ABSTRACT
Harold Wilson had a reputation for behaving like a President, and Downing Street, the newspapers intimated, was run along similar lines as the White House. The Wilson administration was indeed an innocent bystander amidst the 'dismal' contraction of Britain's imperial real estate, or an active participant in the 'fiasco that followed', this chapter examines Labour's policy towards Aden in both Opposition and Government. It draws on under-utilized documents in the party's archives and examines the ebb and flow of British policy on Aden. The chapter argues that in contrast to the Conservative government's support for its traditional tribal allies in South Arabia, the Wilson government adopted a non-committal stance that would ultimately lead to inertia in its grand strategy towards the Middle East. On the morning of 20 June 1967, a mutiny broke out which involved trainee soldiers and police officers from the South Arabian Army (SAA) in one of the key British military cantonments, Champion Lines.
