Ribeiro De Meneses, Filipe and McNamara, Robert (2013) The Origins of Exercise ALCORA, 1960–71. International History Review, 35 (5). pp. 1113-1134. ISSN 0707-5332

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Abstract

Over the course of the 1960s, Portugal, Rhodesia, and South Africa, hard-pressed by African nationalist movements and international opinion, grew closer together, realising that their common enemies could only be defeated by a common stance. The most important attempt to meet the threat to white political domination in Southern Africa was Exercise ALCORA, a military understanding negotiated, in secret, in October 1970. From then until the Portuguese Revolution in 1974, regular meetings of the representatives of the three countries’ armed forces pooled intelligence and defined new strategies for the on-going conflicts in Rhodesia, Angola, and Mozambique, and put in train plans for future, larger-scale clashes. This article examines the origins of ALCORA, charting the process by which Lisbon, Salisbury, and Pretoria came together despite considerable obstacles. It highlights the importance of domestic factors, notably in South Africa, ALCORA’s senior partner. There, the murder in 1966 of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd led to a circumstance wherein leading figures of the regime enjoyed much greater freedom in the definition of policy than before. One beneficiary was Defence Minister P. W. Botha who, with the army’s backing, would develop a total strategy against what was perceived as a total threat. Exercise ALCORA was a key component of this strategy.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Southern Africa; decolonisation; ALCORA; counter-insurgency;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > History
Item ID:	7620
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2013.820768
Depositing User:	Filipe Ribeiro De Meneses
Date Deposited:	17 Nov 2016 11:26
Journal or Publication Title:	International History Review
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://www.tandfonline.com
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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