South Africa

South Africa occupies the southern tip of the African continent, bordered by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Swaziland. The Union of South Africa gained independence from Britain in 1910. The National Party came to power in 1948 and instituted apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation that defined South African political life until 1994. The apartheid government was subject to increasing international sanctions from the 1960s onward, driving it toward clandestine relationships with other sanctions-busting states - most significantly Israel.¹

Israel-South Africa Arms and Nuclear Relationship

The formal foundation of the Israel-South Africa defense relationship was laid in an agreement signed in Pretoria on April 22, 1975, between South African Defense Minister P.W. Botha and Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres. The agreement established a framework for military cooperation that, over the following decade, grew to encompass arms transfers, joint weapons development, and covert intelligence sharing. Israel supplied SADF with Gabriel missiles, Reshef-class gunboats, and technical assistance on aircraft upgrades. South Africa provided yellowcake uranium and test ranges for Israeli weapons systems.²

The nuclear dimension of the relationship is documented in Sasha Polakow-Suransky's 2010 book The Unspoken Alliance. South Africa's nuclear weapons program, run through the Armscor state arms company, produced six gun-type fission devices by the mid-1980s. Israeli technical assistance - particularly regarding tritium production - was provided through indirect channels. An American Vela satellite recorded a double flash on September 22, 1979, from a region that included the southern Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the southern tip of Africa, the Vela Incident. The historian Sasha Polakow-Suransky and others describe it as a joint Israeli-South African nuclear test, and Leonard Weiss has argued that it was an Israeli test with South African logistical help. A panel of outside scientists chaired by Jack Ruina judged in May 1980 that the signal was probably not from a nuclear explosion, and neither government has confirmed a test.²³

After the leak of the satellite information in late October 1979, South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha publicly denied any knowledge of a test, and on October 27, 1979 the South African embassy in Washington relayed an official statement that the South African Navy had been instructed to investigate whether the event might have been caused by an accident aboard a Soviet or other nuclear submarine. On October 31, 1979, Foreign Affairs Secretary Brand Fourie told the American ambassador that the Atomic Energy Board chairman had said, "so your people should know that there has been no explosion, that the idea is nonsense." Prime Minister P.W. Botha's September 25, 1979 statement to the Cape National Party congress that South Africa had weapons "that are not known about" drew a U.S. embassy remark of "media speculation at the time that P.W. was possibly hinting at nuclear weapons."⁴⁵

Armscor maintained a procurement office in Tel Aviv that operated throughout the sanctions period, exploiting Israel's exemption from the international arms embargo against South Africa. The office facilitated the purchase of U.S.-manufactured components and technology that could not be obtained directly given South Africa's sanctions status.

CIA and Cold War Operations

South Africa's role in Central African Cold War conflicts made it a covert partner of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Angolan Civil War. The CIA's Operation IAFEATURE (1975-1976) involved coordination with South African forces that had invaded Angola to counter Cuban troops supporting the MPLA. The operation was revealed by John Stockwell, the CIA Angola Task Force chief, in his 1978 memoir In Search of Enemies.

South African intelligence also intersected with the Iran-Contra network. Arms brokered through networks involving Adnan Khashoggi and other intermediaries passed through South African controlled channels. Mark Thatcher, son of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was convicted in 2004 of helping to finance a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea organized by South African mercenaries connected to the regional arms trade networks of the same era.

Transition to Democracy

Following the release of Nelson Mandela from Robben Island prison on February 11, 1990, and negotiations between the ANC and the National Party government of F.W. de Klerk, South Africa held its first multiracial elections on April 27, 1994. Mandela became president. South Africa's nuclear arsenal - the only one voluntarily dismantled by a state that had produced weapons - was destroyed between 1989 and 1993 and confirmed as dismantled by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1994.¹