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Southern Africa

South Africa

South African Nuclear History

Aerial view of National Mall

North America

United States

Photograph of the Port of Jaffa in Israel.

Middle East

Israel

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Central Africa

Angola

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Southern Africa

Namibia

Soviet soldier taking a photograph of another soldier in Red Square, Moscow, 1959

Eastern Europe

Soviet Union

Aerial photograph of CIA headquarters

United States. Central Intelligence Agency

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George H.W. Bush and Lech Walesa

CIA Reports on the Collapse of Communism in Europe

Photograph of P.W. Botha

Botha, P. W. (Pieter Willem)

1916- 2006

Nuclear Proliferation

Photograph from the 1995 NPT Review Conference

The 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference

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Botha, R. F. (Roelof Frederik) ("Pik")

1932-

Cuba and Southern Africa

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1986

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich

1931- 2022

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Vorster, B. J. (Balthazar Johannes)

1915- 1983

Margaret Thatcher in 1984

Thatcher, Margaret

1925- 2013

Israeli Nuclear History

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October 17, 1964	Request for Clearance of a Draft Joint Communique of the People’s Republic of China Sports Committee and the Chair of the South African Colored People’s Sports Committee The PRC Sports Committee requests instructions regarding the publication of a joint communique with a South African delegation. The document includes the minutes of the conversation between Zhang Lianhua and the South African representative.
August 10, 1977	Letter, Warren Christopher to William Hyland, 'Response to Soviet Message on South Africa' This draft reply to Leonid Brezhnev's August 1977 message to Jimmy Carter on the suspicious site in the Kalahari Desert includes a number of interesting points, among them a request for the "geographic coordinates, size, configuration, and exact nature of the facility." Presumably this information would be used by the US to better target its reconnaissance satellites on the site.
April 15, 1994	Telegram, US Defense Intelligence Agency, 'South Africa: Nuclear Program in Turmoil' With the liquidation of South Africa’s weapons program, “disgruntled” scientists under threat of lay-off “threatened to reveal closely guarded secrets … unless they receive severance pay.”
September 1985	Memorandum, US National Intelligence Council, NIC M 85-10001, 'The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation: Balance of Incentives and Constraints' The most recent CREST release included this analysis of “The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation: Balance of Incentives and Constraints.” The analyst sought to explain why “no additional overt proliferation of nuclear weapons has actually occurred” since the Chinese nuclear test, India had not weaponized while Israel and South Africa had not “taken any action to signal overt possession of nuclear weapons.”
February 1980	Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Special Project Division, 'Proliferation Analysis and International Assessments' This issue of Proliferation Analysis and International Assessments includes a heavily excised article on Iraq, a piece on South Africa’s security prospects, and a apparently a third essay that has been wholly exempted. The essay on South Africa’s nuclear aims suggests that the arguments pro and con for a nuclear capability to deal with regional security threats are so powerful that “internal political and bureaucratic” consideration are probably more relevant for nuclear decisions.
December 1979	Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, US Director of Central Intelligence, NI IIM 79-10028, 'The 22 September 1979 Event' [2004 Release] This study begins, as the National Security Council requested, by assuming that the September 22, 1979 Vela event was a nuclear detonation. It discusses the possibility that the detonation could have occurred due to an accident, and noted the Defense Intelligence Agency’s suggestion that the Soviet Union might have had reasons to conduct a covert test in violation of its treaty commitments. But most of the study is concerned with other possibilities to explain the incident – a secret test by South Africa or Israel, or India, or Pakistan, or a secret joint test by South Africa and Israel. The 2004 version, in some instances, contains more information through page 10 than the 2013 version.
December 1979	Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, US Director of Central Intelligence, NI IIM 79-10028, 'The 22 September 1979 Event' [2013 Release] This study begins, as the National Security Council requested, by assuming that the September 22, 1979 Vela event was a nuclear detonation. It discusses the possibility that the detonation could have occurred due to an accident, and noted the Defense Intelligence Agency’s suggestion that the Soviet Union might have had reasons to conduct a covert test in violation of its treaty commitments. But most of the study is concerned with other possibilities to explain the incident – a secret test by South Africa or Israel, or India, or Pakistan, or a secret joint test by South Africa and Israel. The 2013 release (which is currently under appeal) includes some information from a “Secret Test by Others” (Pakistan, India) and the map on page 12 that had not been released before.
November 26, 1979	International Technology Office, Los Alamos National Laboratory, ITO-79-155, '22 September 1979 Event Report Draft' This Los Alamos study is another in the series of report and studies of the Vela event performed by US intelligence agencies, the national labs, and contractors.
June 1978	Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Special Projects Division, 'Proliferation Group Quarterly Report, January – March 1978' This issue includes an extract from a recent study on Pakistan and two highly technical articles relating to on-going research to identify the signatures of high explosives used for the implosion method of nuclear detonation. It also includes a report that utilized open literature and classified intelligence, including two satellite photographs, the purpose of the article is to illuminate how the South African Government intended to use the site, down to the depth and thickness of the bore holes.
July 1978	Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, US Director of Central Intelligence, 'South Africa’s Nuclear Options and Decisionmaking Structure' Memo reports that during the period the Carter administration was putting pressure on South Africa to avoid the nuclear weapons route, but the analysts suggested that even if the South Africans signed the NPT and accepted IEAE safeguards they would continue to pursue a “covert program.”