1980s.两国潜在的核协同作用、可追溯到 20 世纪 70 年代中期的广泛的定期军事伙伴关系、1979 年在南大西洋上空进行核试验的迹象、20 世纪 80 年代两国在火箭研发和试验方面的合作，以及 1993 年披露的 20 世纪 70 年代末氧化铀和氚的双边贸易，都助长了人们对两国核交易的猜测。也许最令人震惊的指控是由记者西摩-赫什（Seymour Hersh）首先提出的，他在 1991 年出版的《萨姆森方案》（Samson Option）中再次披露了以色列向南非提供现成核武器的承诺。赫什还报道了以色列为谈判进入南非核试验场所做的努力。1 赫什关于提供核武器的说法最近得到了一名前南非海军高级军官的证实。
除了这些报道和南非对铀和氚交易以及 20 世纪 80 年代导弹代码开发的承认之外，以色列和南非官员一直坚决否认在核武器技术或试验方面进行过合作。由于缺乏有关试验和武器转让指控的确凿证据，也难以获得新的证据，因此，以色列和南非官员一直否认在核武器技术或试验方面进行过合作。
由于缺乏有关试验和武器转让指控的确凿证据、难以获得新的证据以及这些指控的严重性，防扩散学者和专家几乎没有在专业文献中提及这些报告，更不用说分析其重要性了。
3 然而，南非档案馆新近公布的一份核政策文件--有史以来第一份公开的文件--要求重新审视这些指控。4 1975 年 3 月，参谋长向南非国防军总司令提交了一份长达三页的备忘录，建议购买 "杰里科 "导弹。该备忘录指出，核弹头要么 "从其他地方购买"，要么在本国制造，并一度提到要购买 "杰里科武器系统"，好像它是一个综合的核弹头导弹。5 虽然似乎从未进行过此类转让，但该文件提供了 "烟雾弹 "证据，证明以色列至少在 1975 年初曾提出向南非出售现成的杰里科导弹。该文件还在一定程度上证实了与会者关于以色列提供弹头以及以色列有意在南非进行试验的报道。
此外，1975 年的备忘录还揭示了南非的核决策和核思维。它表明南非军方对核武器的兴趣比以往认识到的更大更早。购买核武器的理由与后来决定推进南非本土核武器计划的理由不同。当时，南非并没有将核武器作为威慑苏联支持的常规军队威胁南非边境的手段，而是将其视为威慑拥有中国提供的核武器的黑人民族主义 "恐怖组织 "的手段。参谋长认真地提出了这一警告，这表明南非军方当时在威胁信息方面的潜力。
备忘录还可能为南非政治领导层何时决心获取核武器的争议提供线索。6 作为去核的论据，备忘录假定南非尚未做出去核的决定。但是，以色列提供仅用于核运载的导弹这一事实可能表明，它事先已经注意到比勒陀利亚对核能力感兴趣的迹象。
最后，南非与以色列核武器交易的新证据支持了比勒陀利亚效仿以色列追求核威慑的假设。
本文总结了有关南非与以色列高度秘密的核合作关系的不断积累的证据。第一部分详细描述了 1975 年的备忘录，并回顾了在核武器转运、核材料与核技术、运载系统和试验方面合作的零散证据。7 第二部分分析了备忘录中有关南非军事和政治对获取核武器的兴趣的时间和程度的线索。第三部分分析了备忘录中关于获取杰里科武器系统的战略理由，以及它所表明的比勒陀利亚的威胁感和战略思维。文章最后简要讨论了与核武器扩散有关的理论和政策教训，并回顾了一些更为紧迫的问题，以供今后重新研究这一仍不明确的战略伙伴关系。
以色列-南非核外交与合作
合作
新解密的南非文件（见附录 1）虽然证明了以色列在 1975 年 3 月之前已经向南非提供了具有核能力的杰里科导弹，但其本身并没有提供其他形式核合作的确凿证据。但是，阅读这份文件时应结合其他有关以色列-南非核交易的证据，其中一些证据是新近获得的。前南非海军官员迪特尔-格哈特（Dieter Gerhardt）最近披露了一份可追溯到那一时期的导弹转让协议，他更有理由认为这些导弹将配备核武器。西摩-赫什（Seymour Hersh）早些时候曾报道过以色列线人阿里-本-梅纳什（Ari Ben-Menashe）的说法，称以色列曾承诺向南非提供核武器，并寻求在南非进行核试验。这份文件增强了格哈特的可信度，而他关于提供弹头的说法反过来又增强了本-梅纳什的可信度。这些拼图
相互促进，共同构成了一个重要的核扩散交易（尽管从未完成）的画像。
西摩-赫什（Seymour Hersh）关于弹头提议的线人本-梅纳什（Ben-Menashe）是以色列前军事情报雇员。根据本-梅纳谢的说法，国防部长埃泽尔-魏兹曼在 1977 年上任后不久就前往南非讨论以色列-南非联盟的状况。他的前任西蒙-佩雷斯没有向他通报情况，因为当时工党和利库德集团之间的关系极为紧张。当魏茨曼从南非返回时，他对惊讶的幕僚说："我们已经答应给这些家伙核弹头了。"8 然而，本-梅纳谢的叙述在防扩散专家文献中几乎没有讨论过。除了指控的严重性，以及以色列冒着与美国特殊关系的风险转让核武器似乎难以置信之外，赫什的唯一消息来源在这一点上的可信度也值得怀疑。除了以色列政府试图诋毁本-梅纳谢--声称他不过是一名低级雇员--赫什本人也承认本-梅纳谢 "不断修饰 "的倾向。但赫什也发现，本-梅纳什的许多说法都得到了独立的证实，表明他实际上接触过以色列的高度机密。
最近，前南非海军准将迪特尔-费利克斯-格哈特描述了以色列提供核导弹的情况，这是以色列国防部长西蒙-佩雷斯和南非总理约翰-福斯特于 1974 年 11 月签署的以色列和南非之间绝密协议的一部分。据格哈特称，"该文件......涉及两国之间的共同防御条约，根据该条约，两国将在战时通过从其应急库存中提供备件和弹药来协助对方"。整份文件由时任国防部长 P.W. 博塔分发，供包括格哈特在内的高级官员审阅。格哈德称
协议中还有一个非常重要的项目，包括从以色列向南非供应现成的杰里科[1]导弹。还有一个代号为 "Bur- glar "的项目，涉及联合研制远程弹道导弹。大部分资金本应由以色列提供。协议中最让我气愤的[项目]叫做'木屋'。在其框架内，以色列同意用所谓的'特殊弹头'装备八枚杰里科[1]导弹。我问参谋长那是什么意思，他告诉我那是显而易见的：原子弹。
