group 2 – MVV/ P. W. Botha, Box 23, MV/56/5, Portugal: Samewerking, Volume 4, ‘Notule van die Vergadering van die Ministers van Verdediging van Portugal en die RSA Gehou in Lissabon 29 November 1973’, 29 November 1973.

[40] SANDFA, Group 2 – MVV/ P. W. Botha, Box 23, MV/56/5, Portugal: Samewerking, Volume 4, ‘Notule van die Vergadering van die Ministers van Verdediging van Portugal en die RSA Gehou in Lissabon 29 November 1973’, 29 November 1973.

[41] SANDFA, Group 2 – MVV/ P. W. Botha, Box 23, MV/56/5, Portugal: Samewerking, Volume 4, Komptroleur SAW to P. W. Botha, ‘Hulp aan Buurstate’, 14 September 1973.

[42] SANDFA, Group 2 – MVV/ P. W. Botha, Box 23, MV/56/5, Portugal: Samewerking, Volume 4, Ministro da Defesa Nacional to Ministerie van Verdediging, 4 March 1974.

[43] SANDFA, Group 2 – MVV/ P. W. Botha, Box 23, MV/56/5, Portugal: Samewerking, Volume 4, H. J. Samuels, President, Krygskor, to General Ivo Ferreira, Secretary General for Defence, 7 March 1974.

[44] SANDFA, Group 1- VBR/VBK (DSC), Box 3, VBK Notules 1-21, Chief of Staff Logistics to Chief of Staff Operations, ‘Op Tower: Return of Equipment and Stores by Portugal’, 18 August 1976, attached to ‘Minutes of the 20^th Meeting of the DPC 23 August 76’, 23 August 1976.

[45] Robert S. Jaster, South Africa's Narrowing Security Options (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980), 16.

[46] Portugal was at least a member of NATO, which afforded it some protection.

[47] For the Kennedy and Johnson policies see Schneidman, Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire, xiii-xiv, 226–7; Thomas J. Noer, Cold War and Black Liberation: The United States and White Rule in Africa, 1948–1968 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1985).

[48] For more on the formation of NSSM 69, see Schneidman, Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire, 112–121.

[49] Mohamed El-Khawas and B. Cohen, The Kissinger Study of Southern Africa (Westport: Lawrence Hill, 1976). For an overview of Nixon's policies on sub-Saharan Africa, see Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), 222–237; Alex Thomson, U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Apartheid South Africa, 1948–1994: Conflict of Interests (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 63–83.

[50] Thomson, U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Apartheid South Africa, 1948–1994: Conflict of Interests, 64.

[51] Schneidman, Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire, xiv.

[52] For a sense of the cooperative yet correct tenor of Washington-Lisbon relations during this period, see Memorandum of Conversation Between Nixon and Foreign Minister Alberto Nogueira and others, Oval Office, 16 April 1969, Foreign Relations of the United States: Southern Africa, 1969 –1976, vol. XXVIII (Washington, D. C.: State Department, Office of the Historian, 2011), 203–6.

[53] Digital National Security Archive, South Africa: The Making of US Policy 1962–1989, Peter Hooper, US Consulate, Cape Town, to State Department, 20 February 1970.

[54] The Nixon Administration's lack of interest in Africa was legendary. See for instance SADFAA, 1/33/3, 28, USA Relations With South Africa, J. S. F. Botha, Embassy of South Africa, Washington, D. C., to Fourie, ‘US/SA Relations’, 6 February 1974; Roy Haverkamp, Interview, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Georgetown University, 11 April 1994; Andy DeRoche, ‘KK, the Godfather, and the Duke: Maintaining Positive Relations between Zambia and the USA in Spite of Nixon's Other Priorities,’ Journal of South African and American Studies 12, no. 1 (January 2011); Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena, 233–235.

[55] CIARR, National Intelligence Estimate, ‘South Africa in a New Decade’, April 1972.

[56] See for instance SADFAA, 1/33/3, 28, USA Relations With South Africa, D. V. Louw, South African Ambassador to the United States, Washington, D. C., to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Siening Van Staatsdepartment Amptenare Oor Suid-Afrika’, 31 December 1973.

[57] SADFAA, 1/33/3, 28, USA Relations With South Africa, Report, ‘VSA Verhoudings’, author unknown, date unknown, presumably early 1974. See also SADFAA, 1/33/3, 28, USA Relations With South Africa, ‘Notes on US-RSA Relations: 1972-73’, author unknown, date unknown, either late 1973 or early 1974.

[58] SADFAA, 1/33/3, Volume 18, United States of America Relations With South Africa, Vorster to Nixon, March 1971.

[59] Archive for Contemporary Affairs, PV 528, MB 10/1/2, Hilgard Muller, Korrespondensie, Fourie to A. M. Mogwe, Permanent Secretary to the President, 24 February 1971. See handwritten note on page 11.

[60] David Welsh, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), 133.

[61] Sure enough, the Carter Administration swiftly abandoned any semblance of support for Pretoria soon after Inauguration Day: DDRS, Special Coordination Committee Meeting on South Africa and Rhodesia, 8 February 1977.

[62] Chris Alden, Apartheid's Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 36–8.

[63] ARCA, PV203, 4/2/60, P. W. Botha, Toesprake, Boksburg, 20 October 1973.

[64] ARCA, PV203, 4/2/60, P. W. Botha: Toesprake, Toespraak Gelewer Deur Sy Edele P. W. Botha, Minister van Verdediging, Tydens die Opening Van Die Kaapse Landbouskou op 2 Maart 1974 te Goodwood, 2 March 1974.

