Paths to Disarmament:

Also see: Israel and the South African Bomb PETER LIBERMAN


Paths to Disarmament

        Paths to Disarmament: The Rollback of South Africa’s

Chemical-Biological Warfare and Nuclear Weapons Programs

Paper Presented at the 2001Annual Meeting of the ISA

By

Helen Purkitt

Professor

Department of Political Science

U.S. Naval Academy

Annapolis, MD

e-mail: purkitt@nadn.navy.mil

and                                                     

Stephen Burgess

Assistant Professor

Department of International Security Studies

U.S. Air War College

Maxwell AFB, AL 36112

(334) 953-7076

e-mail:  Stephen.Burgess@Maxwell.AF.MIL

Please do not cite or use without the authors’ permission.

The views expressed in this paper are strictly those of the authors.

The authors wish to acknowledge funding support from the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS), the USAF Counter-proliferation Center (CPC), and the Naval Academy Research Center (NARC).

Paths to Disarmament:

The Rollback of South Africa’s Chemical-Biological Warfare and Nuclear Weapons Programs

by Helen Purkitt and Stephen Burgess

From the 1960s until the early 1990s, apartheid South Africa was an isolated state, leaders felt threatened by growing domestic unrest, as well as by a more powerful state actor, the USSR, which was helping hostile regimes and liberation movements in the southern African region. One response of theapartheid regime to rising threat perceptions outside and inside of South Africa was to develop a secret nuclear weapons (NW) program in the 1970s and 1980s and a new, sophisticated, and covert chemical and biological warfare (CBW) program, “Project Coast,” in the 1980s. Therefore, South Africa became one of a handful of countries to develop nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons programs, at a time in which international treaties and conventions against the spread of nuclear and biological weapons were being signed, ratified and implemented.

From 1988 to 1994, as threats to the white minority receded, South Africa underwent a dramatic transformation to black majority rule and became one of a very few countries to “roll back” its NBC programs. The rollback of the NW program was remarkably different from the way in which the CBW program ended. The nuclear rollback was implemented from 1989-1991, soon after F.W. de Klerk replaced P.W. Botha as South African State President and after the Soviet-Cuban “threat” ended. The decision also came in the wake of concerted pressure by the United States, as well as the United Kingdom, and Israel. However, the government only announced the NW rollback in March 1993. In contrast, the CBW rollback was more convoluted, starting in 1990 and ending in 1994. It appears that parts of the CBW program were kept to deal with an expected “black onslaught” and that only a few individuals knew about the program. Only in 1994, when the danger of proliferation to Libya and other “rogue states” became evident, did the U.S. and UK become involved. In the NW and CBW cases, a concern of President de Klerk, as well as the U.S., UK and Israel, was to prevent an African National Congress (ANC) regime from acquiring NBC weapons and proliferating them.

This paper analyzes the rollback of the South African NBC programs, as well as their origins and evolution. The focus of the paper is on explaining the differences between the nuclear and CBW rollbacks. From the South African case and comparison of the nuclear and CBW programs and their rollbacks, the paper draws lessons for the analysis of national security and foreign policy decision-making and NBC weapons proliferation and counter-proliferation.

Why do States Acquire NBC Weapons? Why do They Disarm?

In order to understand why South Africa would roll back its NBC programs, it is first necessary to understand the reasons why NBC weapons were developed in the first place. It is also necessary to compare the acquisition of NW and CBW in order to compare the rollbacks. Also, it is important to explain why South Africa did not declare that it had NBC weapons and why it did not declare the rollbacks until well after the fact. From the literature, it would seem that the trajectory of the South African NBC buildup is best explained by threats to national security, featured in realist/neo-realist theory, as well as by the bureaucratic/governmental politics model.[1] The path of the rollback is explained by the decline of security threats, domestic politics, and counter-proliferation pressures.[2]

The initial development of chemical and biological weapons in World War I and after and nuclear weapons in WW II and after are best explained, by realist/neorealist theory, as races for offensive advantage and, later, for deterrence and security.[3] In WW I, chemical weapons were developed and used by Germany, the UK, France and other states to gain advantage on the battlefield. After WW I, a number of states raced to develop CB weapons programs. However, the 1925 Geneva Conventions against CBW and the limited utility of CW in WW I deterred all but Japan (1932-45) and the USSR from using CB weapons in WWII.[4]

In WW II, the major powers raced to develop nuclear weapons, which led to the first NW state, the U.S., which enjoyed an enormous strategic advantage. In the late 1940s, the USSR developed nuclear weapons, and, in the 1950s, the UK and France followed. In the 1950s, it appeared that nuclear weapons had a range of possible uses, including on the battlefield. Also, nuclear power programs were developed by many industrial nations, and “peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) programs were planned for mining and canal construction. As the 1950s progressed, theories of deterrence developed, indicating a shift from a quest for offensive advantage to the defensive. In the 1950s, the U.S. and USSR, especially, developed large chemical and biological weapons stockpiles initially for strategic offensive purposes. However, CB weapons soon came to supplement the “balance of terror,” which nuclear weapons had created. As the U.S. and USSR did not use their stockpiles of CB weapons, they became deterrents against NBC warfare. In sum, the inability to use NBC weapons after WWII relegated their utility to NBC deterrence. Once the U.S., USSR and UK discovered that they were not able to use nuclear and biological weapons, they accelerated efforts to prevent other states from developing them and perhaps using them.

International norms and incentives influenced many states to not develop or acquire NBC weapons. These norms and incentives overcame the national security interests of many states to have NBC weapons for offensive advantage or deterrence. Sanctions, security guarantees, and other incentives proved to be more relevant for NW than for CBW counter-proliferation.

CBW norms were established in the 1925 Geneva Conventions, which forbade use in warfare. The horrors of chemical warfare on the battlefield in WW I led to the ban. However, states (including South Africa) continued to stockpile chemical and biological weapons, especially during WW II, in case adversaries violated the ban. Japan violated the CBW ban by using it for offensive purposes against China, a much larger, but less-advanced, adversary, which did not have the means to retaliate. International norms and the lesson that CBW did not provide any real battlefield advantage deterred Nazi Germany from waging CBW in WW II, even after the USSR violated the Geneva Conventions and used CBW.[5]

In 1969, the U.S. abandoned its biological weapons program, and the USSR promised to eliminate theirs. The U.S. enlisted the USSR and other states in attempting to create a biological weapons regime similar to that of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), with the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BWC), which came into effect in 1975. The U.S. attempted to set up a monitoring regime, but the BWC proved difficult to monitor, given that biological weapons facilities had “dual uses” and were easily concealed. Also, the BWC had weak monitoring arrangements and incentives, which enabled the USSR to completely disregard its ratification of the BWC and continue to develop massive stockpiles of biological weapons into the 1990s. The Cold War's end helped negotiations for a the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The CWC was signed in 1993 and came into effect in 1997. The CWC had stronger monitoring procedures than the BWC. However, problems of monitoring dual use facilities have remained.[6]

Nuclear weapons norms and incentives emerged in the 1960s, as nuclear arms control efforts commenced. The harmful effects of nuclear fallout led to the 1963 atmospheric Partial Test Ban Treaty. The 1964 nuclear test by Maoist China, whose leader declared that he was prepared to wage nuclear war, alarmed both the U.S. and the USSR. The prospect of more risk-taking states acquiring nuclear weapons further provoked the two superpowers, the UK, and other states into promoting, from 1964-68, negotiations for the NPT, as well as for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring of NPT compliance. The NPT was signed in 1968 by the U.S., USSR and UK and 59 non-nuclear states and came into force in 1970. The NPT recognized five nuclear weapons states, the U.S., USSR, UK, France and China, and allowed them to keep their arsenals, while forbidding other states from developing them. Many states, which could have developed NW, accepted the non-proliferation arguments and incentives presented by the two superpowers and other NPT supporters. The two principal incentives provided to NPT signatories were security guarantees to deter nuclear attacks from the U.S. or the USSR, as well as assistance from the U.S. and other states for the peaceful development of nuclear power. With the NPT, it became legitimate for the five major powers to maintain nuclear arsenals, while it became illegitimate for the rest of the world. Already in 1974, the influence of the new NPT regime was evidenced by adverse international reaction to the Indian nuclear test, which was purportedly for “peaceful purposes.” In the 1970s and 1980s, more and more states ratified the NPT, until 185 states had joined.

In the 1970s, norms and institutions were established that provided the basis for sanctions against NPT violators and against non-NPT states.[7] In the 1970s, the U.S. enacted and implemented counter-proliferation legislation to punish the states that would not conform to the NPT. In 1978, the U.S. used newly enacted counter-proliferation law, as the Carter administration applied sanctions against Pakistan (until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) and South Africa. Similarly, the U.S. threatened action against states suspected of developing CBW programs.

Defiance of NBC Proliferation Norms. A handful of states developed nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs in the 1970s and 1980s. The states that refused to accept the nuclear caste system, including India, Pakistan, Brazil, and Argentina, as well as South Africa, Israel, and a number of Middle East countries, came under the scrutiny of the U.S. and other NPT states, as well as the IAEA. Most of the states that did not accept the NPT still did not acquire nuclear weapons. India tested a nuclear device for “peaceful purposes” in 1974 and faced widespread condemnation from the international community. The few states that did not ratify the NPT and developed NW programs in secret included South Africa, Israel, Pakistan and Iraq.

In the 1970s, BW became known as the “poor man’s nuclear weapon.” In spite of the BWC and a campaign by the U.S. and the West against CB weapons, a number of states in the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria, and North Korea developed chemical and/or biological weapons programs in secret. Those states that were accused of developing CBW programs claimed that their facilities were being used for pharmaceutical or agricultural purposes. In the 1980s, both Iran and Iraq used chemical weapons on the battlefield in the Iran-Iraq war. Chemical weapons were last used in 1988 as “weapons of mass destruction” by Iraq against its Kurdish population. Biological weapons were last used by Japan in WWII as weapons of mass destruction against the Chinese.

Some states, including South Africa, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and possibly Israel, India and Pakistan developed CBW programs at the same time as they attempted to build much more costly NW programs. Others that could not afford or could not develop nuclear weapons, such as Libya and Syria, first acquired chemical weapons programs and sought to eventually acquire BW and NW programs.

Explanations for NBC weapons programs in the face of norms and sanctions. In the early 1970s, when South Africa initiated its nuclear weapons program, NW programs seemed to be more legitimate, in spite of the NPT, than CBW. The great powers were building up their NW programs, while the U.S. was dismantling its BW program and was considering ending its CW program. In particular, “peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) programs still appeared to be legitimate. The international backlash against the “peaceful” Indian test of 1974 demonstrated that all programs, NW as well as CBW, were considered illegitimate. Therefore, why would South Africa and a number of other states continue to develop their NBC weapons programs, even in secret, in the 1970s and 1980s?

Models from realist/neo-realist theory explain some of the cases, as some states faced existential threats and sought to gain the advantage or deterrence through NBC weapons, in spite of the threat of sanctions. North Korea faced an existential threat from the U.S.; developed NBC weapons programs in response, and violated the NPT after acceding in 1985. Iraq and Iran faced existential threats from each other and from Israel, and their low level of economic and scientific development, as well as international barriers, explain why they developed CW first, then attempted to develop BW and NW. Israel certainly faced existential threats and developed NW and perhaps CBW in response. However, Israel did not declare its NBC weapons, because disclosure would have touched off an NBC arms race in the Middle East, provoked the USSR, and alienated the U.S. In spite of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity strategy, hostility towards and fear of Israel prompted a number of Middle East states, including Libya and Syria, to develop CW programs and to attempt to develop BW and NW programs. However, Egypt, which was the largest Arab state and faced the greatest threat from Israel, did not develop NBC weapons programs and, instead, made peace with Israel. Realist models do not explain the difference between Egypt and Syria and Libya. South Africa launched its nuclear explosions program in 1970, well before the “threat” from the USSR and Cuba really materialized but initiated its new CBW program after the Cuban intervention in Angola in 1975-76.

The bureaucratic/governmental politics model helps to explain some NW cases but not CBW cases. In the 1950s and early 1960s, PNEs and other peaceful uses of nuclear power were considered legitimate. A number of countries, like South Africa and India, pursued PNE programs and built up a corps of scientists and high-level supporters. When the NPT was enacted and sanctions were threatened, the scientists and supporters continued to push PNE and continued funding of increasingly expensive nuclear power programs. Underestimating counter-proliferation’s power, leaders wanted to keep the nuclear weapons option and were persuaded by the scientists, supporters, and those in favor of nuclear weapons.[8] The leaders’ reactions to counter-proliferation were to keep the NW programs as “national assets,” while making them secret. This appears to have been the Indian and South African reaction after the backlash to the 1974 Indian test.[9]

Models from political psychology provide an alternative explanation for what may appear to be “risk-taking” behavior or “irrational” or “emotional” decision-making.[10] Regimes in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Iran came to power through revolution and extreme nationalist (religious in the case of Iran) hatred of Israel. In order to stay in power, the leaders had to perpetuate that hatred and revolutionary fervor among the masses and develop NBC programs, with which they could promise to attack or even destroy Israel.

Jacques Hymans has proposed a psychological model, “oppositional nationalism,” which combines high levels of nationalistic pride and high fear of adversaries. Oppositional nationalism purportedly explains why the leaders of certain states take “gut-level” decisions, resist the NPT, and get the bomb.[11]Mao’s decision to start a nuclear weapons program that was too primitive to be used against either the U.S. or the USSR and his declaration that he was prepared to fight nuclear war epitomize oppositional nationalism.[12] The model appears to explain the South African NBC case. The regime was extremely nationalistic and was fearful of onslaughts by communists, blacks, and the USSR. Emotional decisions, based on pride and fear, may explain why South Africa developed NBC programs and only afterwards sought strategies to use them. The series of decisions by South African leaders in the 1970s to start and sustain an NW program appear to be explained by a combination of psychological and bureaucratic politics models. In contrast, the 1981 launching of the new CBW program, in violation of the BWC, seems to be largely based upon oppositional nationalism, with little explanation provided by the bureaucratic/governmental politics model.