格哈特曾是南非海军的一名高级军官，担任南非武器采购机构 Armscor 与总参谋部之间的联络员。虽然格哈特从未正式参与过核武器项目，但他的职位却为他提供了一个观察先进武器研发的有利位置，包括后来作为主要核运载平台的制导滑翔炸弹、南非核试验场的准备工作以及以色列与南非之间蓬勃发展的军事合作。格哈特还为莫斯科从事间谍活动，复制并传递了大量有关南非和盟国军事能力的情报。
1975 年的备忘录证实了格哈特关于一枚导弹的说法，在一定程度上支持了格哈特和 Ben-Menashe 关于也提供了弹头的说法，从而使这两个消息来源具有普遍可信性。该备忘录是写给南非国防军（SADF）总司令雨果-亨德里克-比尔曼上将的，并由前空军司令、时任南非国防军参谋长的雷蒙德-富拉顿-阿姆斯特朗中将签署：
在考虑所提供的这种武器系统的优点时，我们做了某些假设：
a. 导弹将配备在 RSA[南非共和国]制造或从其他地方获得的核弹头。
b. 导弹具有可接受的架设寿命，即在相当长的储存年限内保持稳定和可操 作。
备忘录接着说明了需要核威慑的理由，并讨论了替代核运载系统，最后包括
尽管购买即使数量有限的 JERICHO 武器系统导弹也需要相当大的费用，但考虑到在可预见（原文如此）的未来，RSA 面临的潜在威胁，拥有这样一个系统将大大增强我们从实力地位进行谈判的能力。
尽管备忘录中并未指明所提供导弹的来源，但显然是以色列，该国拥有唯一已知的名为 "杰里科 "的导弹。备忘录中规定的 500 公里（-km）射程与以色列 "杰里科 1 号 "导弹的估计射程相吻合。16 备忘录中提到的 "可观的费用 "和 "给出的报价 "表明以色列政府提出了一个具体的建议，而不仅仅是一个探索性的建议。
提到 "用南非共和国制造的核弹头 "武装导弹的方案，表明以色列了解南非的核爆炸研究计划。但令人惊讶的是，对于在本土生产进口导弹弹头的关键问题，如预计的完工时间表或弹头的质量和尺寸，却没有进行更多的讨论。南非总理约翰-沃斯特于 1973 年或 1974 年授权开发和平核炸药，据称是用于民用采矿，并在卡拉哈里沙漠钻探了一个地下试验场。但据铀浓缩项目负责人回忆，当时该项目最终能否成功仍存在不确定性。18 1975 年初，南非的铀浓缩项目距离生产出任何高浓缩铀还有三年时间，距离生产出足够用于制造核弹的浓缩铀还有四年多时间。19 在对弹头的近期可用性没有信心的情况下，建议采购昂贵的核运载系统似乎相当冒险和矫情。
从 "其他地方 "获取弹头的备选方案没有明确说明来源。但除了以色列之外，南非没有其他可信的核武器供应国。此外，上述引文中提到所需的核弹头是 "杰里科武器系统"，这强烈暗示了杰里科导弹已经确定了弹头。20 备忘录没有具体讨论格哈特所描述的以色列为杰里科导弹提供 "特殊弹头 "的 "木屋 "建议。但阿姆斯特朗在备忘录中提到 "从别处获得 "的弹头，反映出他对这一建议的认识是可信的。阿姆斯特朗提及国产弹头或外国弹头可能是由于不确定以色列国产弹头的相对成本，或不确定该提议是否成立。
总之，1975 年 3 月的备忘录清楚地表明，以色列向南非提供了 "杰里科 1 号 "导弹，可能是在 1974 年底或最迟在 1975 年 3 月。关于提供弹头的证据则不那么确凿：本-梅纳谢的说法、格哈特关于 "木屋 "项目 "特殊弹头 "的报告以及 1975 年备忘录中提到的 "杰里科武器系统 "弹头，既可以在本国制造，也可以 "从其他地方获得"。格哈特的记忆力似乎非常敏锐，因此我判断，即使以色列从未向南非转让过弹头，也极有可能提出过这样的提议。
以色列的核技术是否曾转让给南非，这一点仍然不太清楚。1993 年，F.W. 德克勒克总统宣称："南非从未从其他国家获得核武器技术或材料，也未向任何其他国家提供过任何此类技术或材料，或与其他国家在这方面进行过合作。"21 负责指导拆除工作的原子能部高级官员沃尔多-斯通普夫（Waldo Stumpf）回忆说，在此前的一次内部讨论中，长期担任国防部长的马格努斯-马兰（Magnus Malan）将军告诉德克勒克，情况确实如此。在随后的多次采访中，参与该项目的南非核官员一致否认有任何蓄意的技术合作。用一位知识渊博、直言不讳的科学家/管理者的话来说就是
......技术团队没有与任何外国人接触过，无论是以色列人还是其他国家的人。我们也不知道与任何其他国家有任何核爆炸/武器方面的合作....。只有在 20 世纪 80 年代启动太空计划时，Armscor 的导弹开发项目人员才与以色列（和其他国家）的人员有过接触。但直到核武器计划终止，我们都从未与外界合作进行核武器的设计和研发。
该计划的规定只允许南非出生的公民进入核武器设施。此外，以色列的钚武器技术与南非简单的高浓缩铀设计并不相关。23 1993 年，南非披露了一项已解散的核武器计划，这显然令国际原子能机构和大多数其他外国专家感到满意，因为该计划和核武库虽然依赖大量敏感的两用进口产品，但并未得到外国或科学家的蓄意帮助。
然而，这个问题不应被视为已经结束，因为该计划的 "需要知道 "安全政策完全可以将技术或科学转让相提并论。共享技术并不比提供导弹或弹头更严重地违反防扩散准则。此外，各种情报评估和参与者的承认--尽管零碎而模糊--暗示了更多的东西。一份部分解密的 1979 年中央情报局（CIA）报告称，"以色列人......在过去几年中参与了南非的某些核研究活动"，而 1983 年的另一份报告则承认："......关于南非核研究的证实信息很少：
......有关南非-以色列核合作的证实信息很少。鉴于以色列的总体技术专长和南非的铀资源及浓缩技术，双方都可以为对方的核武器计划做出贡献。[简短段落已删节。]尽管如此，我们仍未确认设备或技术转让的再端口。
Herman J. Cohen，1987-1988 年任国家安全委员会非洲主任，1989-1993 年任负责非洲事务的助理国务卿。
27 前南非国防军总司令（1980-1985 年）康斯坦-维尔约恩将军向记者承认，"我们想从任何可能的人那里获得核知识，包括以色列"。
1994 年，一份泄露的法庭秘密判决书显示，1977 年，南非从以色列秘密进口了 30 克氚，代号为 "茶叶"（南非荷兰语 teeblare），同时出口了 600 吨氧化铀。该审判是秘密进行的，涉及一名退休的南非空军飞行员，他负责运送这批货物，后来被指控勒索矿业部长 S.P. "法尼 "博士（Dr. S.P. "Fanie"）（后洗脱罪名）。
