South Africa's Nuclear Program

By Raul Colon
rcolonfrias@yahoo.com

The United States and its European allies found themselves at the cross roads of history regarding their dealings with Iran. The Islamic Republic continued to defy the international community with the recently acceleration of their nuclear weapons program. The implementation of broader United Nation sanctions system does not seems to steam the buoyant Iranian program. In fact, a case can be made that it had the opposite effect.

Almost three decades ago, the world confronted another emerging power seeking to develop an atomic arsenal. From the early 1970s, to the 1977 call for action, and all the way through the 80s, the Republic of South Africa started, maintained and eventually produced a comprehensive nuclear weapons program. One that went, almost unnoticed to the Super Powers. Now, more than twenty years since its end, Pretoria’s program is viewed by many as a case in study, especially in light of Iran’s effort.

For over fifty years, this once British colony was the single most powerful nation in the African continent. South Africa weapons’ industries produced (and continue to produce today) some of the most sophisticated weapons system platforms in the world. Their armed forces, spearheaded by the most professional Army in Sub-Sahara Africa and one of the most resourceful Air Forces in the world proved equally adaptable at either fighting guerrilla warfare in their own soil or taking head up any comers, including the Cuban-backed Angola army units armed with the latest in Soviet weapons system.

The string of successful military victories achieved by the South African Defense Force (SADF) since the early 1960s made them the most revered force in the continent, outside Israel. Spearheaded by on the battlefield success, the SADF continued to grow in size and stature during the proceeding two decades. But all of those military investments and combat exploits ended in the early 1990s with the handing over the government to the black majority.

The end of Apartheid and major budget cuts entrenched in the 90s reduced, not only the structural size of the SADF, but also it’s fighting capability. Today, experts believes that if South Africa were to be invaded by another small but well armed country, the SADF would be hard pressed to hold them, let alone to launch a counteroffensive campaign.

In late 1980s the white minority government started to make small gestures of reconciliation with the black majority. Restrictions were lifted, travel bans were abandoned and in a moment parallel to the fall of the Berlin Wall, longtime activist Nelson Mandela was free from twenty-seven years of captivity. Those events eventually lead Mandela and his political movement, the African national Congress (ANC), to assume power in Pretoria. This unprecedented pacific move gave South Africa the distinction of being the first modern state where the ruling elite gave up complete political and military power to the opposition without firing a shot.

Shortly after the ANC moved into the state house, reports began to surface regarding South Africa’s scuttling of its nuclear weapon program as well as its ballistic missile systems project, the later due in part by the imposition of massive United Nation’s financial sanctions since the mid 1970s. Details regarding the country’s nuclear program were sketchiest at first. Nevertheless, as time has passed more information had become available. Now, at least the outlines of the events surrounding the development of their nuclear weapons program are well known.

Accordingly to the record, South Africa’s atomic project produced six serviceable nuclear devices, all in the twenty kiloton explosion range. It was also determined that at the time, Pretoria possessed enough enriched uranium to build another bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with major assistance from the United States, helped the government in dismantle its nuclear devices. The weapon’s nuclear components were melted down and the casings were physically destroyed. All material related to the programs was either completely destroyed or re-built for use in other fields. Today, South Africa is the only country in the world to voluntarily abandon a successful ongoing nuclear weapons program.

In the past few decades there had been a number of nations that had started small nuclear weapon programs only to abandon them when the horrified reality of the massive financial and logistic commitment sets in. Among the examples were: Taiwan, Sweden, Libya, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Algeria, Spain, Egypt and South Korea. Why those countries found necessary to invest resources that some of them did not posses in order to develop a nuclear weapon? The answer is simple: survival.

By the time President F.W. De Klerk and his National Party left office, South Africa had been involved in two decades of adventurous military expeditions. Their main antagonist was Angola. This relative small African nation had at its disposal a well trained, Soviet equipped armed forces. It had advisors from North Korea, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, but more importantly, it had two full Cuban seasoned combat divisions at its disposal. That is fifty thousand men with the latest in Soviet-supplied equipment and tactics.

In the 60s and 70s, Pretoria, mainly because of its Apartheid regime, was isolated from the world weapons market. It could not legally purchase advanced weapon systems in the world’s market because of U.N. sanctions. This situation forced South Africa to invest vast amounts of money in the development of an indigenous weapon industry. The industrial base of the nation was forced to divert vital resources away from other industries to weapons design and development. What they were able to produce was nothing short of amazing.

Some of the weapons platforms developed and fielded by South Africa were amongst the most advanced deployed in Africa. The 155mm G-5 howitzer was one example of it. The G-5 was so effective, that it became a best-seller in the black market. Also developed was the Buffel troop transport, a top tire troop carrier that would go on to see extensive action against the Angolans. Added to the almost unlimited number of top-of-the-line mortars, rifles and rocket systems, the SADF had enough firepower to deal with its enemies on the ground, the problem for Pretoria was in the air.

Unable to produce an indigenous fighter-bomber, the SADF air component could not stop the incursion of scores of Mig-29s and Sukhoi fighter-bombers flying from Angolan bases. Pretoria needed an answer to stop the bombing of its ground forces or the country could be overrun by the enemy quickly. Here is where the genesis of South Africa’s nuclear weapons program lays.

In 1976, South Africa’s only active nuclear research reactor, Safari, which was commissioned in 1965, had produced enough enriched uranium to produce one crude nuclear device. Despite several set backs, the country pressed ahead in the late 70s and early 80s, eventually managing to produce six clumsy and bulky World War II gun-type nuclear bombs, but more importantly for Pretoria, it had acquired a deterrence weapon. It is important to state that had South African scientific community be given more time, they probable would have been able to reduce the size of the devices which would allow the bombs to be placed on a missile warhead.