NBC Disarmament. The U.S. was the first state to roll back an NBC program, ending its biological weapons program in 1969. However, only with the end of the Cold War, did other significant disarmament take place. South African NBC disarmament began in November 1989 and ended in 1994. In 1991, Iraq agreed to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction, after launching missile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia and threatening chemical weapons attacks during the Gulf War. United Nations sanctions, imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, were continued after the Gulf War to ensure Iraqi compliance. From 1991-95, UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) made progress in eliminating the most of the nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and missile programs. In 1995, after top Iraqi defections, UN inspectors uncovered a massive biological weapons program. Some of the BW program was dismantled by 1998, when UNSCOM was expelled. The Iraqi case demonstrated the difficulties faced in NBC and, especially CBW, counter-proliferation.

In December 1991, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan became independent powers with nuclear weapons. By 1996, all three had disarmed, even though all three faced a security threat from Russia as well as domestic pressure to keep the weapons. Scott Sagan points to four reasons why Ukraine decided to join the NPT and disarm.[13] They included the buttressing of sovereignty, international prestige, and economic pressures by the U.S. and NATO allies. New states could not resist the power of the NPT regime and external pressures from the U.S. and others. In contrast, older states, such as India and Pakistan, continued to defy the NPT. India reemerged from the “nuclear closet” with a nuclear test in May 1998 that was again the result of domestic pressures, and Pakistan reciprocated.

International norms and pressure on vulnerable states undergoing change appear to explain NBC disarmament in the 1990s. Are there other possible explanations? Realist models contend that NBC disarmament occurs when former adversaries end their threats and roll back their NBC programs. This explanation does not apply to Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan, but it might explain the South African case. The bureaucratic/ governmental politics model would contend that shifts in decision-making authority from a “military-industrial complex” to a more civilian and democratic administration would explain disarmament. The domestic politics model would focus in shifts in the partisan balance of power and an influential peace movement. Psychological models, such as “oppositional nationalism,” would point to the ending of high levels of fear (and perhaps national pride). All of these models appear to help explain South African NBC disarmament.

In comparing NW and CBW disarmament, there are only two observable cases, Iraq and South Africa, and in both, there were significant differences that are explained by organizational theory. In Iraq, the CBW programs were more dispersed and easy to conceal and shift than the NW program. In South Africa, the NW program was secret but managed by a state-owned arms company, which could be controlled by the State President, while the CBW program was an even more secretive military project that was managed by a handful of people and was not very controllable. The military leadership felt that the CBW program was still needed in the volatile early 1990s, while the NW program was not. Also, international pressures to prevent NW proliferation were stronger than those for CBW proliferation. The U.S., UK and Israel knew about the NW program in the 1980s and strongly intervened in 1989-1990 to prevent nuclear proliferation by South Africa, while they learned about the CBW program in 1991 but only intervened after evidence of proliferation was gathered.

Origins of South African NBC Programs

The basis for South Africa’s NBC programs developed well before the 1970s. South Africa developed a rudimentary CBW program first, especially during World War II, while the nuclear weapons program was developed during the late 1960s and 1970s. South Africa possessed the science and technology, as well as the industrial capacity and resources to develop CBW.

CBW (through 1981). In World War I and WWII, South African troops faced the threat of CBW. The South African scientific and military communities kept pace with CBW developments, including scientific work conducted in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the USSR in the 1930s that provided evidence of the efficacy of biological warfare (BW), as well as Japanese and Soviet use of CBW in WWII.[14] During WW II, South Africa produced mustard gas, and the Director-General of War, H.J. van der Bijl, oversaw the production of chemical weapons and defensive measures that would protect South African troops against chemical and biological attack.[15] During WWII, South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts was a member of the British War Cabinet and party to CBW planning. In 1943, the War Cabinet devised a plan to retaliate against the threat of Nazi biological warfare (BW) on British livestock, by charging five million cattle cakes with anthrax spores.[16] During World War II, South Africa learned that BW was simple technology that any state could use and that it could be effective, under certain conditions, in Africa.[17]

In the 1940s and 1950s, South African Defense Force (SADF) officers trained in the UK and the U.S. in CBW strategy and tactics.[18] After WW II, South Africa dumped large quantities of mustard gas out to sea. SADF maintained the literature on the WW II program and a small military program related to CBW research and development.[19]. The government maintained funding for a modest number of basic research projects located in the Afrikaans universities and other government supported institutions.

In the 1960s, South African leaders realized the importance of updating the WWII-vintage CBW program. The Egyptians had used chemical weapons in Yemen, 1962-67, and may have passed it on to the African National Congress (ANC). Although South Africa ratified the Geneva Conventions against CBW in 1963, South African forces allegedly participated in CBW in counter-insurgency operations in the southern African region (Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia).[20] In the 1960s and 1970s, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) worked on mustard gas and on gas masks to replace the World War II-vintage masks of the SADF. The EMAC (electrical, mechanical, agricultural, and chemical) Department researched chemical and biological agents and other potential weapons during the 1960s and 1970s.[21] In the early 1970s, SADF generals asked the CSIR for offensive chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents and industries to produce them. The CSIR Director, J. Wynand de Villiers, stated that Africa was not the kind of continent that was conducive for CBW and that a CBW program would be too “complex” and too expensive to develop. In 1974, de Villiers wrote a ten-page report, in which he gave an estimate of R500 million (more than $500 million in 1974 dollars), and he concluded that the USSR was too well armed with CBW and would retaliate against any CBW attack.[22] The SADF postponed its plans to develop an offensive CBW program and supported a minimal CBW research and development program, which was never well developed. By 1980, it consisted of only one individual who worked on CBW at the Special Forces complex in Pretoria.[23] In 1972, South Africa signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and, in 1975, ratified it.

The Origins of the Nuclear Weapons Program.      South Africa’s abundant uranium reserves and role as a uranium exporter were factors in its early involvement in nuclear research.[24] In 1948, the government established an Atomic Energy Board (AEB) to oversee nuclear activities. The mining industry erected uranium plants in close cooperation with the AEB. From 1950 on, the mining industry and the uranium purchasing organization, set up by the U.S. and UK, known as the Combined Development Agency, concluded contracts. The first uranium plant was opened in 1952 and, by 1955, 16 mines were authorized to produce uranium. Throughout the 1950s, uranium exports grew and became a lucrative source of export earnings.[25]

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s South Africa sent personnel to Europe and the U.S. for training in a variety of nuclear fields. In many cases, these exchanges built upon relationships established by scientists and engineers who had spent time together during the war on the Manhattan Project and other projects.[26] In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration initiated the U.S. Peaceful Nuclear Energy program and exchanges that created technical, economic, and political relationships between South Africa and the U.S., UK, Germany, and France.[27] South Africa benefited from an active diplomatic role in international nuclear fora and Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” Program and was one of only six other “Western” countries invited by the U.S. to participate in exploratory discussions, which led to the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. As one of the drafters of the IAEA Statute and a founding member of the Agency, South Africa took a permanent seat on the Board of Governors reserved for the most nuclear-advanced state in Africa. South Africa was also active in the work of the London-based Nuclear Suppliers Group and other international bodies (Sole, 1993:4).

By the late 1950’s, South Africa had established an indigenous nuclear research and development program for peaceful purposes and was aided by the Atoms for Peace and “peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) programs.[28] The U.S. government offered a $350,000 subsidy to South Africa for the purchase of a weapons-grade experimental reactor in 1957.[29] South Africa’s participation in PNE programs was important precursors to programs designed to develop a nuclear bomb. Prime Minister Verwoerd and other South African policy makers, like their counterparts in the West, were quite aware of the close marriage between nuclear research for peaceful purposes and weapons research.[30]

Laager Complex, Isolation of South Africa, NBC Programs, 1960-1975

The Afrikaner National Party, which came to power in 1948, was based on an extreme form of nationalism and the view that the Afrikaners were “God’s chosen people,” who were destined to rule South Africa by themselves. The iconoclastic character of the Afrikaner nationalists had been developed over 300 years of settler history and a series of wars with African kingdoms and with the British Empire and was manifested in the racist apartheid system that was erected after 1948. In 1960, the Sharpeville Massacre brought international condemnation and a political and diplomatic campaign to isolate South Africa. In 1963, the UN Security Council imposed a voluntary arms embargo on South Africa. The leaders of newly independent countries in Africa led campaigns to isolate South Africa. In reaction, the ruling Afrikaner elite, led by Prime Minister Verwoerd, developed a “laager” (or “circle the wagons”) complex.[31]Afrikaner nationalists came to see themselves as an ethnic and religious minority, who had been betrayed by the West and who felt threatened by black nationalists and communists, backed by the USSR.[32] In 1961, South Africa withdrew from the British Commonwealth and distanced itself from the international community. From 1945 to 1961, South African participation in international organizations increased from nine to 40 entities; however, from 1961 to 1972, South Africa’s membership decreased from 40 to two.[33]

Growing external threats were cited by the regime as justifications for a six-fold increase in defense expenditures from 1961 to 1968, rising militarization, and the development of the nuclear program, even as the NPT was being negotiated, signed and ratified. In 1968, the position of Secretary of the Defense shifted from a civilian to a uniform position and a weak nominal parliament lost effective oversight. The general loss of norms of public accountability in government eroded in the 1960s.[34] As democratic institutions and legal checks were eliminated from the system, Afrikaner nationalist leaders and scientists were free to pursue NBC weapons research and development behind a cloak of secrecy.

The South African-Israeli Relationship.      As the laager complex deepened, a similar process of isolation was developing in Israel, known as the “Masada complex.”[35] Like their South African counterparts, Israeli leaders saw themselves as a “chosen people” surrounded by enemies who were attempting to annihilate them. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the isolation of South Africa and Israel, led by African and Arab states, caused both countries to cooperate with each other on armaments development, including nuclear weapons and missile programs.[36]

South Africa’s nuclear collaboration with Israel was the natural outgrowth of close, working relations between the two governments and inter-personal links. In the field of nuclear research, Israel and South Africa may have first discussed nuclear cooperation as early as 1955.[37] In 1963, South Africa began regular shipments of uranium to Israel. During the 1970s nuclear cooperation between the two countries broadened as South Africa and Israel entered into a series of covert nuclear agreements. In 1973, Brigadier General Blaauw, who played a key role in arranging military exchanges, established a close relationship with Israel’s Council for Scientific Liaison, which was tied to clandestine military and nuclear purchases for Israel. These links resulted in Israel buying 50 metric tons of yellow cake (uranium ore concentrate) for use in its plutonium reactor at Dimona.[38] During Prime Minister John Vorster’s visit to Israel in 1976 to celebrate the establishment of diplomatic relations, he is reported to have ratified a number of covert nuclear agreements involving the exchange of materials and agreements to coordinate testing and development of advanced weapons systems.  Over an 18-month period after Vorster’s visit, Israelis exchanged 30 grams of tritium for advanced research for 50 tons of South African uranium.[39] Additional shipments of uranium were sent to Israel to be used and for “safekeeping.”[40]

Towards a Nuclear Weapons Program (1960-1974)          In 1961, South Africa constructed a new site at AEC’s Pelindaba Nuclear Research Center, outside of Pretoria, for an experimental nuclear reactor, the Safari-1. The U.S. under the Atoms-for-Peace program supplied the reactor. The U.S. also supplied highly enriched uranium (HEU) to South Africa for over a decade, until the U.S. unilaterally suspended shipments in 1978.[41] The indigenous HEU program made steady progress and, by 1968, it was produced on a laboratory scale. In 1969, a pilot enrichment plant was built at Valindaba, next to the Pelindaba Research Center, called the “Y-plant.” South Africa’s uranium enrichment process was an indigenous isotope separation technology similar to a “stationary wall centrifuge” Investigations by outside technical personnel concluded that the process was unique and considered it to be a truly indigenous design.[42] According to official accounts, this plant commenced full operation in 1977 and, by the second half of 1979 had produced sufficient HEU material for the first nuclear device.[43] The government publicized the HEU project and created a separate state corporation the Uranium Enrichment Corporation (UCOR) to run the enrichment program.[44]

South Africa decides not to negotiate, sign or ratify the NPT. With the start of negotiations in Geneva in 1964 for the NPT, Prime Minister Verwoerd decided that South Africa would not participate. In 1968, Prime Minister Vorster decided that South Africa would not sign the NPT. And in 1970, when the NPT was ratified by 62 states, Vorster rejected the NPT. These decisions represented a major step for South Africa, as an IAEA Board of Governors member, away from the U.S. and the West. Nevertheless, the U.S. continued to ship HEU to South Africa until 1978. In anti-apartheid circles, speculation grew in the 1960s about a South African nuclear weapons program. In July 1970, Prime Minister Vorster announced the development of the new South African uranium enrichment process and invited collaboration by “non-Communist countries” in developing the process.[45] While emphasizing the peaceful aims of the program in Parliament, he also noted that South Africa would not be limited to the promotion of peaceful application of nuclear energy.[46]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. “Plowshare Program” and other Western programs had encouraged peaceful nuclear explosive (PNE) research by South Africa. Considerable amounts of nuclear data and technology were transferred to South Africa under the auspices of this and other PNE research, despite warnings that PNE research permitted bomb applications.[47] This program provided South Africa with access to U.S. experience in developing propellant and ignites useful in a “gun-type” uranium bomb.[48] In 1969, with the authorization of Prime Minister Vorster, the AEB established an internal committee to investigate the economic and technical aspects of using PNEs in mining.[49] In 1971, the Minister of Mines, Carl de Wet, with Vorster’s approval, gave the AEB (AEC) permission to begin secret peaceful nuclear explosive (PNE) research and development work on nuclear explosive devices for the mining industry.[50] In 1974, the Indian nuclear test brought condemnation from the international community and support for the NPT, and, in response, Vorster decided that PNE and the nuclear weapons program should be secret.[51] The decision to maintain secrecy represented a reversal from his 1970 announcement and demonstrated the rising influence of the NPT regime.