S.P. "Fanie" Botha 博士勒索他认为应得的款项。根据判决书，这些交易是由情报局长亨德里克-范登贝格将军和法尼-博塔精心策划的，并得到了沃斯特总理和原子能委员会主任 A.J. "Ampie" Roux 博士的批准。这很可能是宾亚明-布隆伯格，他从 20 世纪 50 年代末到 1981 年一直担任 LAKAM（国防部科学联络局的希伯来语缩写）的负责人。LAKAM 负责技术逻辑间谍活动，并为以色列的核武器计划提供安全保障。
虽然判决书中没有提及，但曾帮助佛斯特政府巩固与以色列关系的南非新闻部长 Eschel Rhoodie（见脚注 10）也了解 "茶叶 "交易。Rhoodie 后来回忆说，1979 年他流亡巴黎时，范登贝尔赫将军紧急来访，担心 Rhoodie 会泄露敏感信息。范登贝尔赫 "特别关注购买某些'茶叶'的情况，在一份由（外交部长）布兰德-富里签署、沃尔斯特批准的绝密文件中提到了这一点、
我记得我乘坐了将'茶叶'运到南非的同一架飞机 "31。
以色列方面泄露与南非的核交易的情况更为罕见，也更为模糊。莫迪凯-瓦努努（Mordechai Vanunu）是一名核技师，曾泄露以色列迪莫纳反应堆的秘密技术信息（并因此于 1986 年被监禁 18 年），他声称迪莫纳的员工去过南非，南非的核科学家也访问过迪莫纳：
就像我们描述苏联参与和控制阿拉伯国家给以色列带来的生存危险一样，他们也谈到了苏联在南非周边的立足点。他们的结论与我们相同：为了抵御这些危险，必须发展强大的进攻能力，包括核能力。显然，我们与他们在各个领域都有深入的合作。我们一直在寻找一个能够为我们的项目提供足够投资的国家，以便能够独立地开展这些项目。伊朗国王下台后，我们与南非的[合作]大幅增加。西蒙-佩雷斯是这一概念的创始人，这一概念最终涵盖了许多领域。
虽然比勒陀利亚从未从以色列获得现成的杰里科导弹或核弹头，但它的核运载系统显然严重依赖以色列的技术。20 世纪 80 年代，Armscor 制造的核武器采用的主要运载系统是一种名为 H2 的电视制导空对地滑翔炸弹。34 与此同时，南非与以色列在 20 世纪 80 年代的导弹合作朝着中程弹道导弹的发展方向迈进。1987 年，Armscor 公司通知南非内阁，它可以根据以色列的设计制造一种导弹，"可以在 300 码内击中内罗毕的目标"，距离南非约 2500 公里。36 部分解密的 1989 年
36 一份部分解密的 1989 年中央情报局报告称，20 世纪 80 年代初在南非 "观察到了弹道导弹发展的准备迹象"。"有大量证据表明以色列与南非的启动计划有关；因此，不能排除从特拉维夫向比勒陀利亚直接转移导弹部件的可能性。然而，[文本节录的]分析表明，南非可能生产了用于 7 月发射的固体发动机"。
核试验是南非-以色列核合作中另一个被长期怀疑的方面，它可能有助于解释 20 世纪 70 年代初以色列向比勒陀利亚出售杰里科导弹的提议。虽然外交风险很高，但以色列进行核试验有其军事技术动机，这是获得对先进的低当量战场核武器和热核触发器的信心所必需的。一些研究以色列核态势的专家认为，1973 年赎罪日战争中几乎失败的打击导致特拉维夫寻求战术核选择。38 以色列在南非或南非附近进行的低当量试验可能不会被发现，或者最坏的情况是被声称是南非 "和平核爆炸 "计划的杰作。本-梅纳谢（Ben-Menashe）也声称以色列在南非寻求核试验场地，格哈特（Gerhardt）和 1975 年备忘录加强了本-梅纳谢对以色列提供核武器的指控。据赫什报道，本-梅纳什认为，以色列的两位国防部长--1974 年的摩西-达扬和 1976 年的西蒙-佩雷斯--曾秘密前往比勒陀利亚，讨论以色列在南非进行核试验的可能性。他说，佩雷斯获得了进行联合核试验的原则承诺。本-梅纳谢关于提供弹头的说法得到了格哈特的支持，因此他关于试验的说法也得到了加强。赫什还引述了另一位不愿透露姓名、"对以色列核政策有第一手了解 "的以色列前官员的话，称南非的自然资源和核 "试验场 "是鼓励以色列进行军事核试验的诱因。
"试验场 "是军事合作的诱因。
39 比勒陀利亚是否考虑过允许以色列使用卡拉哈里试验场是未来研究的一个问题。根据南非官方的说法，1974 年选择并批准该试验场的唯一目的是测试南非的和平核设施。
当时正在开发的和平核爆炸技术。试验场地的披露发生在原子能委员会准备于 1977 年 8 月在试验场地进行 "模拟试验（模拟试验爆炸的所有活动）时，在此期间将安装仪器拖车、仪器电缆和所有其他设备"。40 尽管这次演习发生在足够的高浓缩铀准备好进行实际核试验的整整两年之前，但这似乎不太可能是以色列为实际试验所做的准备，因为这很难瞒过在场的南非人员。41 然而，一些关于以色列人在试验场的媒体报道提出了以色列是否可能是卡拉哈里试验场的预定客户的问题。
1977年8月，美国和其他大国发现了南非卡拉哈里沙漠的地下试验场，并迫使比勒陀利亚放弃该试验场。1979 年 9 月 22 日黎明前，美国的一颗维拉卫星在南非南部海域上空观测到了双闪光，表明发生了 2-4 千吨级的核大气层爆炸。尽管白宫委托的一个专家小组判断维拉卫星的数据可能是一个故障或 "动物园事件"，但美国中央情报局、国防情报局、洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室和海军研究实验室（探测到一致的水声信号）都认为核试验确实发生了。南非尚未生产出足以引爆核装置的裂变材料，也缺乏制造这种 "清洁 "和低当量炸弹的技术能力。由于没有其他已知的核大国或核门槛国家既有动机又有能力进行这样的试验，因此怀疑主要落在了以色列身上。
除了获得铀和试验场地，以色列向比勒陀利亚提供核导弹的另一个动机可能是经济上的。上文引用的塔米尔以及阿姆斯特朗提到的获取杰里科武器系统的 "可观成本 "都暗示了这一目标。出售尖端武器系统或技术可以补偿以色列的研发成本。
通过虚张声势地提出核转让方案，以色列本可以诱使南非购买杰里科导弹或其他武器系统和技术。1974 年盟约之后的军火交易中，以色列向南非的军事出口高达数十亿美元。
