Various explanations have been put forward for the 1955 agreement to transfer the Simon's Town naval base from British to South African control: the base had lost its utility in the nuclear age; the British government wished to deflect South African economic pressure, to appease an expansionist Afrikaner nationalism, to effect a financial saving, or to muster a South African commitment to Middle East defence. Yet none of these, either singly or in combination, accurately explains the transfer. Rather, Simon's Town's transfer was conceded above all because, in the face of an increasingly strident Afrikaner nationalism, this was seen as the best and perhaps the last chance to strike a bargain ensuring both access to the base and effective naval collaboration.

This view represents a radical departure from some recent accounts. Geoffrey Berridge, mesmerised by South Africa's possession of gold and uranium, determined to prove an hypothesis about the role of ‘economic power’ in intergovernmental relations and, relying mainly on secondary sources, asserted that, contrary to the accepted wisdom, the agreements were ‘wholly in the Union Government's favour’ and derived from circumstances forced upon Britain by South Africa's economic might. British gains were merely ‘cosmetic embellishments’. The grant of availability to Britain and her allies in any war, and the expansion of the South African navy with purchases from British yards, were discounted as being ‘already assured’ by the pressures of the cold war and by a Commonwealth military association that was ‘already close’.