In 1974, South Africa’s nuclear program took a great leap forward. Prime Minister Vorster shifted the priorities of nuclear research, by approving construction of the Koeberg power station in the Western Cape, supporting the indigenous highly enriched uranium (HEU) program, and locating a test site in the Kalahari Desert. In addition, the Y-Plant was completed. Vorster traveled to Israel to establish diplomatic relations and approve a series of covert agreements. The U.S. agreed to enrich all fuel for South Africa’s two large nuclear reactors. A small AEB team, working under tight security at a propulsion lab at the Somchem establishment in the Cape Province, succeeded in testing a scale model for a gun-type nuclear device in May 1974. This test demonstrated the feasibility of building a homegrown bomb. The first tests were significant in convincing AEB officials that a nuclear explosive device was feasible. Technical successes and the availability of “homegrown” technical expertise seemed to have influenced Vorster’s decision to expand nuclear weapons research.[52] After consulting with the relevant cabinet heads, the Chief of SADF, and the Chief of the Atomic Energy Program, Vorster ratified the decision to develop nuclear weapons.[53] Vorster and his key advisers also approved the construction of a new test site, which included two, more than 200 meter-deep test shafts drilled at a site at Vastrap in the Kalahari Desert. Thus, by 1974, plans for all the essential components were in place for indigenous uranium enrichment. By combining decisions related to nuclear power and nuclear weapons, Vorster officially redefined the thrust of on-going nuclear weapons research.[54] The enthusiasm of the scientists working towards the completion of the nuclear cycle persuaded Vorster to authorize the funding required to develop South Africa’s uranium enrichment process. Having achieved notable advances in this field, the next logical step was to construct a nuclear weapon.

“Soviet Threat” and “Total Onslaught” Fuel NBC Programs (1975-81)

In late 1975, the collapse of Portuguese colonialism led to the takeover of Angola and Mozambique by revolutionary communist regimes, backed by the USSR and Cuba. According to South African leaders at the time, the U.S. encouraged South Africa to enter Angola in October 1975, and then abandoned the SADF to face tens of thousands of Cuban forces alone.[55] In January 1976, the U.S. Congress passed the Clark amendment, banning U.S. aid to any factionin the Angolan War and further distancing the U.S. from South Africa.[56] Suddenly, the laager complex intensified, as South African leaders found themselves surrounded by communist forces, which were viewed as implacable and unscrupulous enemies, In February 1976, Defense Minister P.W. Botha addressed Parliament and warned of a “total onslaught” against South Africa and the “buildup of more sophisticated arms in neighboring states” and called for a “deterrent to be able to resist a fairly heavy conventional attack on South Africa.”[57]. South African leaders believed that they faced a Soviet and Cuban NBC weapons threat alone and approved the acceleration of the nuclear weapons program, a missile program, and a new and more sophisticated CBW program.

In June 1976, the Soweto uprisings began, bringing a wave of unrest to South Africa, after more than a decade of relative calm. The wave of rebellion continued into 1977, and anti-regime activities would persist until 1984, when an even greater uprising commenced. The 1976-77 uprisings led the apartheidregime to search for ways, including the use of chemical agents, to control or incapacitate large groups of people. The brutal suppression of young people by the regime led to renewed isolation of South Africa, including a mandatory arms embargo. What is clear from this tumultuous period of South African politics is that South African political leaders viewed their country as facing hostile forces. They adopted the imagery of a garrison state fighting for its very survival in an implacably hostile world.[58]

P.W. Botha and the “Total Strategy.” In the wake of Angola, Soweto, and the “Muldergate” scandal, Prime Minister Vorster stepped down in 1978 and was replaced by the Defense Minister, P.W. Botha. Immediately, Botha initiated his vision of the “total strategy” to ensure regime survival. Botha differed from his predecessor in the degree that he was oriented towards the military (and particularly the special forces), because of his years of service as defense minister. He initiated a range of reforms, combined with the widespread use of coercive power, to ensure the survival of the regime. Power was increasingly consolidated in the hands of the SADF and, especially the high-level State Security Council (SSC), and was taken away from civilians. Botha favored the development of advanced weapons projects, including NBC, and covert operations that would give South Africa additional advantages against its adversaries. From 1978-89, the SADF and South African Police (SAP) initiated a series of internal and external military and paramilitary operations. These included assassinations, torture, and smuggling, as well as forgery, propaganda, and subversion. All were defined as “legitimate” weapons against the “total onslaught” of “red” and “black” forces. These practices were established at the top and legitimized deviant behavior throughout the military, police and intelligence services.[59] The militarization of society in the 1970s led to substantially higher levels of public funds being dedicated to defense, to off-line projects related to developing an indigenous arms production and procurement system, and to a modern nuclear weapons industry under military control.

P.W. Botha and NBC strategy Upon becoming Prime Minister, Botha accelerated efforts to develop nuclear weapons and decided to launch a sophisticated CBW program. Already, he had earned the reputation as the “godfather” of the South African bomb, due to his intense personal support for nuclear weapons programs From 1978-1988, Botha oversaw the completion of six WW II-type nuclear bombs and supported R&D activities on state-of-the art nuclear technologies and missiles. Botha stepped up the process of developing doctrine and strategy for using nuclear weapons and chemical and biological warfare (CBW). Under Vorster and his civilian advisers, South Africa had been developing nuclear weapons with only a vague idea of how they might be used and what the consequences might be. In 1978, Botha established a SADF-dominated “nuclear strategy-working group.” In 1983, a “three-phase” nuclear weapons strategy was proposed, which Botha endorsed.[60] The first phase would feature “ambiguity,” in which the nuclear weapons program would not be declared, but in which no efforts would be made to deny its existence. The second phase would start as the Soviets and Cubans threatened to attack South Africa and would involve informing the U.S. and UK that nuclear weapons could be used in self-defense, thereby inducing the U.S. and UK to intervene. If phase two failed to deter aggression or draw in the U.S. and UK, the third phase would involve declaring that South Africa possessed nuclear weapons and would be prepared to use them in self-defense and perhaps an underground test. If the three phases failed, an atmospheric test would be conducted to bring in the U.S. and UK. While SSC leaders put forward other ideas for using nuclear weapons,[61] the three-phase strategy recognized the danger of further isolation and Soviet retaliation from acting too boldly. It also recognized South Africa’s dependence on the U.S. and UK for security in confronting the USSR.

CBW Conceptualization. From 1978 through 1981, the State Security Council (SSC), led by Prime Minister Botha and General Magnus Malan, as well as leaders of the SADF, launched preparations to develop a new and sophisticated CBW program and discussed the principles that might apply. According to Malan, the State Security Council realized that a program to defend against a CBW attack by the Soviets, Cubans, ANC/MK or SWAPO/PLAN could only be built if the Soviet offensive program was emulated and then tested.[62] As it became clear that a defensive and offensive CBW program was to be developed, discussions began concerning the possible uses for such a program. Malan proposed that signs of a SADF chemical warfare attack in Angola would force the Cuban and Angolan forces to don suits, which would cut combat effectiveness in half. In 1981, General Constand Viljoen, SADF Chief of Staff, requested that the CBW program provide SADF with CW agents for crowd control in South Africa. Other possible uses considered included counter-insurgency, assassinations, and black population control.

Botha, Malan and the SSC decided to locate the new CBW program, within the SADF Medical Service (SAMS), a separate branch of the SADF that had ties with Special Forces and that trained to protect the SADF from all types of attacks, including CBW. This was the principal reason why managerial oversight and responsibility for the new CBW program was given to SAMS and, particularly, to the 7^th Battalion. The connection between SAMS and covert Special Forces provided a secret and loosely managed organizational context for the new CBW program. This would have consequences for both the way the program was managed and the direction of research and development. The CBW program became even more secretive than the nuclear weapons program. Botha, Malan, and the SSC directed the head of SAMS, the Surgeon General, Major General Nieuwoudt, and his deputy, Dr. Niels Knobel to launch the program.[63] Nieuwoudt enlisted a young military doctor, Wouter Basson, to be his lieutenant and program director. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nieuwoudt, Knobel and Basson approached South African university scientists and specialists in weapons development to determine if they would be willing to participate in and even lead the different components of a CBW program.[64] They also began to make contacts in the international scientific community. Basson was a highly charismatic and effective recruiter who was apt at identifying and enlisting some of the most promising and highly skilled medical researchers from the military and from the larger civilian scientific community. Basson also proved to be a master manager of people. He was able to inspire loyalty and respect from employees. Many of these researchers and scientists joined the program because of the intellectual challenges and opportunities to participate in path-breaking research in one of several related disciplines, e.g. chemistry, anatomy, and virology intrigued them. Almost all were AfrikanerSouth Africans who shared a sense of patriotic duty, a nationalistic zeal for the importance of the work, and a sense that their research was critical for maintaining national security.[65]

Although South Africa had ratified the BWC in 1975, Prime Minister Botha decided not to send a delegation to the first five-year review conference in 1980. It was felt that the BWC was ineffectual, especially in eliminating the massive Soviet BW program, and therefore, South African attendance would be unproductive. At the same time, South Africa was moving towards violating the BWC.

CBW and Counter-insurgency.        South African forces were reportedly involved in using CBW in counter-insurgency operations in southern Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in Rhodesia. In 1978-1979, SADF Special Forces allegedly planted anthrax spores in grain fed to cattle in guerrilla-held areas. An anthrax epidemic afflicted nearly 10,000 cattle.[66] South Africa had increasingly provided financial support and military hardware in the 1970s to the Rhodesian government, and SADF military intelligence was a principal source of funding for the Rhodesian counter-insurgency program, including the elite Selous Scouts.[67] The Rhodesian defense budget was very small, and the regime had one rudimentary chemical and biological warfare plant that received outside aid from South Africa. In assisting Rhodesia, South African researchers continued work on CBW and land mine projects.

Building Nuclear Weapons, 1977-88

After Soweto, the international isolation of South Africa became more intense, and the UN Security Council invoked a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa. The IAEA revoked South Africa’s permanent seat on the agency’s Board of Governors, due to the apartheid regime’s secret nuclear policies and spurning of the NPT. The Carter Administration, which came into office in 1977, blocked U.S. sale of two more nuclear power plants and terminated shipments of enriched uranium. In 1977, the AEC built South Africa’s first nuclear device, and the Y-Plant reached full operation. As AEC construction increased at the Kalahari test site, a Soviet satellite discovered it. The USSR, U.S., and West European nations pressured the South African government not to test a nuclear explosive. The French request was particularly effective, as France (a non-NPT state) was about to deliver the Koeberg reactors. As a result of international pressure, Prime Minister Vorster and Defense Minister Botha ordered AEC officials to quickly abandon the test. While official accounts maintain that the site was constructed to bolster the credibility of a “nuclear bluff,” several analysts argue that the test was going ahead and was postponed and moved to an alternate site.[68]

Without access to military aid, South Africa’s military could not modernize, therefore, massive amounts of rand were redirected to build South Africa’s Armament and Procurement Corporation (ARMSCOR) into a truly indigenous arms manufacturing agency. With the aim of increasing secrecy, in 1979, ARMSCOR assumed responsibility from the AEC for production of HEU, a prototype nuclear bomb, and a deliverable weapon that could be quickly deployed.[69] By 1980, production of fully deployable nuclear weapons became a top priority of ARMSCOR by order of Prime Minister Botha.[70] The program moved forward but at a slow pace because of HEU shortages. The first ARMSCOR device was not completed until 1982, and a “fully qualified” nuclear bomb was not completed until 1987.[71]. By the time the program was shut down, ARMSCOR had built three more deliverable devices, and the HEU core and components for South Africa’s seventh device had been manufactured.[72] These devices were stored in high security vaults in disassembled form. No single person had access to the devices and the release from the vaults and assembly of the devices required access codes from three high ranking officials from AEC, ARMSCOR and SADF whereas the detonation code was limited to State President Botha.[73]

In 1985, State President Botha decided to produce just seven nuclear weapons, as this would successfully achieve the deterrence policy goal of a demonstration force. However, Botha also allowed work on advanced nuclear concepts to continue.[74] In 1986, the South African government announced that it had developed a gas turbine engine capable for use in long-range cruise missiles.[75] The South Africans devoted enormous resources to develop ballistic missiles, after it had built gun-type devices.[76] Analysts compiled evidence suggesting extensive material help by Israel and other countries. The next logical step for South Africa would then have been to develop implosion devices that would fit on the head of a missile.[77]

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the SADF was supportive oft the nuclear bomb program.[78] But as the costs for projectiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads increased, certain branches of the military became critical. By the end of the 1980s, the SADF saw projected costs of a planned space launch vehicle (SLV) cutting into conventional deterrence force capability. This was especially true for the Air Force (SAAF), which was desperate to modernize its strategic bomber and helicopter fleet. By the late 1980s, the SAAF saw the rising costs of government subsidies to ARMSCOR as the main constraint to obtaining replacement aircraft and viewed the six nuclear bombs as part of an agreement between the politicians and ARMSCOR officials and did not see them as part of a viable deterrence strategy. The SAAF questioned the value and reliability of the weapons and the merits of a proactive nuclear strategy, especially given the growing expense of a conventional deterrent capability.[79]

Project Coast: a Sophisticated CBW Program (1981-89)

In April 1981, a top-level SADF committee meeting finalized the principles for Project Coast.[80] One principle was that chemical and biological warfare (CBW) should be treated as a top-secret matter, because it was susceptible to “deception” by adversaries. Another was that, since the West had supposedly fallen behind the USSR, South Africa had to fend for itself in the CBW arena. The SADF committee decided that secrecy was essential and that South Africa would use front companies to research and produce chemical and biological weapons in top-secret installations. The desire for secrecy resulted in the exclusion of the state arms producer (ARMSCOR) from the initial phases of the project. ARMSCOR would only be brought in during the weaponization phase of the program. The CBW program would investigate means of dealing with massive demonstrations, insurrection, and insurgency, as well as black population growth. Another principle was that biological warfare (BW) had to be used with caution. BW could be devastatingly effective and, therefore, attractive. However, the regime was concerned that BW was difficult to control and that it could cause tremendous, plague-like damage.