当然，核武器技术或核试验转让的披露会给特拉维夫与华盛顿之间的特殊关系带来严重风险。尽管尼克松政府对核扩散问题相当漠不关心，但在 1974 年 4 月印度进行 "和平核爆炸"（PNE）试验后，美国国会以及后来的福特和卡特政府都采取了更为强硬的防扩散立场，1976 年 6 月的《赛明顿修正案》、1977 年的《格伦修正案》（该修正案切断了对进行核试验的无核武器国家的外援）以及 1978 年的《核不扩散法案》45 就是明证。1977 年 8 月关于卡拉哈里试验场的争论也可能改变了以色列的盘算，因为它排除了在南非进行地下试验的可能性。如果以色列真的在 1974 年认真地向南非提出了核导弹计划，那么它可能会因为来自沃什英顿的风向转变而收回成命。这将成为美国防扩散政策的一个重要成功案例。然而，比勒陀利亚也有可能发现，随着南非本土核能力的逐步成熟，以色列的要价太高了。
获取核武器的政治和军事兴趣的起源
阿姆斯特朗 1975 年的备忘录是最早明确证明武装部队或南非政府其他部门对获取核武器本身感兴趣的证据。1971 年，南非矿业部长批准了一项和平利用核爆炸物的研究计划，该计划表面上是为了挖掘港口、开凿地下储油洞穴、破碎坚硬岩石以方便采矿等商业目的。随着理论研究的完成，沃斯特总理于 1974 年批准了南非的核爆炸项目。
开发核装置和试验场地。但就此事撰写过文章或接受过采访的核科学家、将军和内阁成员都表示，他们直到 1977 年才意识到任何明确的武器目标。受 F.W. de Klerk 委托于 1989-1990 年对该项目进行审查的南非核官员找不到任何文件证据，证明在此之前曾有过将其武器化的正式决定。46 事实上，1975 年 3 月的文件很可能在 20 世纪 90 年代初的核政策文件系统性销毁中幸存了下来，因为它早于核武器项目的正式启动时间。47 当然，也有可能是高层领导在将正式决定写入文件并通知下属之前就已下定决心要获得核武器，而 PNE 项目只是一个方便的幌子。这也就解释了为什么表面上是商业性的 PNE 项目保密工作如此严密。但是，由于沃斯特核决策的秘密性和个性化，我们很难确定一个更早的转折点。
1975 年的阿姆斯特朗备忘录为这一历史谜团提供了一些新的线索。然而，这些证据是间接的、模棱两可的。一方面，备忘录在论证获取核武器能力时，隐含地假定政府尚未决定这样做。到 1975 年 3 月，南部非洲发展共同体参谋长显然还未被告知任何关于发展核武器的事先决定，无论该决定是否已经做出。事实上，这份备忘录显然是由杰里科提议引发的，而且没有一处提到南非的核基础设施，这表明参谋长们事先可能对南非自己的核爆炸项目知之甚少，甚至一无所知。
另一方面，以色列向比勒陀利亚提供具有核能力的导弹表明，沃斯特和/或国防部长 P.W. 博塔当时已经对核武器能力产生了浓厚的兴趣。很难想象以色列向南非提供核弹头导弹，甚至是没有实际替代用途的非武装导弹，而南非政府事先却没有表现出任何兴趣。如果以色列向南非提供带有 "特殊弹头 "的核导弹的消息泄露出去，那将会在外交上造成极大的损害。
对以色列来说，如果没有任何理由期望比勒陀利亚会积极响应，就不可能冒外交损失的风险。更有可能的情况是，沃斯特和/或博塔已经向他们的以色列同行表示了对核武器的兴趣，然后（正如格哈特所描述的那样）要求 SADF 领导层对以色列随后提出的建议做出回应。
备忘录还表明，SADF 高层对核武器的兴趣早于人们所认识到的。除参谋长外，战略研究主任也是一名核问题专家。备忘录中关于 "需要核威慑 "的论点明确基于另一项仍未公布的 "战略研究主任最近的研究"，其中 "得出的结论是，对皇家空军的直接和/或间接核威胁已发展到在相对短期内......构成真正危险的地步 "48。
目前尚不清楚 1975 年阿姆斯特朗和战略研究部主任对这一问题的关注程度。在 1972 年的一次重要战略演说中，比尔曼上将曾含蓄地暗示了在南部非洲进行核威慑的必要性："......成功保卫南半球的先决条件是，基于核恐怖和对核战略升级的恐惧的威慑战略也应适用于这一地区"。在美国的全球遏制努力中被忽视的，"......只有南部非洲和周边海洋被剥夺了这一威慑保护伞，西方在那里的先期存在出现了真空"。比尔曼的结论是："我们必须说服西方，共产主义对南半球的渗透是对西欧和自由世界其他国家的直接威胁。"但他的另一个结论是南非需要自己的核武器。
即便如此，其他高级将领显然也没有游说政府获取核武器。1976 年中期接替阿姆斯特朗担任 SADF 参谋长的杰克-达顿（Jack Dutton）将军不记得当时有任何关于 1975 年备忘录、杰里科导弹或核武器的讨论。
尽管如此，阿姆斯特朗备忘录仍表明，军方（至少是少数有政治背景的军官）对核武器计划的支持要比之前想象的更大更早。
威胁认知、战略和战略效仿
阿姆斯特朗获取核导弹的理由与后来为该计划辩护的论据有所不同。后来的战略家们关注的主要情况是苏联支持的安哥拉和古巴军队攻击安哥拉-纳米比亚边境，或苏联支持的军队从莫桑比克入侵南非。南非的核能力旨在阻止此类威胁的发生，如果威慑失败，南非的战略家们就会以披露、试验或使用核能力相威胁，试图迫使美国出面干预以制止冲突。
相比之下，阿姆斯特朗备忘录并未提及任何苏越或苏联代理威胁。1975 年 3 月，苏联武器首次运抵安哥拉，阿姆斯特朗可能并不知情，而古巴军队也要再过几个月才能部署到安哥拉。相反，阿姆斯特朗设想的威胁是解放组织或军队的核攻击，而战略则是纯粹的威慑。"恐怖分子组织或非统组织'解放军'等具有非洲身份的敌人有可能向我们申请并发射战术核武器。中国似乎是最有可能参与此类冒险的核大国。"54 此外，西方大国的援助也不可指望，东西方缓和、多极化、核扩散（以 1974 年 4 月印度核试验为标志）以及 "不同的利益和政治制度 "55 都破坏了西方大国的团结。
备忘录中关于获取核武器的战略理由与后来强调的杠杆作用不同，侧重于直接威慑："如果人们普遍知道俄联邦拥有核武器，而且如果我们被发现，我们就会使用它。
