CAB148-30-Defence and Oversea Policy Committee Meetings Relating to 1967 Disturbances-1967 — Page 270

Page 270

SECRET

Page 270

with Southern Africa, though admittedly the latter was paid for in cash

or on commercial credit terms, while trade with Middle Africa was substantially dependent our economic aid to those countries and to that extent commercially less advantageous.

ON

Further detailed examination was

needed of the relative likely gain and loss. Moreover it was pointed out that arguments based on our economic stake in South Africa could not be

confined to the present issue, but could be advanced in favour of any

relaxation of our attitude towards South Africa.

Against these considerations, it was strongly urged that no major

issue of policy was involved in the South African request. There had

never been a complete ban on the supply of arms to South Africa. The United Nations resolutions had been passed in the aftermath of the internal disturbances centring round Sharpville, when there was widespread fear

that military equipment supplied to South Africa would be used against the coloured population. The situation was now different, and the items of maritime defence equipment which the South Africans wished to order could not (with the conceivable exception of the Beagle aircraft and helicopters) be used for internal security operations. If we refused

supply we should harm our own interests but not those of South Africa,

who would have no difficulty in obtaining the needed equipment from other

countries who, though they might accept United Nations resolutions, were

not slow to disregard them wherever commercial interests were concerned.

These countries would moreover reap a general trading advantage if our

refusal to supply defence equipment had a wider adverse effect on our

trading relations with South Africa. The cost of refusing to supply the

equipment was large in relation to the cost involved in other major

decisions of external policy: for example, it was comparable with the

total foreign exchange cost of our forces East of Suez and was much

greater than the foreign exchange saving we hoped to obtain through

withdrawals of troops from Germany, which involved grave disadvantages to

our interests in Europe. There were so many areas in which our commercial

interest was inhibited by considerations of external policy that we could

not afford to make difficulties for ourselves in those areas where we had

some freedom of choice. Moreover a refusal to supply the equipment would

inevitably lead us to an economic confrontation with South Africa: and the

Cabinet had throughout agreed that it must be the policy of the Government

to avoid such a confrontation. The way to mitigate South African racial

policies lay not through economic or political confrontation but through

the exercise of the kind of influence which we might hope to continue to

enjoy if we met the present South Africar request: but not otherwise.

-4-

SECRET

Page 270Page 271 of 350