In May 1981, the Surgeon General and head of SAMS, Maj. Gen. Nieuwoudt, established Project Coast, and the Minister of Defense, Magnus Malan, and the Minister of Finance, Barend du Plessis, approved the program.[81] Nieuwoudt made Dr. Wouter Basson the Project Coast director, as well as specialist adviser to the Surgeon General. Basson also became a lieutenant colonel, joined the 7^th SAMS Battalion, and began making trips to Angola with the SADF. In addition, he continued making trips abroad to make contacts with scientists and to procure supplies for Project Coast.

In August 1981, the SADF launched Operation Protea in Angola. During the operation, evidence was discovered that the Cubans might be preparing for chemical warfare.[82] Although the evidence was sketchy, top SADF generals chose to take action to counter CBW anyway. Defense Minister Malan took SADF generals to Angola to examine CBW protective suits and demonstrated problems that they created during combat. Afterwards, Malan reiterated his proposal that the SADF take measures that would force the Cubans rather than the South Africans to don suits. Accordingly, the SADF developed a strategy of deception, by firing “smoke” that would achieve such a result. In addition, Malan proposed that the CBW program be developed to counteract the ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we sizwe (MK), which was in the process of escalating a revolutionary war with more than 3,000 guerrilla forces. During this period, the SADF obtained evidence that some of the ANC/MK troops had been trained in the USSR in CBW techniques.[83]

The Project Coast steering committee was composed of Minister of Defense Malan, the SADF Chief (Gen. C. Viljoen), the Commanding Officer of Strategic Intelligence and Special Forces (Gen. K. Liebenberg), SAP Commissioner van der Merwe, and the Director General of the National Intelligence Service (NIS). Basson was placed in charge of managing all aspects of Project Coast, including defensive and offensive measures.[84] The annual budget for Project Coast was estimated to be $10 million, with a staff of 200 involved.[85] Members of the Project Working Group included Surgeon-General Nieuwoudt and his deputy and successor, Dr. Knobel. They were supposed to supervise Project Coast, but Knobel has claimed that they would rarely visit the front companies for fear of compromising their cover. Basson decided with the scientific researchers on requirements and costs. Much of Basson’s efforts went into circumventing sanctions against the sale of military-related items to South Africa and into black market, sanctions-busting activities. All procurement was undertaken by Basson and signed off on by Nieuwoudt and by his successor, Knobel.

In 1982, the Delta G Scientific Company began work on chemical warfare agents for Project Coast. The chemicals that Delta G developed for testing were divided into lethal, incapacitating, and irritating agents. . In 1983, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL) opened and started research on biological agents and on the biological effects of chemical agents from Delta G. Protechnik Company was to develop the protective CBW equipment. South Africa developed a sophisticated and dispersed project, and Project Coast was not just one individual and not just RRL.[86] There were a number of different research and testing centers at universities and companies, and scientists in various parts of South Africa assisted Project Coast. Anthrax, cholera, botulinum, and a variety of pathogens were collected and/or developed at RRL and elsewhere for testing. A principal objective was to collect and test a range of biological agents in order to develop protection from a Soviet BW attack. In 1984, Dr. Schalk van Rensburg joined RRL and started the cholera research program. By the end of 1984, Project Coast and RRL had tested a range of BW toxins and had developed countermeasures to ricin and botulinum. Reportedly, they had acquired anthrax, Plague, cholera, E. coli, staph, necrotizing fasciitis, ricin, botulinum, gas gangrene, anti-matter bacteria, and the Ebola, Marburg, and Rift Valley viruses.[87] Eventually, according to a number of sources in the U.S. and South Africa, Project Coast developed pathogens that had never before been seen. Project Coast managed to obtain the Soviet-developed flesh-eating bacteria, necrotizing fasciitis, as well as the antidote.[88]

From the start, Project Coast was not just a “defensive” program.[89] In the early 1980s, fears of a “black tidal wave” drove white scientists to try to develop a variety of means that could ensure the survival of white South Africa. Plans were devised to build a large-scale anthrax production facility at RRL. The anthrax could have been used either outside or inside South Africa, particularly against guerrillas and their supporters. Also, reportedly part of Project Coast was genetic engineering research, which was being conducted to produce a “black bomb,” bacteria or other biological agents that would kill or weaken blacks and not whites. The black bomb could be used to wipe out or incapacitate an entire area where an insurrection was taking place.[90] Project Coast scientists asked Basson to obtain a peptide synthesizer outside of South Africa that would assist in genetic engineering efforts. Also, some Project Coast scientists reportedly worked on controlling black fertility, as part of efforts to limit black population growth.

Many aspects of Project Coast research projects, including the country’s links with other states, have not and may never be uncovered. Research on birth control methods to reduce the black birth rate is one such area. Daan Goosen, the managing director of RRL between 1983 and 1986, said that Project Coast supported a project to develop a contraceptive that would have been applied clandestinely to blacks.[91] Goosen claimed that Dr. Knobel knew all about this project and those scientists had been told that this was the most important research on which they could work. Goosen reported that the project had developed a vaccine for males and female and that the researchers were still searching for a means that it could be delivered to make blacks sterile without their knowledge.[92] Testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) suggested that Project Coast researchers were also looking into putting birth control substances in water supplies.[93]

Project Coast claimed its first victims at the end of 1982, when “Operation Duel” was launched. The aimed of this operation was to eliminate hundreds of SWAPO prisoners and SADF informants.[94] Col. Johan Theron, Counterintelligence Officer in the Special Forces, testified at the Basson trial that he received muscle relaxant pills from Basson in December 1982 and killed approximately two hundred SWAPO prisoners, then dumped their bodies from airplanes out to sea. In 1984, uprisings in South Africa started in the Vaal Triangle, south of Johannesburg, and spread throughout the country. In response, SADF Chief of Staff General Constand Viljoen, as well as Generals Liebenberg and Meiring, sought a CBW substance that would weaken rioters. Also, the SADF sought a chemical that would color the skin for about two weeks and allow the identification of frontrunners in the violence.[95] SAMS directed new basic research projects and the development of new CB weapons that might assist in controlling unrest inside South Africa.[96] Delta G Scientific developed a “New Generation Tear (NGT) Gas,” also known as CR gas. The NGT gas was designed to more powerful than conventional CS tear gas and to incapacitate without lethality.[97] NGT (CR) gas was intended to counteract rolling mass actions led by the ANC or its surrogates.

By 1985, Project Coast program directors were planning for a massive escalation of the CBW program and working on plans that would have resulted in a weapons program. According to RRL scientist Mike Odendaal, he received instructions to start a factory where biological agents would be produced in mass form, and 200,000 rand ($100,000) had already been spent on the plans.[98] A new wing had been added to Roodeplaat Research laboratories for a production-scale laboratory, with fermenters that could produce 300 liters and upward of anthrax and other biological agents and a P-4 level laboratory. For the first few years, Project Coast used P-2 to P-3 facilities, and RRL only used 2 10-gallon fermenters for growth medium. In 1985, when the new wing for RRL was built, a P-4 facility was added. Basson and his superiors in the SADF (Generals Liebenberg, Nieuwoudt, and Viljoen, as well as Magnus Malan) approved the up-grade. According to RRL scientist Schalk van Rensburg, when Basson wanted the safety level raised to level 4, two British scientists, on an unauthorized visit from Porton Down, UK (which had been privatized) helped and advised. [99] Reportedly, MI-6 opened a file on Basson after he attended the Second World Conference of Toxicologists in Ghent, Belgium, where he reportedly met with scientists, including some from Porton Down.[100]Consequently, both American and British intelligence agencies knew of Basson’s activities during this time but did little against him.[101]

In the end, the directors of Project Coast decided not to fund the larger fermenters. SADF decided that biological agents would be used in low intensity regional skirmishes and assassinations, but not on a more massive scale.[102] In comparison to the USSR, which had scores of big fermenters, the South African program was quite small in size and scale. However, South African scientists developed several novel processes and procedures and examined a wide variety of pathogens under the auspices of Project Coast research. These characteristics of Project Coast may be why several American and South African experts with first-hand knowledge of Project Coast have described South Africa’s CBW program in terms of the range of biological agents possessed and the science involved as the “second most sophisticated program,” next to the Soviet’s program.[103] Several of these experts emphasized that the South African program was more sophisticated than the Iraqi program that was uncovered in 1995.

A senior former South African army officer confirmed that “any thinking person in the SADF” knew that South Africa had developed chemical weapons, at least by the mid-1980s. He confirmed that South Africa was manufacturing chemical weapons from the mid-1980s until the “whole scenario changed” in the early 1990s.[104] Earlier the army had spent most of its time testing decontamination gasses. Several public statements were also made during this period about developing methods to counter chemical attacks appeared. Weaponization began in cooperation with ARMSCOR, which developed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and missiles that would have the capability to carry chemical and biological agents. All of this was top secret, and the Americans and British only discovered weaponization in 1994. They did not insist that weaponization be included in the chemical and biological memorandum because they had no hard evidence upon which to make such a demand.[105] The South African Ministry of Defense still denies that weaponization took place.

While reports that the former South African government tested battlefield weapons capable of carrying biological agents and chemicals cannot be confirmed, there is evidence that such weapons were developed. Basson, much like his counterparts in other countries (e.g., Iraq), had difficulties developing effective delivery systems for using biological agents as a weapon of mass destruction. While Project Coast researchers undertook conceptual studies in the aerosolization of biological agents, the evidence available to date indicates that sophisticated aerosolization delivery systems were not developed. However, conceptual studies of such systems were well underway at the time Project Coast was shut down. Much more progress appears to have been achieved developing sophisticated artillery warheads and tactical missiles that were capable of delivering NBC warheads. What types of missiles and warheads were built, possibly tested and sold abroad remain among the most important questions related to South Africa’s NBC programs to still be answered.

Disarmament, 1989-1994

From 1987 to 1989, a confluence of factors made NBC programs less attractive to the regime. In 1987, the U.S. and European Community states (except for the UK) had imposed economic sanctions and had demanded that the regime accede to the NPT and end its secret weapons programs. In 1988, the U.S., Cuba, Angola and South Africa negotiated the withdrawal of Cuban troops in exchange for the independence of Namibia, and by the end of the year, a deal was reached. The Soviet and Cuban threat that had helped give rise to the NBC programs rapidly receded. As Botha realized there was a greatly reduced external threat, he agreed to enter into negotiations, with the ANC and Nelson Mandela. In 1988, President Botha changed military strategy, and the goal became minimal destruction, using cross border raids, and not defeat of the regime’s adversaries. However, the ANC/MK continued their guerrilla campaign, including the bombing of civilian targets.[106] Among SADF leaders, there were growing concerns that the projected costs of NBC weapons and missile programs would crowd out plans to upgrade key conventional systems, such as bombers. In response to pressures and to diminishing threats, the National Party, including its new leader, F.W. de Klerk, accepted the inevitability of change, including nuclear disarmament.

At the beginning of 1989, President Botha became ill with heart problems. The National Party leader, de Klerk, an “outsider” to the state security system (including the NBC weapons programs), replaced him on an interim basis. In April 1989, South African troops were confined to barracks in Namibia and were withdrawn by the end of the year. In June 1989, de Klerk visited Western Europe, where he was urged to adopt sweeping reforms. The U.S. continued to pressure the South African government and strongly urged de Klerk to sign the NPT.

As the September 1989 elections approached, P.W. Botha announced that he would return to run for reelection as State President. De Klerk, as National Party leader and interim State President, was able to gain the National Party nomination as the presidential candidate and blocked Botha’s return. In September 1989, de Klerk was elected and inaugurated as State President and began his own five-year plan of ending apartheid. Part of his task included establishing civilian control over the security apparatus, especially the SSC “securocrats,” and reining in secret NBC weapons programs. To that end, de Klerk initiated a series of defense-related policy reviews and set up an AEC-ARMSCOR-SADF committee to review the nuclear program and assess the modalities of acceding to the NPT. Soon after inauguration, de Klerk gave J.W. de Villiers, AEC head, and his deputy, Waldo Stumpf, the following ultimatum: “I have one vision in my term of office. I want to make this country once again a respected member of the international community and we’ll have to turn around the politics and we’ll have to terminate this program, turn it around and accede to the NPT.”[107] In addition, South African officials were being forced by the U.S. to take a stand on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in time for the June 1990 NPT review conference.

Quickly, de Klerk released Walter Sisulu and other top ANC prisoners and brought talks with Nelson Mandela to their climax. In November 1989, the nuclear review committee recommended ending the nuclear weapons program and joining the NPT. De Klerk and his cabinet agreed and ordered dismantlement to commence.[108] South Africa began the process of unilaterally dismantling six bombs and the components for a seventh bomb, and destroying much of the documentation associated with nuclear weapons programs. The government also began shutting down or converting a number of research laboratories, storage and test facilities.

A group of ARMSCOR and AEC officials were assigned to develop a timetable for the dismantlement of the bombs, signing the NPT, and concluding a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The de Klerk government wanted all facilities used for manufacturing of nuclear devices to be decontaminated, all nuclear material melted and stored, equipment removed, technical drawings destroyed, and facilities mothballed or converted to commercial use before concluding an agreement.[109] The working group reported that they would need about 18 months to fully dismantle the country’s nuclear capability. De Klerk approved the plan and assigned the task jointly to ARMSCOR and AEC.[110] An independent auditor directly responsible to de Klerk was charged with overseeing the dismantling program and ensuring that the HEU was removed from ARMSCOR’s custody and returned to AEC.