56 备忘录附有一张地图，显示了杰里科导弹从罗得西亚或纳米比亚（当时由南非控制）发射时的打击范围，包括安哥拉和莫桑比克的首都。然而，备忘录没有解释南非的核武器如何威慑 "恐怖分子"，因为他们很难被定位并成为核报复的目标。57 核威慑对前线国家比对苏联更有效，因为对后者使用核武器将是杀鸡用牛刀。事实上，备忘录的作者在提到 "从强势地位 "进行谈判时，可能已经考虑到了核能力的某些胁迫性用途。
虽然对战略的讨论很粗略，但对威胁的评估只能用偏执来形容。除了声称 "恐怖主义、现代革命理论和红赤主义所蕴含的心理学并不排除对南非共和国使用核武器 "之外，备忘录没有解释中国为什么会转让核武器，南非黑人民族主义者为什么会考虑对自己的国家使用这种毁灭性武器。59 但是，尽管备忘录将这一威胁描述为 "相对短期内 "的威胁，南非的军事情报机构并没有将中非对比勒陀利亚的核威胁进行重新定位。尽管南非领导层中的一些人后来确实担心古巴或苏联可能对南非军队或领土进行化学、生物或核威胁或使用核武器，但我无法找到任何一份公开发表的有关南非核武器或安全政策的分析报告，甚至连这一想法都未曾考虑过。
前 Armscor 官员安德烈-布伊斯（André Buys）博士曾在古巴军队部署到安哥拉后负责比勒陀利亚的核采购工作，并在 20 世纪 80 年代初帮助制定了正式的杠杆战略，他认为在 1975 年 "相对短期内 "对南非进行核威胁的想法是 "疯狂的"。"64 同样奇怪的是，虽然备忘录强调 "在相对较短的时间内......存在真正的危险"，但其开头却有一个明确的前提，即 "导弹具有可接受的架设寿命，即在相当长的年限内，导弹在储存过程中仍能保持稳定和正常工作"。65 除非这一前提纯粹是出于预算方面的考虑，否则它表明人们意识到所设想的威胁确实非常遥远。威胁的不可靠性和未经审查的可疑假设揭示了当时 SADF 高层人士的战略分析质量普遍低下。
1975 年，由于缺乏真正的威胁和战略计算上的缺陷，促使人们产生了这样的疑问：至少在阿姆斯特朗看来，是否存在未说明的动机或逻辑来推动核武器的发展。如果阿姆斯特朗认为南非国防军有机会从原子能委员会手中夺取南非核燃料研究项目的控制权，那么他并没有在备忘录中透露太多有关该项目知识。南非国防军领导人在组织结构上可能会抵制一项新计划，因为该计划与其传统的反叛乱任务相去甚远，而且可能会对其预算造成巨大消耗。这一解释与 SADF 内部除阿姆斯特朗和战略研究主任外明显缺乏对这一提议的了解和支持是一致的。66
如前所述，以色列的杰里科建议意味着国防部长已经对核武器采购产生了兴趣。今天，我们仍然没有直接证据证明总理或国防部长在这一时期的核思维。但有许多因素使我们有理由假定，他们对核武器的兴趣是由于一种冲动而加强的。
以色列。我在下文中简要回顾了这些因素，并不是要断然论证效仿以色列的行为确实发生了，而是要论证在这个问题上有足够的间接证据值得进一步研究。
国际效仿是一种未得到充分研究的现象，但先前的研究已经阐明了有利于效仿的条件。根据结构现实主义，国家面临着模仿外国成功军事模式的强大安全激励。例如，这就解释了为什么明治日本和拉丁美洲国家在 19 世纪末会引进欧洲的军事技术和组织模式67 。68 寻求声望也会促使效仿，因为弱国和穷国会寻求强国和富国所认同的地位象征--无论是效率低下的国家航空公司还是核武库。70 与其说核武器是威望的象征，不如说它是安全的护身符，其价值既取决于孤立国家对成功的军事创新者和盟友的钦佩，也取决于严格的战略计算。
20 世纪 70 年代中期，南非效仿以色列核态势的条件已经成熟。几十年来，南非一直被北方白人统治的殖民地所隔绝，既缺乏真正的安全威胁，也因此缺乏大量的战略研究专家。1980 年至 1993 年担任国防部长的马格努斯-马兰（Magnus Malan）曾在莱文沃思堡（Fort Leavenworth）的外国军官课程中接触过一些核战略，但他说自己对这一问题既不特别感兴趣，也不是这方面的专家，在决定获取核武器时也没有向他咨询过。
他自称是南非唯一研究核战略的人。72 因此，南非领导人倾向于向国外寻求战略专业知识和理论来源也就不足为奇了。多产的法国陆军将军和作家安德烈-博弗尔（André Beaufre）就是一个颇具影响力的来源。他根据法国在印度支那和阿尔及利亚的经验提出的反革命战争 "总体战略"，在 20 世纪 60 年代末被南非国防军讲师介绍到南非（未来的国防部长马格努斯-马兰（Magnus Malan）也参加了讲课），到 20 世纪 70 年代中期，这些战略已经渗透到军事院校的课程中。
73 国防部长（后任总理）博塔热衷于阅读博弗尔的著作，并多次与他会面。从 1973 年起，他在公开演讲和国防部的官方战略声明中越来越多地使用博弗尔的术语74。
以色列是军事成功的典范，在 1973 年之前多次击败数量更多的阿拉伯军队。南非精英也认为以色列在关键方面与南非相似。保守的南非白人认为自己和以色列人都是偏远、落后、充满敌意地区的文化文明前哨。这两个国家都是在 20 世纪从残酷的独立战争中崛起的。两国的军事力量都很有限，都缺乏一个强有力的靠山，而且都因统治被剥夺权利的少数民族而受到国际批评。例如，在 1977 年的一次国家党国会演讲中，这位国防部长认为南非 "正越来越多地朝着以色列国自 1948 年以来的方向发展 "76。在 1999 年一次关于南非获取核武器原因的采访结束时，他自发地提出了以色列的话题，并强调了他对以色列的钦佩和过去的支持。
保密显然是效仿的一个障碍，尽管以色列的核能力在 20 世纪 70 年代中期已众所周知，但以色列的不透明政策限制了公众对其核计划的了解。然而，南非与以色列之间的新安全联盟
然而，南非和以色列之间的新安全联盟涉及核导弹和裂变材料（氚换铀）的高层秘密会谈，显然还包括核弹头和试验，以及广泛的常规军事交易。国家元首和国防部长之间的秘密会议为以色列领导人向南非领导人传递战略思想提供了机会。国防部长西蒙-佩雷斯（Shimon Peres）曾于 1974 年 11 月与沃尔斯特和 P.W. 博塔谈判缔结军事同盟，他也是以色列核武器计划的主要推动者，很可能是核建议的传递者。
