ABSTRACT
There can be no question that the Cold War had a significant impact on Britain’s response to the Congo crisis. The key policy-makers shared a genuine, albeit vague, worry about the possibility of Soviet intervention; and a worry which was soundly based concerning the emergence of a left-wing government in the Congo. These anxieties reverberated throughout Whitehall from the beginning almost to the end of the affair, and at numerous points found sharp expression in policy. Britain’s main concerns, however, were unrelated to the Cold War and would have been keenly expressed whatever the wider political context. Essentially, the British government sought to minimize the possibility of disorder in those territories adjacent to the Congo for which it was responsible, particularly Northern Rhodesia, which bordered on Katanga. This priority reinforced British interest in the maintenance of stability in that Congolese Province, the importance and influence of which are hard to exaggerate. It shaped almost everything which Britain did in respect of the Congo. The urgency with which this objective was pursued also reflected substantial British economic interests in the Province. For two exceedingly weighty reasons, therefore, Britain not only sought to obstruct anything which seemed to threaten the calm that generally prevailed in Katanga, but also took a lively interest in the restoration of order elsewhere in the Congo.