In January 1990, the U.S., backed by UK and Israel, issued a “hostile nation warning” to the de Klerk government. The warning demanded that South Africa end the nuclear weapons program immediately or face hostile actions.[111] With the prospect of the ANC taking power, the U.S., the UK and Israel did not want to see the program’s assets or secrets being sold by an ANC government to adversaries in the Middle East or elsewhere. The U.S. government was alarmed by the prospect of a majority rule government, maintaining friendly relations with Qadhafi and Castro and giving them access to nuclear weapons. In response to the warning, the de Klerk regime informed the U.S., UK and Israel that it was dismantling the nuclear weapons program and that it hoped that the elimination of the bomb program would result in improved relations.[112]

Disarmament began in February 1990, the same month that de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, PAC, and South African Communist Party and released Mandela. The Y-plant ceased operation, the manufacturing facility was decontaminated, and plans were made to covert it to civilian production. All the hardware and design information was destroyed. The government appointed a noted scientist, to serve as an independent auditor to make certain that every gram of nuclear material was accounted for and that the hardware and data was destroyed. The two test shafts at the Vastrap test range were sealed off and the site was abandoned. The nuclear material was removed from the devices, recast in a form unsuitable for nuclear devices and stored according to internationally accepted standards. At a later date, the shafts were back-filled with sand and concrete.[113]

As a precursor to signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, South Africa invited International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in for on-site inspections. During a series of visits, the South African government permitted IAEA personnel unprecedented access for their inspections of highly enriched uranium (HEU) facilities and weapon production sites. South Africa and the IAEA established important new precedents for the future by working out explicit procedures and policy guidelines for these on-site IAEA inspections and safeguard procedures at nuclear enrichment facilities.

Between July 1990 and July 1991, the six completed nuclear devices and components of the seventh were dismantled. De Klerk allegedly ordered the shut down of the intermediate missile program. On 10 July 1991, South Africa acceded to the NPT and signed a Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement with IAEA within seven weeks.[114] The bomb dismantling process was officially completed when the last HEU was returned to the AEC in September 1991. In October, South Africa submitted its initial inventory of nuclear materials and facilities to the IAEA. The first verification team from IAEA arrived in November 1991. These actions allowed South Africa to take a seat on the General Conference of the IAEA. However, de Klerk delayed informing the public and the ANC, especially, until March 1993.

In 1992, the de Klerk government considered options for eliminating the HEU stockpile and for terminating advanced weapons research and development projects. Defense budget cuts led to retrenchment of workers and the restructuring of ARMSCOR, as key components were spun-off as entities within the Denel group. The de Klerk government offered to sell the entire stock of HEU stockpile to the Bush administration. The ANC lobbied hard to keep the HEU stockpile in country and postpone a decision until after a transitional government was in place. The issue threatened to spillover into the multiparty conference on political transition, until the de Klerk regime to leave the distribution of the HEU stockpile until after the election. Renewed overtures by the Clinton administration to revive a straight U.S. purchase of the HEU stockpile were reportedly turned down.[115]

In late 1992, the ANC intensified efforts to uncover the nuclear weapons program and charged that the government might have hidden weapon-grade material from the IAEA. The delays in making a public disclosure about the bomb program fueled suspicions about the regime’s secret projects and covert R&D programs. In early 1991, the U.S. launched investigations into the regime’s illegal procurement operations and pressured the regime to discontinue ongoing missile programs. Given the turbulence of the times and revelations in the Steyn Report about SADF secret projects, President de Klerk decided to make his March 1993 announcement that South Africa had dismantled a nuclear bomb program and had joined the NPT in 1991.[116] He stressed that South Africa had built nuclear bombs without outside assistance. Omitted from this speech were details about South Africa’s high-tech collaboration with Israel in developing and testing launch vehicles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Reasons for dismantling the NW program.   In explaining unilateral disarmament, de Klerk emphasized changes in the region. He noted the signing of the 1988 Tripartite Agreement leading to Namibian independence; the withdrawal of 50,000 Cuban troops, the end of the Cold War; the break-up of the Soviet bloc; and a desire to have South Africa move away from confrontational relations with regional neighbors and the world community. De Klerk did not mention several other factors. His government did not like the idea of turning over access to nuclear weapons to the ANC. Also, the costs of subsidies to both the AEC to maintain the enrichment process and to ARMSCOR for the bomb and related launcher programs had become cost-prohibitive. The uranium enrichment process was far more expensive than expected. Only by adhering to the NPT could South Africa gain access to cheaper sources of enriched uranium.[117] During the 1988-92 period the average production costs of operating the conversion enrichment, and fabrication (Beva) plants were between ten and twenty times the spot market price. The most inefficient expenditure among the processes was the enrichment plant. At its peak, the South African nuclear weapons program could produce only one or two weapons a year.[118] Even at the end the total costs of the bomb program were only a tiny fraction of South Africa’s total defense budget.[119] But to understand growing opposition to ARMSCOR’s nuclear programs one needs to look beyond direct costs and consider “opportunity costs” as well.

After de Klerk’s speech, the IAEA was given access to all facilities previously used in nuclear programs. The only outstanding work for the IAEA in South Africa by 1994 was to determine the completeness of the declared inventory of less sensitive HEU in the larger semi-commercial enrichment plant. The IAEA used this information to recreate the Y-Plant’s operations on a day-to-day basis. After a two-year investigation, the IAEA reported that, “the amounts of HEU, which could have been produced by the pilot enrichment plant are consistent with the amounts declared in the initial report”. The IAEA estimates and South Africa’s declaration were within one significant quantity, or the equivalent of 25 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium.[120] The AEC and the IAEC were confident that if significant quantities of HEU were hidden or exported secretly, the IAEA would have detected them.[121]

While the de Klerk government claimed ”full disclosure” on nuclear disarmament it was holding back details about missile systems that were capable of carrying nuclear or CB warheads. Just before the handover of power to the ANC in 1994, de Klerk agreed to close down the Space Launch Initiative (SLI) and not develop a South African space program. The policy reversal was the result of behind-the scenes bilateral and multilateral diplomatic meetings led by representatives of the U.S. The shutdown reflected the economic imperatives of a marketplace saturated with commercial launch vehicles.

Rollback of Project Coast, 1988-1994

After de Klerk ended the nuclear weapons program, lifted the ban on the ANC and freed Mandela, he addressed the SADF and SAP. De Klerk stressed that the period of conflict was over and that the ANC was now a party and not the enemy. Needless to say, many in the security forces did not like the message. On 26 March 1990, President F.W. de Klerk was briefed by Surgeon General Knobel about the defensive side of the CBW program, such as gas masks and protective suits. Knobel informed de Klerk about work with lethal chemical agents. In response, de Klerk ordered Knobel to stop work on the lethal agents. However, de Klerk was not provided with all of the details about Project Coast, especially about the offensive aspects of the CBW program and its use in assassination activities. The same was true with other SADF projects and “third force” activities.[122] Three years later, with the Steyn Report, President de Klerk finally became aware of the skill, sophistication and offensive nature of Project Coast.

De Klerk’s decision to release Nelson Mandela and lift the ban on the ANC initiated a four-year period of negotiation and contention. In 1991, the Conference for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) process of negotiations began, involving the government, the ANC and other parties. In 1992, thenegotiation process slowed and concerns mounted as the campaign of rolling violence spread throughout South Africa. Violent clashes continued, especially in Kwazulu-Natal. At the same time, mistrust of de Klerk and the National Party government grew among ANC leaders. There was a real concern by all parties that the situation in South Africa would “ spin out of control” before a negotiated settlement was reached.[123] The fear of collapse ultimately provided an important incentive that eventually brought most parties back to the negotiating table. In 1993, negotiations stalled, and violence continued. Chris Hani, leader of Umkhonto we sizwe (MK) and the South African Communist Party, as well as a possible successor to Nelson Mandela, was killed in a right wing hit operation. The fear of a “third force” and a right-wing coup continued.

During this period of negotiations, instability and violence, many in the regime believed that they needed insurance against the ANC/MK and the “black onslaught.” With this in mind, by Basson and his associates kept the CBW program intact, as insurance and for assassination attempts. According to General (ret.) Meiring, the CBW program was still needed, due to problems of crowd control and the possibility that the ANC/MK had CBW.[124] Also, experiments with chemical warfare apparently continued, with an alleged attack on Mozambican troops as late as January 1992. Once de Klerk decided to roll back Project Coast, the process was time-consuming due to the sophistication of the program. Scientists and researchers had to be laid off over a period of time, and South Africa did not want to attract attention. Basson, Philip Mijburgh and others were in the process of milking Project Coast for all the financial gain possible. Basson began to establish contacts with foreign governments, such as Libya, which might be interested in purchasing CBW secrets. Soon, Basson became the target of investigation from the National Intelligence Service (NIS), SADF counterintelligence, and the Office of Serious Economic Offenses, as well as the CIA and MI-6. The investigations culminated in the Steyn Report of December 1992.

CBW Counter-proliferation    In contrast to the nuclear weapons program, no pressure was exerted in 1989 or 1990 over the CBW program, even though the CIA released a report in 1989, which placed South Africa on a list of countries that had developed and stockpiled chemical weapons. The main focus of concern for the U.S. and her allies was nuclear proliferation. For a brief time, between 1987 and August 1990, when South Africa sold the G-6 155mm gun and chemical warfare agents, including NGT (CR) gas, to Iraq, the U.S. became concerned about the proliferation of a conventional weapon that had the capability to throw “exotic” shells.[125] However, there was little or no interest among U.S. policy and intelligence communities about possible proliferation threats associated with South Africa’s biological warfare program. The information that the CIA and MI-6 possessed was available within the Bush administration and the Major government.

In 1991, U.S. embassy officials, including the defense attaché, discovered that South Africa was running a CBW program at an arms show, including gas masks and protective suits.[126] The Americans asked the South Africans about the CBW equipment but elicited little response. Later, an American delegation was invited to visit Protechnik. By September 1991, the U.S. government (and not just the CIA) became aware of Basson and Project Coast and began to look for signs of proliferation, especially to ANC allies, such as Libya.

The lack of focus on CBW proliferation changed in 1993, as the U.S. learned more about South Africa’s CBW and missile programs. Wouter Basson’s trips, particularly to Libya, and US and UK access to an informant, who provided details of Project Coast, increased the interest and concern of the U.S., UK and other allies. The new information led the U.S. and UK to issue a demarche in April 1994. Israeli officials probably knew more about the program but did not want the U.S. and UK to know that they were involved with it.

The Steyn Report       The Steyn Report uncovered the secret projects of the SADF, including Project Coast, with the aim of helping to restore civilian control over the military. In the second half of 1992, the Goldstone Commission began to investigate violence in South Africa. SADF generals became increasingly concerned. During the investigations, Justice Goldstone stumbled upon damning evidence and reported directly to the President and not to the Cabinet or to the SADF. On 18 November 1992, de Klerk appointed Lt. Gen. Steyn to investigate SADF secret projects, including Basson and Project Coast and “third force” activities that were racking the country. As a result, de Klerk learned of the activities of Basson, Project Coast, the CCB and other covert units.[127] Targets for investigation included Project Coast and Basson, as well as Jan Lourens and Brian John Davie of Protechnik who were involved in the CBW experiments. Delta G, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories and Protechnik were found to be involved in developing chemical and biological weapons.[128] In 1991, SADF counter-intelligence began investigating Basson after security leaks. Finally, evidence was found that Basson’s team had armed RENAMO with chemical weapons.

The Steyn Report was delivered to de Klerk at the beginning of January 1993. De Klerk was asked to take action, even though there was no legal basis, no charges and no solid evidence. However, pre-emptive steps were necessary, before a cover-up could be launched. De Klerk was presented with the counterintelligence evidence, which demonstrated that SADF secret programs ran against de Klerk’s stated policy of civilian control over the military. However, de Klerk failed to ask SADF Chief of Staff Liebenberg and SAP head van der Merwe if they knew about the illegal activities and, if they did not, to act concertedly. As a result of the investigations, 27 generals retired early. Col. Dr. Basson was required to leave the SADF at the end of March 1993 and was given a “soft retirement” and reserve status.[129] The Steyn Report found that Project Coast and Basson, RRL, Delta-G, Medchem, and SADF were all operating completely outside the purview of the civilian government, and the TRC confirmed these findings. According to David Steward, P.W. Botha was the only civilian who knew anything.[130] Subsequently, the National Prosecutor’s office (Anton Ackermann and Dr. Torie Pretorius) took up the investigation, as evidence was laboriously dug up and as cases were developed against de Kock and Basson. After the Steyn and Goldstone Commissions, the SADF “put the shutters down.”[131]

The Steyn Report and the Rollback of Project Coast        The Steyn Report found that Project Coast was offensive in nature. The SADF had created an offensive CBW program in order to test defensive measures, and the lack of civilian control meant that only a few top SADF leaders decided how the program was used. Starting in 1985, the ANC and MK escalated their campaign of violence to include civilian targets, and the SADF and SAP retaliated by using dirty methods, including CBW. These methods persisted, even when efforts were made to assert civilian control, because a machine had been created in 1985-86. Gen. Liebenberg and Gen. Meiring, in particular, knew about SADF secret programs, including Project Coast, and took an assertive hand in running them. Gen. (ret.) Liebenberg authorized Project Coast activities and so did Surgeon General Knobel.

Upon receiving Steyn’s report and learning of the scale, sophistication, and offensive uses of Project Coast, de Klerk finally ordered the destruction of all lethal and incapacitating CBW agents, as well as research and operations. The Minister of Defense, Kobie Coetzee, acting on de Klerk’s order, authorized all CBW research and development stopped and Project Coast documents containing formulas and experiments transferred to CD-ROMs. According to Kobus Bothma, in testimony at the Basson trial, an office secretary scanned in the documents from Project Coast onto CD-ROMs. Philip Mijburgh transferred the CD-ROMs to the Ministry of Defense, where they were placed in the vaults, and President de Klerk was given a key to the contents, so that only the State President could open it, along with the Surgeon General, and Head of the NIA, Niel Barnard. Although it seemed that Project Coast had been rolled back, Mijburgh issued destruction documents that were inconclusive. While the South African government believed that it had rolled back Project Coast, four years later, in January 1997, police African investigators found that Basson had taken copies of Project Coast documents home and hidden them in trunks.