以色列领导人甚至可能向南非同行大肆宣扬核威慑，因为他们似乎一直在寻找杰里科导弹的客户、南非境内或附近的核试验场以及铀矿石的来源。南非购买以色列氚的轶事是以色列领导层扮演这一角色的间接证据。据报道，进口以色列氚的想法并非来自原子能委员会，而是来自矿业部和一位与以色列有广泛交往的情报局长。由于这些人不可能独立了解氚的军事和科学应用，他们可能是被以色列官员告知了氚的价值。80
南非核决策的另外三个方面也暗示了仿效过程。第一份已知的南非获取核威慑力量的官方建议--阿姆斯特朗备忘录--是针对以色列提出的 "JERICHO 武器系统 "和以色列-南非联盟的出现而提出的。此外，南非在 20 世纪 80 年代初通过的正式核战略设想利用核泄露、试验或使用的威胁来撬动美国和英国的援助，这与以色列为在 1973 年战争中获得援助而对美国进行核讹诈的报道如出一辙。即使以色列核讹诈的故事是天方夜谭，在国外也广为流传。
82 第三，南非追随以色列的脚步，在 20 世纪 80 年代发展了核导弹方案，尽管这种能力对于最终采取的核杠杆战略来说用处不大。
对未来研究的影响和问题
对于核扩散的供应方和需求方理论而言，这里都有宝贵的经验教训。在供应方面，以色列提供基于法国技术的杰里科导弹，凸显了非常规武器二级供应商的问题。1975 年的备忘录首次确凿证实以色列向南非提供了杰里科导弹，而且显然是现成的。它还为参与者的说法提供了支持，即以色列要么提出提供核弹头，要么提出了这种交易的可能性。一个被西方普遍认为是负责任的核大国，原来很可能已经认真考虑过成为核供应国。
这只是一系列更广泛的核扩散援助案例中的一个，尽管显然是失败的。在 20 世纪 50 年代中期，加拿大向印度出售了一个生产钚的反应堆，并由美国用重水对其进行了进一步加工：中国向巴基斯坦出售核武器技术（包括弹头设计），巴基斯坦向伊朗、朝鲜和利比亚出售核武器技术。
85 二线和三线核武器国家继续分享核武器技术：中国向巴基斯坦提供核武器技术（包括弹头设计），巴基斯坦向伊朗、朝鲜和利比亚提供核武器技术。1975 年的阿姆斯特朗备忘录指出了武器的成本问题，从而表明这对以色列来说是一个重要的激励因素。87 1977 年 4 月，西蒙-佩雷斯还安排向伊朗出售 "杰里科 1 号 "导弹，但这笔交易因 1979 年的伊朗核问题而告吹。
88 如前所述，以色列对秘密核试验的兴趣可能也是其愿意向比勒陀利亚出售杰里科导弹的原因。如果真如 Ben-Menashe 和 Gerhardt 所说，以色列也曾向比勒陀利亚提供过核弹头，那么这就提出了一个重要的问题，即为什么以色列从未向比勒陀利亚提供过核弹头。以色列是否虚情假意地提出转让核弹头的可能性，以吊起比勒陀利亚对昂贵的杰里科交易的胃口？或者，如果这是一个认真的提议，南非是否因为觉得成本太高而放弃了，尤其是在其本土核武器能力不断发展的情况下。比勒陀利亚决定利用以色列的技术发展自己的导弹生产能力，而不是按照 1975 年阿姆斯特朗备忘录的建议购买现成的导弹，这显然是在寻求自力更生。另一种可能是，以色列注意到美国从 20 世纪 70 年代中期开始日益反对核扩散，因此收回了提议，如果交易曝光，可能会危及美国的援助。这将凸显核不扩散机制的历史重要性，以及美国和其他国家对潜在核供应国施加压力的持续价值。
和其他方面对潜在核供应国施加压力的价值。
由于 1975 年备忘录中设想的威胁十分遥远，而且其安全论据也很不可靠，因此现实主义安全需求方对各国为何寻求核武器的解释在此并未获得新的支持。1974 年 4 月，葡萄牙政府垮台，安哥拉和莫桑比克的白人殖民统治随即解体，尽管这些国家不可能对南非形成强大的军事力量，但这很可能会让一些南非决策者感到担忧。然而，阿姆斯特朗作为参谋长的成功以及当时大多数其他将军似乎都对核武器兴趣不大，这一事实表明这种影响非常有限。
在没有现实威胁的情况下，外国提供的先进导弹促使高级官员建议购买核武器，这一事实说明了另外两个历史原因
的假设。其一是技术机遇触发了核扩散决策；这与比勒陀利亚在 1977 年正式决定制造核武器是一致的，当时制造核武器的能力近在咫尺。另一种说法是，效仿在南非对核威慑的兴趣中发挥了作用。这种影响所带来的政策教训显而易见：核扩散比平衡激励所暗示的更有可能像滚雪球一样越滚越大。这些解释的证据仍然是间接的--考虑到有关南非决定制造核武器的信息很少，这并不令人吃惊。但它们值得研究人员进一步关注。
本文的分析还提出了几个有关南非决策的问题。1974 年 4 月的葡萄牙政变是否引发了安哥拉和莫桑比克的独立？1974 年 11 月与以色列的谈判是否包括关于核威慑的讨论，这些讨论是否提高了南非高层对核武器的兴趣？阿姆斯特朗备忘录的影响是什么；尤其是，比尔曼上将、国防部长博塔和沃斯特总理对此有何反应？拼图中缺失的部分远比已经拼好的部分要多得多。
研究这些问题并非易事。在以色列，其核武器计划的状况，更不用说可能的扩散趋势，仍然是一个禁忌话题，因为这可能会影响以色列与美国的特殊关系，以及以色列邻国对其威胁的看法。新的民主国家南非披露更多有关其核外交和决策的细节所带来的损失要小得多。但是，南非的核政策制定是如此严密，以至于今天还活着的人很少能清楚地了解它。南非政府最初是为了掩盖其共同核武库的存在和位置而制定了旧的保密法，但这些法律仍然有效，使前官员们不愿讨论他们的历史知识。此外，该计划被拆除后，记录被系统性地销毁
限制了未来档案研究的潜在成果。尽管颁布了新的信息自由法，但政府在审查和解密种族隔离时期的文件方面一直有些犹豫不决。尽管 1975 年阿姆斯特朗备忘录的发布应能鼓励研究人员继续寻找新的信息，但政府投入的资 源不足也阻碍了这一进程。
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239555545
Israel and the South African bomb
Article in The Nonproliferation Review · June 2004
DOI: 10.1080/10736700408436966
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Israel and the South African Bomb
