In 1989, South Africa made the momentous decision to abandon its nuclear weapons, making it the first and still the only country that has produced nuclear weapons and given them up. Over thirty years, the apartheid regime had created a remarkably sophisticated capability to build nuclear weapons-both the nuclear warhead and advanced military systems to deliver them. The program was born in secret and remained so until its end. The government initially sought to dismantle it in secret. It hoped to avoid any negative international consequences of possessing nuclear weapons. The apartheid government's strategy did not work, because too many intelligence agencies knew about South Africa's nuclear weapons. Faced with intense pressure, South Africa's President F.W. de Klerk reversed course and adopted a policy of transparency in 1993. However, he decided to hide many of its aspects. Nonetheless, most of the remaining secrets emerged over the ensuing 25 years. Revisiting South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program draws on previously secret information to provide the first comprehensive, technically-oriented look at South Africa's nuclear weapons program; how it grew, evolved, and ended. It also finds lessons for today's nuclear proliferation cases.

South Africa was the first nation in the world to renounce and destroy its top-secret nuclear weapons capability. Its government also eliminated the ability to produce and deliver these warheads. Because no one archived the official documentary evidence of the program, various writers and scholars, as well as the public at large, have been left to speculate-and forget-the activities that consumed billions of rands and years of dedication. Based on facts and first-hand perspectives, Armament and Disarmament offers intimate views from three participants in the nuclear weapons program. A larger picture emerges through their recollections, fulfilling the role of essential perspectives and documentation where official records no longer exist. Out of secrecy and a need-to-know philosophy, many involved in the program, both wittingly and unwittingly, were never briefed as to how their particular endeavors fit into the bigger scheme. Armament and Disarmament sheds light on the complexity of events surrounding the South African nuclear weapons program and brings tribute to the ingenuity and dedication of all those involved.

The primary focus of this paper is the impact of key South African leaders on the successful developments and subsequent rollbacks of South Africa's nuclear weapons capability. It highlights the key milestones in the development of South Africa's nuclear weapon capability. It also relates how different groups within South Africa (scientists, politicians, military and technocrats) interacted to successfully produce South Africa's nuclear deterrent. It emphasizes the pivotal influence of the senior political leadership to pursue nuclear rollback given the disadvantages of its nuclear means to achieve vital national interests. The conclusions drawn from flu's effort are the South African nuclear program was an extreme response to its own identity Crisis. Nuclear weapons became a means to achieving a long term end of a closer affiliation with the West. A South Africa yearning to be identified as a Western nation and receive guarantees of its security rationalized the need for a nuclear deterrent. The deterrent was intended to draw in Western support to counter a feared total onslaught by Communist forces in the region. Two decades later, that same South Africa relinquished its nuclear deterrent and reformed its domestic policies to secure improved economic and political integration with the West.

South Africa's Bomb kept the world guessing for years. Six-and-a- half nuclear bombs had been secretly built and destroyed, former South African President F.W. de Klerk announced in 1993. No other country has ever voluntarily destroyed its nuclear arsenal. From 1975 Nic von Wielligh was involved in the production of nuclear weapons material, the dismantling of the nuclear weapons and the provision of evidence of South Africa's bona fides to the international community. The International Atomic Energy Agency declared South Africa's Initial Report to be the most comprehensive and professional that they had ever received. In this book the nuclear physicist and his daughter Lydia von Wielligh-Steyn tell the gripping story of the splitting of the atom and the power it releases. It is an account of ground-breaking research and the scientists responsible; it deals with uranium enrichment, the arms race and South Africa's secret programme. The Bomb: South Africa's nuclear programme is a story of nuclear explosions, espionage, smuggling of nuclear materials and swords that became ploughshares.

South Africa's Weapons of Mass Destruction offers an in-depth view of the secret development and voluntary disarmament of South Africa's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons program, Project Coast. Helen E. Purkitt and Stephen F. Burgess explore how systems used for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in South Africa were acquired and established beyond the gaze of international and domestic political actors. On the basis of archival evidence from Project Coast and their own extensive interviews with military and political officials, Purkitt and Burgess consider what motivates countries to acquire and build such powerful weaponry and examine when and how decisions are made to dismantle a military arsenal voluntarily. Questions such as how to destroy weapons safely and keep them from reappearing on international markets are considered along with comparative strategies for successful disarmament in other nation-states.

This book investigates drivers and trends in nuclear proliferation in the Global South. Based on an in-depth analysis of South Africa’s nuclear history, it examines general causes of proliferation, such as technical capabilities and constraints; a country’s motivation to build a nuclear bomb; and particular domestic and international situations. It also highlights Britain’s role in the development of technological capability in South Africa and explains how nuclear weapons influence international relations. Finally, the study offers effective solutions to the problem of nuclear proliferation in developing countries.

Glen Segell

Publisher Fact Sheet The definitive history of India's long flirtation with nuclear capability, culminating in the nuclear tests that surprised the world in May 1998.