Whether all CBW agents were destroyed at the beginning or the end of 1993 remains a matter of opinion. Still, large quantities of drugs were unaccounted for and were either in possession of Basson or were secreted elsewhere. According to Knobel’s testimony to the TRC, SADF Counterintelligence destroyed all agents in January 1993. Methaqualone purchased in Croatia by Basson was allegedly destroyed In January 1993, after the order was received that work on all incapacitants should cease. On 7 January 1993, Knobel advised his superiors that South Africa “should conceal” NGT (CR) gas from the Chemical Weapons Convention. On 14 January 1993, South Africa acceded to the CWC. However, work on the dispersion of NGT (CR) gas continued.[132] By March 1993, South Africa announced the dismantling of its six nuclear weapons. By the end of 1993, the South African missile program ended. According to General (ret.) Meiring, all agents were dumped out to sea only at the end of 1993. The Forensic Branch of the SAP, headed by SAP General Lothar Neethling, placed all agents destroyed on a schedule. The agents were dumped 200 nautical miles south of Cape Argulhas.[133]

On 31 March 1993, Basson was retired by President de Klerk from the SADF Medical Service (SAMS) and became a reservist. Ordered to destroy Project Coast documentation, Basson did not follow the orders of his superiors and kept Project Coast research documentation. He was immediately employed by the state-owned infrastructure company, Transnet (including railways and hospital development), and went to Libya on contract to give advice on military counter-measures to CBW attack.[134]

ANC Rule, Proliferation and Concealing Project Coast Details: 1994-96         In the second half of 1993, negotiations between the de Klerk government and Nelson Mandela and the ANC gained momentum. In August 1993, the Office of Serious Economic Offenses (OSEO) informed MI-6 and the CIA of the misdeeds of Basson and Project Coast. The Americans and British became even more concerned when, in October 1993, Basson made his first trip to Libya on behalf of the state-owned infrastructure company, Transnet. This was the first of five visits to Libya, with his last visit in October 1995, and it is possible that he sold Project Coast secrets. In addition, South Africa submitted a Confidence Building Measure (CBM) for 1993, as stipulated by the BWC, which provided details on the rollback of the biological side of Project Coast. In November 1993, the Americans and British objected to the South African CBM and began the process of interacting with the South African officials in an effort to see that Project Coast would be rolled back to their satisfaction. According to U.S. Ambassador Princeton Lyman, the South African CBM was not forthcoming on many aspects of the CBW program, including offensive uses, weaponization, and proliferation.[135] According to Peter Goosen, proliferation expert in the SA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the South Africans lacked the technical expertise to submit an acceptable CBM and sought British and American assistance. In the meantime, de Klerk and his colleagues attempted to reassure the U.S. and the UK that the CBW program had been rolled back.[136]

In January 1994, negotiations between the de Klerk government and Nelson Mandela and the ANC culminated in an agreement that was mutually acceptable. Elections were scheduled for April 27. As the momentous hand-over of power approached, the U.S. and UK became increasingly concerned about Basson and others proliferating chemical and biological warfare secrets. On 11 April 1994, the American Ambassador, Princeton Lyman, and the British High Commissioner, Anthony Reeve, delivered a demarche to President de Klerk.[137] The U.S. and UK demanded that their experts be briefed, that all CBW systems and records, including the CD-ROMs be destroyed, that abuses of the program be investigated and reported, and that Mandela be informed. The American and British ambassadors regarded Basson as a “dangerous agent.”[138]

Within the American team, there were differences. Ambassador Lyman was primarily concerned with reducing the proliferation threat, and State Department and CIA officials joined him in this approach. However, officials from the National Security Council (NSC) were outraged by evidence of the use of CBW and wanted to see that those responsible were punished. Department of Defense officials were late in joining the U.S. team and felt marginalized. Consequently, they sided with the NSC. Ultimately, Ambassador Lyman was able to prevail and focus on proliferation concerns, even though CBW use was part of the demarche.[139]

De Klerk and the South Africans cooperated with the Americans and British.[140] However, Knobel and other South African officials believed that the Americans and British were acting on the basis of questionable and uncorroborated evidence, some of which came from press reports. On 21 April 1994, South Africa responded to the demarche and asserted that Project Coast records were a “national asset” and that the CD-ROMs would not be destroyed. According to Knobel, he and Basson were given responsibility for briefing the U.S. and British experts and Mandela.

After the demarche and the inauguration of President Mandela in May 1994, American and British delegations arrived for the first of several visits to South Africa. Knobel, Basson and others extensively briefed the delegations over a three-day period and took them on a tour of RRL, which had been converted to commercial production. The SADF compiled a large file on Project Coast and gave it to the Americans and British. South Africa reassured the British and Americans that the three keys to gain access to Project Coast secrets on CD-ROM were in the hands of the President, Surgeon-General, and National Intelligence Agency head. The South Africans transferred information, which they had obtained from the Russian and Iraqi programs (including flesh-eating bacteria). Knobel claimed that Basson was offered a job and money by the U.S. and UK but declined. Three teams (one from the United Nations, one Anglo-American, and one Confidence Building Measure team from the Geneva Conventions) investigated the January 1992 alleged CBW incident in Mozambique. In 1994 and 1995, American and British teams made more visits to South Africa to facilitate the rollback of the South African CBW program. In spite of the demarche, Basson continued to visit Libya in 1994 and 1995, until he had completed five trips. The U.S. and UK kept up the pressure on South Africa to control Basson and suggested that the SANDF rehire him.[141]

Much of the information for Project Coast was obtained from the nationals of the U.S., UK, and Germany, and highly advanced technical knowledge passed from Americans, Britons, and Germans to the South Africans.[142] The South African government did not want to cause the American and British governments embarrassment by revealing that fact. Ambassador Donald Mahley, U.S. State Department proliferation expert, and his British counterpart had led teams that examined Project Coast documents in 1994. The range of pathogens that had been developed led to the American claim that South Africa had the “second most sophisticated program next to the Soviets.”[143] While there was no evidence that South African scientists themselves had genetically modified pathogens to create new ones, there was evidence that Project Coast had obtained the pathogens from elsewhere. In addition, from 1989-93, the South African military still had the capability to launch or deliver a nuclear or CBW payload.

On 18 August 1994, Knobel briefed President Mandela, Defense Minister Modise and his deputy, Ronnie Kasrils. The SANDF also provided a large file on Project Coast. Before April 1994 and the elections, Mandela was only getting sketchy details from de Klerk about what was developed, according to senior ANC officials. Within the ANC, there was a debate, from 1990-94, about whether to keep the nuclear program. However, the conclusion to roll back the CBW program was unanimous.[144] In 1995, Basson’s trips to Libya continued. In February 1995, an article appeared in The Times of London on possible South African CBW links to Libya. Evidently, someone in MI-6 tipped off the Times.  In March 1995, the CIA and DIA informed President Clinton of Basson’s activities, who authorized the sending of a delegation to South Africa, which met with Mandela. It is not certain if the delegation met with Basson or if was he in Libya. Once again, the Americans urged the Mandela government to bring Basson under control by rehiring him. On 15 April 1995, South Africa submitted a much-revised Confidence Building Measure (CBM). This was nearly two years after the U.S. and UK challenged the 1993 CBM (no CBM was submitted in 1994). This time U.S. and UK objections were addressed satisfactorily. Even so, the Americans and British continued to share concerns about proliferation of the secrets on the CD-ROMs by Basson and others.

In May 1995, Defense Minister Modise and Secretary of Defense Pierre Steyn rehired Basson as a regular SANDF surgeon (he had been on reserve status). In early 1995, Generals Meiring and Knobel sat down and discussed Basson, after receiving information from NIA, CIA, and MI-6. Basson had been asked by government and SANDF officials to curb his behavior, but there was no way to do so, except to rehire him. Meiring and Knobel went to Deputy Minister of Defense Ronnie Kasrils and urged that Basson be rehired.[145] Kasrils went to Modise and Steyn and recommended the same. Later, Kasrils defended the government’s action in rehiring Basson, by saying it was to stop him from giving valuable and potentially dangerous secrets about the chemical and biological warfare programs to other countries.[146] Reportedly, Basson was rehired in order to bring him under parliamentary scrutiny at a time when no legislation was in place that could stop his activities.[147] Evidently, great concern existed within the government, the SANDF, and among foreign governments about the possibility that Basson was selling Project Coast secrets. Even after being rehired by SANDF, Basson made another, albeit his final, trip to Libya in October 1995.[148]

In January 1997, Basson was arrested during a sting operation on charges of fraud and the possession of illegal substances based on his alleged effort to sell 1,000 Ecstasy tablets.[149] A subsequent search of Basson’s friend and business associate, Sam Bosch’s home, uncovered 5 or 6 trunks and a couple of suitcases that contained secret documents related to Project Coast that were thought to have been destroyed when the CBW program was dismantled. In March 1998, Chandre Gould, another TRC investigator who had access to the documents, and the TRC’s Commissioner, Wendy Orr, looked at some of the technical documents that had been found in Basson’s trunks. Gould wanted an explanation of some of the pharmaceutical and medical terminology. Orr was horrified by what she did understand, even though there was much that she did not understand in the contents. One of the first documents Dr. Orr examined was the infamous verkope lys (shopping or sales list).[150] The senior TRC investigator, Villa-Vicencia, concluded that the trunks contained a “mixed bag” that included memorabilia, as well as sensitive technical information, which might prove embarrassing to foreign governments, as well as information readily available in open source literature (e.g., formulas for methaqualone and how to build a bomb). He felt that collectively, these documents confirmed the idea that South Africa’s biological weapons program had developed some very sophisticated processes and procedures.[151] Finally, with the arrest of Basson, the CBW disarmament process was completed.

Conclusion

The preceding analysis has illustrated dramatic differences between the NW and CBW programs and the disarmament processes and has pointed towards explanations. The atomic energy and NW buildup occurred during a period of rapidly changing norms concerning peaceful nuclear explosions and NW. Between 1964 and 1970, South Africa refused to negotiate, sign or ratify the NPT and pushed on with its PNE program. The bureaucratic/ governmental politics model provides a partial explanation in that AEC scientists were able to convince government leaders to continue the PNE program. However, the psychological “oppositional nationalism” model is just as explanatory or even more so. Verwoerd and Vorster’s high levels of nationalist pride and rising fear of “Western betrayal” and a slowly materializing Soviet-led onslaught explain why South Africa continued towards an NW and why it rejected the NPT. Vorster’s 1970 call for “non-Communist” participation in PNE research, as the NPT came into effect, demonstrates his detachment from the changing reality, and his defiant statement that South Africa would not be limited to the promotion of peaceful application of nuclear energy is a sign of oppositional nationalism. Finally, the Afrikaner scientists were not only enthusiastic about the PNE and NW program for scientific reasons, they were also nationalists, who believed that they were fighting communism.[152]

The NW program was accelerated and a new, sophisticated CBW program was launched in reaction to dramatically increased threat perception starting in 1976. The Soviet “threat” was more imagined than real, a sign of oppositional nationalism, but it drove P.W. Botha to step up, militarize and conceal the NW program by transferring it to ARMSCOR and to seek ways to use NW. The bureaucratic politics model also helps to explain NW militarization. Oppositional nationalism also explains the launching of Project Coast, and bureaucratic politics explains its placement in SAMS. Botha wanted the CBW program to be even more secret than the NW program, because it was feared that disclosure, even of a “defensive program,” would bring Soviet-led reciprocation and Western condemnation. After all, South Africa had declared that BW was illegal, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) negotiated the BWC and Parliament ratified it in 1975. While the MOFA believed (and still believes) that South Africa was abiding by the BWC, P.W. Botha was willing to “cheat” in the interest of “national security.”

While the CBW program was developed to fight the Cubans and Soviets in Angola and perhaps other parts of southern Africa, the program was also designed for crowd control and other internal purposes. Reports about a “black bomb,” population reduction programs, and plans to develop massive anthrax production, all related to the CBW program demonstrate the almost irrational fear among Afrikaner leaders and scientists about being overwhelmed by their own black population.

The Rollbacks. The nuclear weapons rollback is explained by external pressure (based on the NPT), the end of the external threat (and oppositional nationalism), and domestic politics. The U.S. increased the pressure on South Africa to join the NPT in 1987, soon after Gorbachev came to power in the USSR and began dramatic arms reductions. The U.S. acted before Botha left office and before the external threat ended. In 1988, the U.S. implemented sanctions at the same time as it intervened to negotiate the removal of 50,000 Cuban troops from Angola. The end of the external threat opened the door for the removal of Botha and the security state and the deflation of oppositional nationalism and the elevation of the civilian reformer, F.W. de Klerk. The desires of both the U.S. and de Klerk to have South Africa join the NPT and return to the IAEA and to keep the ANC from having and proliferating NW explains why the rollback quickly began in 1989 and ended in 1991. All documentation was destroyed. The failure to publicly disclose the rollback until March 1993 is explained by de Klerk’s desire not to enrage the ANC and complicate the transition process. An additional explanation for the rollback is economic. The cost of the NW and missile programs led the de Klerk government and the SADF to turn against ARMSCOR and the programs. 

The CBW rollback is explained by the end of the external threat and by domestic politics. The lack of external pressure, as well as the greater secrecy surrounding the CBW program and the lack of civilian control, explains why the program took so long to roll back. President de Klerk was not briefed about the CBW program until March 1990, six months after he was inaugurated and began the process of ending the NW program. When he was briefed, he was told that the program was defensive and consisted of lethal, incapacitating and irritating agents. Instead of ordering the entire program ended, de Klerk only ordered lethal chemical agents to be destroyed. He wanted incapacitating and irritating agents to be kept for possible crowd control – an offensive purpose. This implies that de Klerk knew that the CBW program was both defensive and offensive.