PETER LIBERMAN
ne of the more impenetrable questions in nuclear prolifera tion history is the extent and nature of covert Israeli-South African nuclear weapons collaboration in the 1970s and
1980s. Speculation about their nuclear dealings has been fueled by the two nations’ potential nuclear synergies, their extensive conven- tional military partnership dating to the mid-1970s, indications that a nuclear test occurred over the South Atlantic in 1979, their collabo- ration on rocket development and testing in the 1980s, and the 1993 revelation of bilateral trade in uranium oxide and tritium in the late 1970s. Perhaps the most shocking allegation was first leveled by in- vestigative journalist Seymour Hersh, whose 1991 Samson Option re- ported Israeli promises to furnish nuclear weapons, off the shelf, to South Africa. Hersh also reported Israeli efforts to negotiate access to nuclear testing grounds in South Africa.1 Hersh’s claim about the weap- ons offer was recently corroborated by a former high-level South Afri- can naval officer.2
Beside these reports and South African acknowledgments on the uranium and tritium transactions and—in the 1980s—missile codevelopment, Israeli and South African officials have steadfastly denied that collaboration took place on nuclear weapons technology or testing. Because of the lack of hard evidence about the allegations of testing and weapons transfer, the difficulty of obtaining new evi-
dence about them, and their gravity, nonproliferation scholars and experts have barely acknowledged the reports, much less analyzed their significance, in the professional literature.3
However, a newly released nuclear policy document from the South African archives—the first ever to reach the public—calls for a re- newed look at these allegations. 4 Addressed to the Commandant- General of the South African Defence Force from the Chief of Staff, the three-page March 1975 memorandum recommended the acquisi- tion of Jericho missiles. The memorandum stated that nuclear war- heads would be either “acquired elsewhere” or built indigenously, and at one point referred to acquiring the “Jericho Weapon System,” as if it were an integrated, nuclear-tipped missile. 5 Although it appears that no such transfer was ever made, the document provides “smok- ing gun” evidence that Israel had at least offered to sell off-the-shelf Jericho missiles to South Africa by early 1975. It is also lends some credibility to participant reports of an Israeli warhead offer and Israeli interest in testing in South Africa around this time.
