Sunday 26 March 2017


Britain learned of South African nuclear programme from USSR

Britain learned that apartheid South Africa was preparing to test an atomic bomb only after being alerted by the Russians.

Previously secret papers released at the National Archives show how James Callaghan, the Labour prime minister, was informed in August 1977 of a secret test site in the Kalahari Desert in a personal letter from Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet president.

A Soviet spy satellite had discovered the site at Vastrap, in a remote area south of South Africa's border with Botswana, a week earlier. Two 750-foot shafts had been drilled in preparation for underground explosions. The Americans appear to have possessed similar satellite imagery but failed to inform their closest ally until after the Brezhnev letter.

In his letter of 8 August, the Soviet leader said he wanted to draw Callaghan's attention to a matter of "very great importance". Citing "available information", he went on to identify the Kalahari site and called on the British to exert pressure on Pretoria to cancel its clandestine programme.

"We in the Soviet Union consider it a matter of utmost importance and urgency to make every effort to prevent the conducting by the Republic of South Africa of nuclear tests and the production of nuclear weapons," warned Brezhnev. "As for Britain, she, as we understand, has the necessary channels and possibilities to exercise direct restraint in respect of this state."

Callaghan was taken aback, scribbling: "I need a briefing note on how to handle this."

British surprise was all the greater because of a Joint Intelligence Committee assessment from the previous February stating there was no evidence of a South African nuclear weapons programme.

A summary of the assessment, classified "UK Eyes A - Delicate Source" stated: "Even if the South Africans have decided to go ahead with the production of highly enriched uranium, the development of usable nuclear weapons would take much longer. We do not think it likely that the South Africans could even reach this stage of testing of an experimental weapon device in less than three years from a decision to go ahead."

But according to a US intelligence report published in 1983 the government in Pretoria had decided to build an A-bomb as early as 1973 as insurance against a mass attack by hostile Soviet-backed black African states.

The Brezhnev letter caused a flurry of diplomatic activity as London tried to find out what was going on. In a telephone conversation with Jimmy Carter, the US president, on August 14 Callaghan suggested the Germans may have helped the apartheid regime with equipment and expertise.

A minute of the conversation records: "The president said that although he knew that the Germans were involved, he had considered the US and the French were the two main culpable parties."

The United States put pressure on Pretoria to explain the shafts but the South Africans simply denied the existence of a weapons programme. Suspicion also fell on Israel as a possible source of assistance. Callaghan was informed of a "heavy load" of materials that had recently arrived in South Africa from Israel.

Yet still the British remained unsure of the goings on in the Kalahari. On March 4 1978 Callaghan received a second and more urgent letter from Brezhnev.

"Competent Soviet authorities have information that the RSA continues her efforts to make nuclear weapons," he wrote, adding that a second test site was being prepared.

The Foreign Office commented: "We still cannot identify conclusively the purpose of the Kalahari site, but on the evidence available we can think of no credible purpose other than nuclear testing."

It later emerged that South Africa built as many as seven crude Hiroshima-sized bombs to be dropped by British-supplied Buccaneer strike aircraft, should the country be faced with imminent defeat. The South African arsenal was decommissioned by the government of FW de Klerk between 1990 and 1991.

Under American pressure the Vastrap shafts were sealed with concrete but that did not stop the programme. An atmospheric test may have taken place in the ocean near the remote Prince Edward Islands in September 1979. A US surveillance satellite detected a double flash similar to that caused by a nuclear burst but its sensors were not fully trained on the alleged detonation point and doubt remains as to its nature. One school of thought is that it represented a secret Israeli-South African test.


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