Only in January 1993, after the Steyn Report, did de Klerk learn of the offensive uses of the CBW program. The revelations led de Klerk to order SAMS to destroy CBW agents and documents. However, the documents were under control of SAMS and Basson, after all were transferred to CD-ROM, then some were destroyed, and Basson and others kept some. While de Klerk ordered most CBW agents destroyed, he went along with Surgeon General Knobel in violating the CWC in order to keep the NGT/CR gas for crowd control purposes.

The U.S. and UK knew about the CBW program in 1991, but only became concerned when Basson went to Libya and when the ANC was about to take power. Evidently, the U.S. and UK had greater salience towards nuclear proliferation than CB proliferation. However, once U.S. and UK delegation learned, in 1994, how sophisticated the South African program was, their salience concerning the CBW program increased dramatically.

Lessons. The South African case demonstrates the importance of psychology (e.g., oppositional nationalism) in explaining national security and foreign policy decision-making, especially in regard to NBC weapons, as well as the increasing importance, over the past thirty years, of international norms and pressure. In particular, the NPT regime has become increasingly powerful. However, the willingness of India and Pakistan to test openly in 1998 shows the limitations of the NPT regime. The nuclear caste system and the massive power of nuclear weapons still entices a number of middle powers to reject the NPT and to attempt to join the nuclear club. In contrast, the secrecy accorded the CBW program illustrates that biological and chemical weapons have been considered “dirty” weapons since the 1920s and especially since the mid-1970s, when most states, including the two superpowers committed themselves to give up BW.

The South African case also demonstrates the significance of the bureaucratic/governmental politics model. As long as the NBC programs were controlled by the head of government or state and by bureaucratic or military agencies, the programs mushroomed. Once civilian control and parliamentary oversight were reestablished, international norms became significant, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could set about ensuring compliance. In the case of the CBW program, this process was tortuous.

Replication of the South African case of unilateral NBC disarmament is not likely. This is due to the peculiar domestic situation in South Africa, in which a ruling party gradually surrendered power to its enemy. The realization that power had to be passed to the black majority, represented by the ANC, led the regime, pressured by the U.S., to strive to prevent the transfer and proliferation of its NBC programs. The regime and the U.S. feared proliferation, but there was an additional psychological motivation. The enmity and fear of Afrikaner leaders, including de Klerk, towards the ANC led them to reject the concept of NBC weapons in the hands of an ANC regime.

If replication is to be achieved, particularly on the Asian continent, peace processes must advance far beyond where they are today, and regimes that are driven by oppositional nationalism must be replaced. Given the impasses between Arabs and Israelis, Iran and Iraq, and India and Pakistan, unilateral NBC disarmament is unlikely any time soon.

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[1] Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations; the Struggle for Power and Peace 5^th ed., (New York: Knopf, 1972).  Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics(New York: Random House, 1979).

Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision, 2^nd edition (New York: Addison-Wesley-Longman, 1999).

[2] Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons: Three Models in Search of a Bomb?” International Security (Vol. 21, No. 3, Winter 1996/97: 69-71). Waldo Stumpf, "South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program: From Deterrence to Dismantlement," Arms Control Today  (Vol. 25, No. 10, December 1995/January 1996: 4-7). David E. Albright, "South Africa and the Affordable Bomb," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, (July/August 1994: 37-47). A commonly-held view about the South African nuclear weapons program is that the Bureau of Mines in 1971 authorized the Atomic Energy Board (AEB) to develop a gun-type explosive device for peace nuclear explosions (PNE) and that the building of nuclear weapons for deterrence began only in the late 1970s. Nuclear disarmament in 1989-1991 is explained by the end of the external threat and by the white minority regime’s desire to prevent the African National Congress (ANC) from inheriting the nuclear weapons program.

[3] Morgenthau, 1972, Waltz, 1979.

[4] Edward Regis, The Biology of Doom: The History of America’s Secret Germ Warfare Project (New York: Henry Holt, 1999). Albert J. Mauroni America’s Struggle with Chemical-Biological Warfare (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000). Erhard Geissler, et. al., eds. Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Ken Alibek, with Stephen Handelman (Contributor) Biohazard. (New York: Random House, 1999). Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg, Plague Wars: A True Story of Biological Warfare (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999). John Prados, “All Weapons Great and Small,” Washington Post, Book World, 16 January 2000, 7.

[5] Regis, The Biology of Doom. Mauroni, America’s Struggle with Chemical-Biological Warfare, Geissler, al., eds., Biological and Toxin Weapons: Alibek, Biohazard. Mangold, Plague Wars. Prados, “All Weapons Great and Small.”

[6] Brad Roberts, “Strategies of Denial,” in Peter L. Hays, et. al., eds. Countering the Proliferation and Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998: 63-88).  

[7] Roberts, 1998: 64. In 1968-1970, the strength of the NPT was questionable, but a number of measure, both multilateral (the Zangger Committee and the Nuclear Suppliers Group) and by the U.S. strengthened the NPT regime during the 1970s.

[8] External (Israeli) support also pushed South Africa towards a nuclear weapons program.

[9] Stumpf, 1995/6: 4-7.

Domestic politics, particularly the diversionary model, appears to explain the 1974 Indian nuclear test of 1974. A domestic crisis had driven down Prime Minister Gandhi’s approval ratings, and the test boosted her popularity by a third. The diversionary model also helps to explain the Indian and Pakistani tests of 1998. See Sagan, 1996/7: 67-69.

[10] See Robert Jervis, “Political Psychology: Some Challenges and Opportunities,” Political Psychology (Vol. 10, No. 3, 1989). Also, Thomas J. Scheff, Bloody Revenge: Emotions, Nationalism, and War (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994). 

[11] Jacques E.C. Hymans, “Taking the plunge: Emotion and identity in the decision to build nuclear weapons,” paper presented to American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, September 2000: 58-59.

[12] Ibid., 28-29.

[13] Sagan, 1996/7: 81.

[14] Regis, The Biology of Doom. Mauroni, America’s Struggle with Chemical-Biological Warfare, Geissler, Biological and Toxin Weapons: Alibek, Biohazard. Mangold,Plague Wars. Prados, “All Weapons Great and Small.”

[15] Interview with Dr. Renfrew Christie, Cape Town, South Africa, 26 June 2000. The mining industry had developed, since the 1930s, explosives that were linked with chemical agents. The Anglo-American Corporation, Anglo-Vaal, and other companies were involved.

[16] Mangold, Plague Wars, 219.

[17] Interview with Dr. Christie, 26 June 2000.

[18] Interview with General (retired) Jannie Geldenhuys, Pretoria, South Africa, 13 June 2000.

[19] Interview with Dr. Vernon Joynt of Mechem and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Pretoria, South Africa, 14 June 2000.

[20] For a further discussion of the role of former Selous Scouts and other foreigners in South Africa during the 1980s see Mangold, pp. 218-23. See also, Henrik Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War: Counter-Insurgency and Guerrilla war in Rhodesia 1962-1980 (Gweru: Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1989).

South African involvement in counter-insurgency campaigns in the region influenced the direction that CBW development took in the 1980s and provided useful training opportunities, strategies, and tactics that influenced the way South African defense and police special covert units used CBW against political opponents. Many of the Selous Scouts, Rhodesia’s elite counter-insurgency force, who were experienced in using CBW for counter-insurgency, joined South Africa’s Special Forces and police after the political transition in Zimbabwe in 1980. Some of these individuals played key roles in incidents where South African Special Forces and police used CBW agents against opponents during the 1980s and 1990s.

[21] Interview with Dr. Torie Pretorius, prosecutor in the Basson trial, Pretoria, South Africa 21 June 2000.

[22] Interview with Helmut Heitmann of Jane’s Defense Weekly, Cape Town, South Africa, 26 June 2000.

[23] Interviews with South African military and civilian officials, July 2000.

[24] J.W. de Villiers, Roger Jardine, and Mitchell Reiss, "Why South Africa Gave up the Bomb" Foreign Affairs, (November/December, 1993: 99).

[25] Renfrew Christie, "Nuclear Weapons Program." Fourth International Conference. Sofia-Antipolis, Nice, France. 23-27 June 1993. Unpublished manuscript, 10.

[26] Donald B. Sole, "The South African nuclear case in the light of recent revelations," Paper presented at a Conference on New Horizons in Arms Control and Verification, John G. Tower Center for Policy Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, October 1993.

[27] H.E. Purkitt, “The politics of denuclearization: The case of South Africa”. Paper presented at the Defense Nuclear Agency’s Fourth Annual International Conference on Controlling Arms, Philadelphia, Penn., 21 June 1995.

[28]  De Villiers, 1993:33.

[29] Christie, 1993:16.

[30] . A.J. Roux, the first head of the Atomic Energy Board and widely believed to be the “father of South Africa’s bomb, explicitly noted the links between peaceful and military applications in a comprehensive nuclear development plan written in 1958. See Christie, 1993:16.

[31] William H. Vatcher, White Laager: The Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism (New York: Praeger, 1965).

[32] Hymans, 2000: 58-59. The combination of extreme nationalist pride and heightened fear of adversaries is a quintessential example of “oppositional nationalism” and helps to explain South African refusal to join the NPT.

[33] Deon Geldenhuys, Isolated States: A Comparative Analysis. (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1990: 181).

[34] Kenneth Grundy, The Militarization of South African Politics. (London: I.B. Tauris, 1986). Robert S. Jaster, The Defence of White Power: South African Foreign Policy under Pressure (London: Macmillan/IISS, London, 1989). G.J.B. Mills, South Africa: The Total National Strategy and Regional Policy during the Botha Years, 1978-1989. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Lancaster, UK, 1990.

[35] Geldenhuys, 1990. See also, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why. (New York: Phantom Books 1987).

Of course, in the 1960s, the Israelis had much greater reason to be fearful than did the South African regime.

[36]; Beit-Hallahmi, 1987: 122. It is suspected that Israel and South Africa also cooperated on CBW research and development. While little is known about Israel and CBW cooperation, Dr. Wouter Basson, the director of the CBW program visited Israel on a number of occasions in the 1980s.

[37] Ibid., 122.

[38] Albright, 1994. D. Blow, "Nuke Bombshell," City Press (Johannesburg) (28 March 1993: 13)

[39] Blow, 1993; William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, Critical Mass  (New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1994: 451).

[40] Blow, 1993; Beresford, 1994, 13; Albright, 1994; Burrows and Windrem, 1994: 452.

[41] Albright, 1994; Stumpf, 1995/ 1996.

[42]International Atomic Energy Agency, Report by the Director General: The Agency's Verification Activities in South Africa, (8 September 1993). Interviews, 1994.

[43] Stumpf, 1995/1996.

[44] Albright, 1994: 4.

[45] Sole, 1993: 5.

[46] Stumpf, 1995/6.

[47] Mark Hibbs, "South Africa's secret nuclear program: From a PNE to a deterrent", Nuclear Fuel (10 May 1993: 3). Christie, 1993; Stumpf, 1995/6

[48] Hibbs, 1993; Christie, 1993:30

[49] Albright, 1994: 6.

[50] As a result of PNE research, the first gun-type device was completed in 1977.

[51] Stumpf, 1995/6: 4.

[52] Interviews, 1994; Albright, 1994; Stumpf, 1995/6; Darryl Howlett and John Simpson, "Nuclearisation and Denuclearisation in South Africa," Survival: (35, 3, Autumn 1993): 154-173.

Howlett and Simpson 1993; interviews, 1994.

[53] De Villiers, 1993: 102.

[54] IAEA, 1993.

[55] Interview with former Defense Minister Magnus Malan, Pretoria, 23 June 2000.

[56] Willem Steenkamp, South Africa's Border War, 1966-1989. (Gibraltar, Ashanti Publishing Limited, 1989: 69) Representatives of South Africa’s national security establishment often reference these events in tandem because as dramatic instances in which South Africa was perceived to have been “abandoned” by the Americans.

[57] Robert S. Jaster, South Africa’s Narrowing Security Options, Adelphi Paper, no. 159 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980: 28).

[58] Deon Geldenhuys, The Diplomacy of Isolation: South Africa Foreign Policy Making. (New York St Martin's Press 1984:209).

[59] Annette Seegers, The Military in the Making of Modern South Africa. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

[60]  Michelle Flournoy and Kurt Campbell, “South Africa’s Bomb: A Military Option?” Orbis (31, Summer 1988: 397-398).

[61] Interview with Gen. (ret) Bill Sass, former State Security Council member and SADF Chief of Operations, Pretoria, 12 June 2000. He believed that the nuclear weapons program was developed to induce a Soviet nuclear threat that would attract the attention of the U.S. and the West. If South Africa faced a major communist onslaught, South Africa would target a major African city, like Luanda, Angola, or a Cuban military installation in the hope of drawing in the U.S and the West.

This “nuclear blackmail” rationale for developing nuclear weapons is the one most frequently mentioned by former politicians and SADF generals. For a further discussion of other rationales that have been provided by South African officials during and after the apartheid era, see Peter Hounam and Steve McQuillen The Mini-Nuke Conspiracy: Mandela’s Nuclear Nightmare (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), Mitchell Reiss Bridled ambition: Why Countries Constrain their Nuclear Capabilities (Washington, D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995), and Stumpf (1995/96).

[62] Interview with Magnus Malan, 23 June 2000. South African officials had gained some indications of the scale and sophistication of the Soviet BW program during and after negotiations surrounding the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which South Africa ratified in 1975.

According to General (retired) Georg Meiring, former SADF Chief of Staff, interviewed outside Pretoria, 3 July 2000, the SADF sought protection against CBW in the 1970s, especially as biological weapons became widely known as the “poor man’s atomic bomb” and as the possibility of CBW by Soviet-trained SWAPO and ANC/MK guerrillas increased.

According to Brig. Gen. (ret.) Phillip Schalwyk, South African forces in Angola received an urgent cable from UNITA commanders during Operation Savannah in December 1975 asking for help because they had been attacked by Cuban troops who wore “pig face masks.” Interview, 12 July 2000.

[63] Interview with Magnus Malan, 23 June 2000.

