Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Pedro Aires. Harold Macmillan, the “winds of change” and the Portuguese colonial crises (1960-1961). Relações Internacionais [online]. 2011, n.30, pp.21-38. ISSN 1645-9199.

Harold Macmillan was a key figure in the process that culminated with the liquidation of Britain’s formal empire in the early 1960s. His speech delivered to the South African Parliament on February 1960 became famous for an expression - ‘the winds of change’ - that encapsulated the high tide of nationalism in the colonial world. In this article, we start by analyzing the circumstances that facilitated the changes in the UK policy towards its own empire, and then proceed to describe the perceptions of the Portuguese leaders concerning those changes and how this impacted on the Anglo-Portuguese relationship. Finally we will describe the ill-fated efforts undertook by Macmillan’s administration in 1961 in order to persuade Salazar to adopt a more flexible stance towards the demands for self-determination in Portuguese Africa.

Keywords : Decolonization; Portuguese Africa; Portugal-Great Britain relations; Macmillan.

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