At this time another player came in the picture: Israel. The Israelis had just fielded its first indigenous offensive missile system, the Jericho-1, and was in the process of developing the longer range Jericho2 which was designed to carry a one ton payload to a distance of a thousand miles. Some of the early testing of the Jericho-2 was performed on the Overberg Test Range near Arniston, South Cape. Israel needed to utilize the Overberg facility because it did not possess an eastward facing test range of its own.

Peg to Israel’s use of Overberg was Pretoria’s desire to reduce the size of its nuclear devices. As crude units, they were large enough that if the needs ever arose, only obsoletes British-built Buccaneer fighter-bombers could have been employed to deliver them. Israel and South Africa had many common issues that tied them up together. One of them was their collective and deliberate “uncertainty” about their nuclear weapon program. They did not boast about the fact that each had develop a comprehensive nuclear weapon program, which in political terms is often more delivered in achieving political goals than a full disclosure of their activities.

Meanwhile, the ongoing situation in South Africa was making Washington nervous. Leaders in the US were coming to realize that in a short period, Pretoria would have the ability to re-shape politically and military the situation on the African Continent. It was Pretoria’s development of a nuclear device, more importantly, that their leaders were not boasting their existence that led America, the Soviet Union and Europe to make an all-out effort to convince the country to relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

In August of 1977, South African President De Klerk delineated the country’s defense deterrent strategy. The first phase of Pretoria’s defense stand was to be strategic uncertainty to be issue in case of impending national emergency. The government would not display any inclination on either side of the nuclear issue. Phase two was, if their territory integrity were about to be compromised, then Pretoria would admit to the world that they possess a nuclear capability.

If this action failed to impress the attacking party, Pretoria would switch the third phase, an underground nuclear test demonstration. This strategic plan was aimed mostly at Western capitals, more importantly, Washington; in order to obtain their political and military support in case South Africa’s military were to be overrun by an invading force. So here laid one of Pretoria’s explanation as why they need to acquire a nuclear weapon capability, to black mail of the West should the country was on the verge of collapse.

The main nuclear program efforts began in 1977 with the construction of the Vastrap nuclear testing site in the Kalahari Desert, a place Pretoria hoped to use in the testing of their nuclear devices. Preparations were made to use Vastrap for dummy testing, an instrumented tests without the actual nuclear core. Soviet surveillance satellite detected preparations for the test in early July 1977. Though the test never happened, it proved to Western Powers that Pretoria was seriously preparing a nuclear test in the near future. This same exercise happened again in the mid 1980s when Pretoria’s quest for a nuclear deterrence officially began.

South Africa initially intended to build a nuclear device for research and development purposes and as is their initial nuclear program was given to the Minister of Mining instead of the Ministry of Defense. Over time, both agencies would share duties in building-up South Africa’s still infant nuclear program. The task of building a nuclear device by a third world economy country is of mammoth undertaking. One which needed to consolidate the prowess of the private sector with all the resources the state could supply. Full scientific mobilization was organized and non-essential resources were diverted, almost in full, to the program.

Seven years after the decision was made to proceed with program, South Africa produced one crude nuclear device, a remarkable feat by this perceived developing nation. The ordinance develop was similar in composition and technology to the one the United States dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945. The similarities with the American bomb was striking and it became obvious that South Africa imported nuclear materials and expertise from abroad, but what was not completely known is from where.

From 1973 onward Israel was South Africa’s most important weapon platform supplier, thus is a good bet that advanced Israeli weapons systems found their way to Pretoria, especially long range missile technology. The cooperation between Pretoria and Tel Aviv was a two-lane street. South Africa is believed to have shipped to Israel over fifty tons of concentrated uranium ore or yellowcake in exchange for thirty grams of tritium, a heavy hydrogen isotope usually used to boost the explosive power of a nuclear device. Tritium can substantially raise the yield of a nuclear bomb.

The Israeli tritium shipped to Pretoria never found its way to a nuclear weapon core, accordingly to several well stoked reports. With a useful lifespan of twelve years, much of Pretoria’s tritium was beyond service use at the time South Africa decided to closedown its nuclear program. The strict secrecy of which Pretoria’s nuclear program was perused often forced them to make do with in-house technologies. Between late 1978 to the early 1990s, South Africa produced high enriched uranium at its main producing facility in Pelindaba. One item that surprised UN Inspectors when Pretoria opened its program was the amount of low-tech equipment it used to produce the nuclear devices. Between 1977 and 1989, Pretoria developed six nuclear devices without ever accepting of conducting a test. In September 1979, a US’s Vela Satellite detected a double flash off the southern coast of Africa. This strongly suggested that a low-yield nuclear device was test exploded. As we now know, South Africa had only enough HUE for just one nuclear device in 1979.

This data was later confirmed by the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog group, in their forensic analysis of HUE production. South Africa built its first three devices in a heavy and bulky configuration, exceeding one ton, mainly to be used as an underground demonstration device. At the time, Pretoria did not posses the ability to perform an atmospheric detonation.

The country finally relinquished its nuclear weapons program along with its six known devices in early 1991. IAEA inspectors were allowed to travel the country in search of its nuclear processing sites. They encountered a high level of cooperation with South Africa’s scientists and related personnel. Disclosure of technical data was unprecedented in the years of IAEA monitoring activities around the world. There’s one area in which South Africa was reluctant to submit information: the source of the raw nuclear-related materials used during the life of Pretoria’s nuclear weapon program.

What is worrisome about South Africa’s nuclear program is that the Western Powers learned from it after it had been successful in constructing a crude nuclear device.@