Federation, Southern Rhodesia officials, and Sir Arthur Benson, the Governor of Northern Rhodesia. These meetings coordinated plans to for mass arrests of members of the nationalist parties of each of the three territories, declaring a State of Emergency in any of them where this was considered necessary, and to send European troops from Southern Rhodesia to Nyasaland. On 21 February, European troops of the Rhodesia Regiment were flown into Nyasaland and, in the days immediately following, police or troops opened fire on rioters in several places, leading to four deaths. In deciding to make widespread arrests covering almost the whole Congress organisation, Armitage was influenced by a report received by the police from an informer of a meeting of Congress leaders at which, it was claimed by the Head of Special Branch that the indiscriminate killing of Europeans and Asians, and of those Africans opposed to Congress was planned, the so-called "murder plot". There is no evidence that such a plan existed, and the Nyasaland government took no immediate action against Banda or other Congress leaders but continued to negotiate with them until late February. On 3 March 1959 Sir Robert Armitage, as governor of Nyasaland, declared a State of Emergency over the whole of the protectorate and arrested Dr. Banda, the president of the Nyasaland African Congress, other members of its executive committee and over a hundred local party officials: Congress was banned the next day. Those arrested were detained without trial, and the total number detained for Congress membership finally rose to over 1,300. Over 2,000 more were imprisoned for offences against the Emergency Regulations, including rioting and criminal damage. The stated aim of these measures was to allow the Nyasaland government to restore law and order after the increasing lawlessness following Dr Banda's return. Rather than calming the situation immediately, in the emergency that followed fifty-one Africans were killed and many more were wounded. The Devlin and Armitage reports In the debate in the House of Commons on 3 March 1959, Alan Lennox-Boyd, the Colonial Secretary, stated that it was clear from information received that Congress had planned the widespread murder of Europeans, Asians and moderate Africans, “…in fact, a massacre was being planned" and, later in the same debate, the Minister of State at the Colonial Office, Julian Amery, reinforced what Lennox-Boyd had said with talk of a “…conspiracy of murder" and "a massacre… on a