[64] Interview with Dr. Vernon Joynt, Pretoria, 14 June 2000. Dr. Joynt claims that Surgeon-General Nieuwoudt sent Major Wouter Basson to him in 1978 and offered him the directorship of a chemical weapons program. While Joynt refused, many scientists and specialists accepted research projects by Nieuwoudt and Basson, and many did not tell their superiors.

[65] ANC defense expert Dr. Ian Phillips, interviewed 13 June 2000,

[66] Mangold, Plague Wars: 214-23. See also Meryl Nass, “Anthrax Epizootic in Zimbabwe, 1978-1980: Due to Deliberate Spread? The PSR Quarterly vol. 2 no. 4 December 1992. “Basson anthrax link to Zimbabwe,” http://www.saep.org/forDB/WARanthraxZANNOW990331.htm. The current Zimbabwean government continues to emphasize that new reports of anthrax are the result of past South African involvement in the Rhodesian civil war but these allegations are difficult to substantiate. In 1993, there was an outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe, and Dr. Timothy Stamps, the Zimbabwean Minister of Health believed this outbreak was the result of another BW attack, since it was a controlled outbreak lasting three months and was eliminated in seven months.

Officials of the Zimbabwean veterinary service repeated the allegation of South African anthrax attacks in 1999. They noted that the strain of bacteria responsible for the outbreak was not native to Zimbabwe and immediately alleged that these incidents were linked to South Africa’s CBW program.

[67] Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War, 90-3, 111-113; Interview with Peter Stiff, 12 July 2000; Mangold, Plague Wars, 214-218. In 1976, the Selous Scouts received reports that guerrillas were using a village in Tete province, Mozambique, and introduced poisonous bacteriological cultures into the Ruya River, near the Mozambique border to kill the guerrillas and their supporters. Despite intensive intelligence gathering efforts, no effects on the guerrillas were detected. However, over 200 villagers died suddenly after drinking the water in a reservoir that the Selous Scouts had poisoned. A Selous Scout operation allegedly poisoned the water supply of a town in Tete province, Mozambique in an attempt to kill guerrillas who were reported to be operating in the area. Other accounts allege that Rhodesian military forces experimented with cholera to contaminate rivers and with the seeding of anthrax spores in farming areas used by guerrillas in an effort to poison guerrilla food supplies. Finally, Rhodesian forces poisoned wells and were suspected of using chemical and biological agents, especially in the Rhodesia’s Eastern Highlands and across the border in Mozambique.

[68]On 22 September 1979, a U.S. Vela satellite picked up a double flash in the South Atlantic and fueled speculation that South Africa had tested a nuclear device. A commission established by the Carter administration found that the evidence was too inconclusive to prove that the flash was a nuclear explosion. See Burrows and Willem, 1993. Also, Abdul Minty "The Apartheid Bomb," Africa (February 1985: 58-60).

Minty, 1935:60). Many analysts believe that this explosion was a test of a new Israeli weapon conducted in cooperation with South African officials (see for example, Hersh, 1991: 277-281).

[69] Interviews, 1994; Albright, 1994; Stumpf, 1995/6; 1994.

[70] In 1983, Prime Minister Botha became State President Botha, under a new constitution.

[71] Interviews, 1994; Hibbs, 1993: 3-6; Howlett and Simpson, 1993: 161; Albright, 1994: 10.

As of 1987, the first fully “qualified” gun-type device, could be delivered by a modified Buccaneer bomber equipped with a rotary bomb bay, used in Australian drop-tests of British nuclear weapons

Official reasons for production delays at ARMSCOR have been attributed to temporary closing of the Y- Plant, repeated design modifications over the decade of the 1980s, and the result of data obtained from diagnostic safety and reliability tests which interfered with and extended production schedules. Delays can also be attributed to the organizational culture of ARMSCOR, composed of engineers, who worked for the military, rather than the “civilian scientific milieu”, and the attendant emphasis on building deliverable devices. ARMSCOR personnel emphasized the time required to build a reliable and safe bomb, especially given the restrictions placed on testing prototype vehicles.

[72] Albright, 1994: 11; interviews, 1994.

[73] Stumpf, 1995/6.

[74] Stumpf, 1993; interviews, 1994.

[75] Christie, 1993.

[76] Hibbs, 1993.

[77] IAEC, 1993. ARMSCOR officials have only admitted that they studied nuclear warheads but, given South Africa’s limited deterrence posture, they did not pursue implosion weapons. According to the IAEA’s 1993 investigation, South Africa’s declared nuclear weapons program involved the development and production of deliverable gun assembled devices. It also involved studies of implosion and thermonuclear technology, including “boosted” devices, which were designed to increase the explosive yield of a fissile device. Finally, it involved and research and development for the production and recovery of plutonium and tritium

[78] Interviews, 1994.

[79] Interviews, 1994.

[80] See Lt. Gen. (Dr.) D.P. (Niels) Knobel’s testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), July 1998.

[81] Chris Oppermann, “How the taxpayer footed the bill for Project Coast,” Weekly Mail and Guardian archive, 27 June 1997.

[82] According to Helmut Heitmann, Jane’s Defense Weekly and defense expert, in a 26 June 2000 interview, the evidence was not conclusive.

Heitmann was among the first journalists to raise questions about South African allegations that the Cubans had used chemical weapons in Angola and highlighted the difficulty of verifying the source of alleged CBW attacks (Heitmann, 1985, 1990; see also Steenkamp, 1989).

[83] Interview with Magnus Malan, 23 June. 2000. Despite concerns by senior military leaders about the possibility that Cubans might use CBW in Angola, little time was spent on defensive CBW training during the 1970s. From the mid-1970s through the late 1970s only a few hours during one day of training was devoted to CBW of SADF infantry personnel. Most of these sessions focused on the use of CS gas. Many more hours of training were devoted to how to counter urban violence. Interview with Mark Malan, former SADF officer and senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies-South Africa, 23 June 2000. 

[84] According to Chandre Gould, formerly of the TRC, interviewed 29 June 2000 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

[85] Mangold, Plague Wars, 236. They estimate four to five million pounds.

[86] Interview with Gen. (ret.) Meiring, 3 July 2000.

[87] Mangold, Plague Wars, 243.

[88] Mangold, Plague Wars, 241. In 1994, the South Africans surprised the Americans by revealing that they had the bacteria and then gave the information to the U.S verification delegation.

[89] Magnus Malan indicated as much in a 23 June 2000 interview.

[90] According to Dr. Rocklyn Williams of ISS, Pretoria, interviewed 15 July 2000, he debriefed a SADF sergeant in 1983, who talked about the development of a “black bomb.”

[91] Mangold, Plague Wars, 244.

[92] Mangold, Plague Wars, 244.

[93] Interviews with South African journalist, 20 July 2000.

[94] According to Chandre Gould, formerly of the TRC in a presentation, 29 June 2000.

[95] Interviews with retired Generals Thirion and Geldenhuys, Pretoria, 13 June 2000

[96] Interview with Dr. G. Scharf, former Director of Military Medical Hospital One (Pretoria), 5 July 2000.

[97] Interview with Gen. (ret.) Meiring, 3 July 2000. As a subscriber to the Geneva Conventions, South Africa could not develop lethal CW agents.

[98] Testimony by Dr. Mike Odendaal in the Basson Trial, 24 May 2000. See “HIV Blood Sample Frozen for Chemical Warfare, Basson Trial Hears,” South African Press Association (SAPA), 24 May 2000.

[99] Mangold, Plague Wars, 243.

[100] Mangold, Plague Wars, 242.

[101] Mangold (Plague Wars, 442, note 443). See Michael Evans, “South Africa may have ordered British deaths,” The Times (London), (14 July 1998), 7 for further details. However, there is no evidence, besides Basson’s claims, that Basson ever visited Porton Down.

[102] Testimony by Dr. Odendaal, 24 May 2000. See “HIV..,” SAPA, 24 May 2000.

[103] The initial claim that the South African BW program was the “second most sophisticated next to the Soviet program” (and that the South African program made the Iraqi program look crude) came from an interview with Theresa Whelan in the Pentagon in May 2000. Subsequently, this claim was put to former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa, Princeton Lyman, and to officials in the U.S. government and to former South African government officials.  None of these officials disagreed with the claim.  In fact, Gen. (ret.) Meiring former Surgeon General Knobel spoke of the advanced nature of the program, before the “second most sophisticated” claim was put to them.  Ken Alibek and others were quick to point out that the South African program was by no means the “second largest.”

[104] Interview with former South African military officer, July 2000.

[105] Ambassador Princeton Lyman, e-mail to Stephen Burgess, 18 September 2000. Ambassador Princeton Lyman backtracked somewhat from earlier statements made in a 31 August 2000 interview about claims that weaponization took place.  Donald Mahley of the U.S. State Department, who was part of the delegation to South Africa after the demarcheof 11 April 1994, also downplayed evidence of weaponization in a 30 August 2000 interview.

[106] Interview with Brig. Gen (ret.) Bill Sass, July 1994. See Purkitt, “The politics of denuclearization,” for further details of changes made at the end of P.W. Botha’s rule.

[107] Stumpf, 1995/6.

[108] De Villiers, 1993- 103; Stumpf, 1995/6.

[109] De Villiers, 1993: 103.

[110] Ibid.

[111] According to Dr Renfrew Christie, University of the Western Cape, interviewed 26 June 2000, the U.S., backed by Israel and the UK, issued a “hostile nation warning” to South Africa in January 1990 to destroy the nuclear weapons program in order to keep it out of ANC hands.

[112]  Sole, 1993; Steenkamp, 1989; interviews, 1994.

[113] Stumpf, 1995/6.

[114] Reiss, 1995: 17-19.

[115] Interviews, 1994.

[116] David Albright and Mark Hibbs “South Africa: The ANC and the Atom Bomb", April 1993: 33) Albright, 1994; Shaun Johnson, Strange Days Indeed. (London. Bantam Books, 1993); Marina Ottaway, South Africa: The Struggle for a New Order. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993).

[117] Sole 1993: 10.

[118] Interviews, 1994.

[119] Albright, 1994.

[120] IAEA, 1993

[121] Albright, 1994; Stumpf, 1993; interviews, 1994.

[122] Interview with David Steward, 26 June 2000.

[123] See H. Purkitt, ““The cognitive basis of foreign policy expertise: Evidence from intuitive analyses of political novices and ‘experts’ in South Africa,” In D. Sylvan and J. Voss (Eds.) Problem Representation and Political Decision Making. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) for evidence of how widespread this fear was in 1992, after negotiations had broken down.

[124] According to Gen. (ret.) Meiring, interviewed 3 July 2000.

[125] According to Col. Mike Ferguson, former Defense Attaché to South Africa interviewed 23 May 2000 in Washington, D.C.

[126] According to Col. Mike Ferguson, interviewed 23 May 2000.

[127] Interview with David Steward, 26 June 2000.

[128] According to a Weekly Mail & Guardian account, 14 November 1997.

[129] According to General (ret.) Meiring, interviewed 3 July 2000. Basson’s soft retirement meant that he was no longer an active member of the SADF but continued to draw a paycheck as a reserve SADF officer and doctor at a military hospital.

[130] This account of the Steyn Report relies on an interview with David Steward on 26 June 2000.

[131] Interview with David Steward on 26 June 2000.

[132] See Knobel’s testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, July 1998.

[133] According to General (ret.) Meiring, interviewed 3 July 2000.

[134] Ibid. Gen. (ret.) Meiring does not know if Basson gave away secrets. The U.S., especially, as well as the UK and other NATO countries knew about Project Coast and were worried that information would fall into the wrong hands. However, according to Meiring and Knobel, the U.S. and UK never knew exactly what South Africa possessed.

[135] Interviews with Ambassador Princeton Lyman, Washington, D.C., 25 May and 31 August 2000.

[136] Interview with Peter Goosen, proliferation expert, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pretoria, 15 June 2000

[137] According to Dr. Ian Phillips, interviewed 13 June 2000, Anglo-American cooperation on South Africa’s NBC program was not as smooth as it may have seemed. During the 1989-94 period, the British were upset with the Americans at the latter’s efforts to promote their own “solution for South Africa.”

[138] Interview with David Steward, 26 June 2000.

[139] Interview with Ambassador Lyman, 31 August 2000.

[140] Interview with Dr. Knobel, 15 June 2000.

[141] Mangold, Plague Wars, 243. Opinion on the damage done by Basson varies. Mangold believes that Basson was originally invited to Libya to help them with chemical warfare facilities at Rabta. Gen. (ret.) Meiring believed that Basson gave the Libyans information concerning defensive CBW techniques

[142] Interviews in South Africa, June-July 2000.

[143] Interviews in the Pentagon and State Department, May 2000. Confirmed by interviews in South Africa, June-July 2000.

[144] According to Dr. Ian Phillips, the ANC wanted to know where the information about the CBW program had disappeared. The ANC believes that people who are now living in the Middle East as well as the U.S. and UK sold many of Project Coast’s secrets to foreign sources.

[145] General (ret.) Meiring, interviewed 3 July 2000.

[146] Oppermann, “How the taxpayer…,” Weekly Mail, 27 June 1997.

[147] Dr. Ian Phillips, interviewed June 13, 2000.

[148] Although Basson’s trips to Libya did decline after he was “rehired,” the South African government at one point placed Basson under an undeclared “house arrest.”

[149] Chris Bateman “The man who knows too much about killing” Cape Times, (12 June 1998), 17. Chris Bateman “Evil Einstein,” Cape Times, (12 June 1998), 17.

[150] The “verkope lys” was a list of items, allegedly ordered by Dr. Basson and given to CCB operatives. This list includes anthrax, infected cigarettes; shampoo poisoned with an insecticide, and poisoned chocolates. Orr, 328-9. See Appendix I for the complete list.

[151] Interview with Dr. Villa-Vicencia, former senior investigator for the TRC, 21 July 2000.

[152] Why are Albright, Stumpf and others not wholly correct about South African nuclear weapons program? They neglect the fact that South Africa was one of the few countries to sign the NPT, and they downplay the oppositional nationalism of the regime.