[65] O'Meara, Forty Lost Years: The Apartheid State and the Politics of the National Party, 1948–1994, 257–8.

[66] For insightful accounts of Botha's and the military's rise during the 1970s, see Gavin Cawthra, Brutal Force: The Apartheid War Machine (London: International Defence & Aid Fund for Southern Africa, 1986); Alden, Apartheid's Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State. For an insider's account, see Magnus Malan, My Life with the Sa Defence Force (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2006).

[67] Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990, 43–4.

[68] In fact, that prosperity was a temporary and artificial boom, soon brought to a grinding halt by deep contradictions between the demands of South Africa's industrialising economy and the social strictures of apartheid: ———, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990, 28–38.

[69] See for instance K. J. de Beer, ‘Die Anti-Kommunistiese Beleid Van Dr. D. F. Malan as Premier En Minister Van Buitelandse Sake,’ Acta Diurna Historica 7, no. 1 (1978).

[70] CIARR, National Intelligence Estimate, ‘South Africa in a New Decade’, April 1972.

[71] Compare Republic of South Africa, White Paper on Defence and Armaments Supply (Pretoria: Government Printing Office, 1973) and SANDFA, Group 1 – Chief of Staff Operations, Box 3, ‘Waardering: Die Militêre Bedreiging teen die RSA’, November 1973, with SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, Buro vir Staatsveiligheid to Fourie, ‘People's Republic of China: Infiltration into Africa’, 1 November 1973; SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, SA Embassy, Washington, D C, to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Kommunistiese State en Ontwikkelende Lande: Hulp en Handel in 1972’, 20 September 1973; SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, Buro vir Staatsveiligheid, ‘Sjina: ‘N Evaluasie van die “Bevrydingstryd” Teen Die RSA en SWA’, 24 August 1973; SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, Buro vir Staatsveiligheid, ‘Soviet Penetration South of the Sahara’, 13 November 1973; SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, Buro Vir Staatsveiligheid, “Sjina: Nuwe Tendense in Afrika-Beleid”, 27 July 1973. For a somewhat more alarmist, Botha-esque view see SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, Buro Vir Staatsveiligheid ‘Die Rol van Terrorisme in die Russiese en Sjinese Strategie ten Opsigte van Suidelike Afrika’, 13 August 1973, but even this assessment talks only about the theory of communist penetration in Africa, without highlighting much evidence of its unfolding.

[72] SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, Buro vir Staatsveiligheid to Fourie, ‘People's Republic of China: Infiltration into Africa’, 1 November 1973.

[73] SADFAA, 1/99/12, 22, Africa: Communism in Africa, Buro vir Staatsveiligheid, ‘Soviet Penetration South of the Sahara’, 13 November 1973. (forwarded to DFA 18 March 1974)

[74] SADFAA, 1/22/1 OS, 16, Angola: Political Situation and Developments, E. M. Malone, SA Consul-General, Luanda, to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Portugal and the Overseas Territories’, 12 March 1974; SADFAA, 1/14/10, 1, Portugal's African Territories, SA Mission to the UN, New York, to Fourie, Lisbon, Lourenco Marques, and Luanda, ‘Special Committee of Twenty-Four: Consideration of the Question of Territories Under Portuguese Administration’, 15 March 1974.

[75] See SADFAA, 1/14/10, 1, Portugal's African Territories, Montgomery, Lisbon, to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Die Toestand in Portugal: Dr Caetano se Familie-Praatjie’, 3 April 1974.

[76] Schneidman, Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire, 141. USNA, AAD, Central Foreign Policy Files, Record Group 59, Records of State Department, Scott to State Department, ‘Portugal: Political/Economic Trends First Quarter 1974’, 30 March 1974: Spinola's book ‘has shaken Portuguese political life out of its previous apparently immutable stability… We wish to emphasize, however, that the present Portuguese political scene is strewn with tinder and that sources of possible sparks are ever-present. Barring an explosion, we expect that Caetano will gradually emerge from his present weakened position.’

[77] SADFAA, 1/22/1 OS, 16, Angola: Political Situation and Developments, Malone to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Angola: The Progress of the War’, 10 May 1973; SADFAA, 1/22/1 OS, 16, Angola: Political Situation and Developments, Malone to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Angola: The Progress of the War’, 27 November 1973; SADFAA, 1/22/1 OS, 16, Angola: Political Situation and Developments, Malone to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Angola: The Progress of the War’, 4 February 1974.

[78] SADFAA, 1/22/1 OS, 16, Angola: Political Situation and Developments, Montgomery, Lisbon, to Fourie, Pretoria, ‘Besoek aan Angola en Mosambiek: Augustus 1973’, 12 September 1973.

[79] USNA, Central Foreign Policy Files, Record Group 59, Records of State Department, Henrik Van Oss, US Consul-General, Lourenco Marques, to State Department, ‘Portugal- Africa- Brazil and US Policy’, 4 January 1974. See also Time, ‘Africa: The Persistent Empire’, 31 December 1973.

[80] See for instance the opposition of the establishment Dutch Reformed Church: ‘Dominee Besorg oor “Toegewinge aan Swart Afrika”’, Die Burger, 26 April 1973.

[81] Amry Vandenbosch, South Africa and the World: The Foreign Policy of Apartheid (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1970), 276.

[82] Cawthra, Brutal Force: The Apartheid War Machine, 20; Alden, Apartheid's Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State, 38–9.