In 1953 a British Conservative Government brought about the Federation of three African states - Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, convinced that such a Federation was "the only practicable means by which the three Central African territories can achieve security for the future and ensure the well-being of all their peoples."
The prospects seemed infinitely good; such a Federation might not only become a state as great as Canada but a bulwark against the already menacing advance of Communist influence in Africa. The constitution was so solidly welded that, in the opinion of two British Secretaries of State, the Federation could only be liquidated by the unanimous consent of the four governments concerned. And yet, only ten years later, another British Conservative Government, protesting to the last minute, Sir Roy maintains, that nothing was further from their minds, brought about the dissolution of the Federation. The story is here told by one of the chief architects of the Federation and the man who for seven of the ten years was its Prime Minister. He is a man renowned for his belief in the outspoken word. "I am a fighter," he admits in the first few pages. This book is the account of how he fought, tenaciously and indefatigably, for something in which he believed passionately. He always said what he meant and meant what he said; others, he felt, did not. "The Federation was destroyed, not by our avowed enemies but by those who called themselves our friends and said they believed in what we had built. They killed it slowly, in the dark and by stealth; and they wept hypocritical tears as they finished the deed." In his view the interests of the Federation were all along subordinated to British political expediency. The book is a highly controversial document, based on the minutes of interviews, tape recordings, transcripts of telephone conversations, and it affords an absolutely unique revelation of the machinery of government and statesmanship as practised in our time; for never surely could the documentation and sources for such a stark record become available under any other than these unusual circumstances. Equally notable is the contribution Sir Roy makes to the history of the holocaust in the Belgian Congo shere he reckons the Western powers were guilty of another betrayal.