In addition, the 1975 memorandum sheds light on South African nuclear decision making and thinking. It indicates greater and earlier military interest in nuclear weapons than has been previously recog- nized. The rationale for acquisition differs from that which justified later decisions to move South Africa’s indigenous nuclear weapons program forward. Instead of being presented as a deterrent against Soviet-backed conventional armies threatening South Africa’s bor- ders, nuclear weapons were conceived as a deterrent against black nationalist “terrorist organizations” armed with Chinese-supplied nuclear weapons. That this alarum was seriously advanced by the Chief of Staff suggests the South African military’s potential for threat infla- tion at the time.
The memorandum also may provide a clue to the controversy over when the South African political leadership resolved to acquire nuclear weapons.6 As an argument for going nuclear, it assumes a de- cision to do so had not already occurred. But the fact that Israel had offered missiles useful only for nuclear delivery could indicate that it had observed prior signs of Pretoria’s interest in a nuclear capability.
Finally, this new evidence of South African-Israeli nuclear weapons dealings supports the plausibility of the hypothesis that Pretoria was emulating Israel in its pursuit of a nuclear deterrent.
This article takes stock of the accumulating evidence on the highly secretive South African-Israeli nuclear partnership. The first section describes the 1975 memorandum in detail and reviews the scattered and fragmentary evidence of collaboration on nuclear weapon trans- fers, nuclear materials and technology, delivery systems, and testing. 7 The second section analyzes the memorandum’s clues about the tim- ing and extent of South African military and political interest in ac- quiring nuclear weapons. The third section provides an analysis of the memorandum’s strategic rationale for acquiring the Jericho weapon system, and what it indicates about Pretoria’s threat perception and strategic thinking. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the theoretical and policy lessons bearing on the spread of nuclear weap- ons, and reviews some of the more pressing questions for future re- search on this still murky strategic partnership.
ISRAELI-SOUTH AFRICAN NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY AND
COOPERATION
The newly declassified South African document (see Appendix 1), while proving that Israel had, by March 1975, offered nuclear-ca- pable Jericho Missiles to South Africa, does not by itself provide con- vincing evidence of other forms of nuclear collaboration. But the document should be read in the context of other pieces of evidence, some newly available, about Israeli-South African nuclear dealings. A missile transfer agreement dating to that period was recently disclosed by a former South African naval official, Dieter Gerhardt, who fur- thermore had reason to think the missiles would be nucleararmed. Seymour Hersh had earlier reported the claims of an Israeli informant, Ari Ben-Menashe, that Israel had promised nuclear weapons to South Africa and sought nuclear testing grounds there. The document bolster’s Gerhardt’s credibility, whose claim about a warhead offer in turn bolsters Ben-Menashe’s credibility. These pieces of the puzzle
thus reinforce each other, and combine into a portrait of a major— albeit never consummated—proliferation deal.
Seymour Hersh’s source on the warhead offer, Ben-Menashe, was a former Israeli military intelligence employee. According to Ben- Menashe, Defence Minister Ezer Weizman traveled to South Africa to discuss the state of the Israeli-South African alliance shortly after taking office in 1977. He had not been briefed by his predecessor, Shimon Peres, because ofextreme antipathy between the Labor and Likud parties at the time. When Weizman returned from South Af- rica, he told a surprised staff, “We’ve promised these guys nuclear war- heads.”8 Ben-Menashe’s account, however, has hardly been discussed in the expert nonproliferation literature. Aside from the gravity of the allegation, and the seeming implausibility that Israel would risk its special relationship with the United States by transferring nuclear weapons, there were reasonable doubts about the credibility of Hersh’s sole source on this point. Aside from the Israeli government’s attempts to discredit him—claiming that he had been nothing more than a low-level employee—Hersh himself acknowledged Ben-Menashe’s tendency “to embellish constantly.” But Hersh also found indepen- dent verification for many of Ben-Menashe’s claims, suggesting he had in fact had access to highly classified Israeli state secrets.9
More recently, former South African Navy Commodore Dieter Felix Gerhardt described an Israeli offer of nuclear-armed missiles, part of a top-secret accord between Israel and South Africa, signed in November 1974 by Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres and South African Prime Minister John Vorster.10 According to Gerhardt, “The document…dealt with a mutual defence pact between the two coun- tries, according to which each would assist the other in wartime by supplying spare parts and ammunition from its emergency stocks.”11 This pact included an agreement for strategic cooperation, to which hundreds of pages of detailed annexes were then negotiated by the military and arms industries. The entire document was circulated by then-Defense Minister P.W. Botha for review by senior officers, in- cluding Gerhardt. According to Gerhardt,
An additional project, a very central one in the agreement, in- cluded the supply of Jericho [1] missiles, off the shelf, from Israel to South Africa. There was another project, code named ‘Bur- glar,’ which dealt with the joint development of a long-range ballistic missile. The bulk of the funding was supposed to be Is- raeli. The [project] that outraged me most in the agreement was called ‘Chalet.’ Within its framework, Israel agreed to arm eight Jericho [1] missiles with what were described as ‘special warheads.’ I asked the chief of staff what that meant, and he told me what was obvious: atomic bombs.12
Gerhardt had been a high-ranking South African naval officer serving as a liaison between Armscor, South Africa’s arms procurement agency, and the General Staff. Although never formally involved in the nuclear weapons program, Gerhardt’s position gave him a good vantage point from which to observe advanced weapons development, including the guided glide bomb that would later serve as the primary nuclear delivery platform, the preparation of the South African nuclear test site, and burgeoning military cooperation between Israel and South Africa. Gerhardt was also spying for Moscow, copying and conveying vast quantities of information about South African and allied military capabilities.13
The 1975 memorandum confirms Gerhardt’s story of a missile of- fer, somewhat supports Gerhardt’s and Ben-Menashe’s stories that warheads were also offered, and hence lends general credibility to these two sources. Addressed to the Commandant-General of the South African Defence Force (SADF), Admiral Hugo Hendrik Biermann, and signed by Lt. General Raymond Fullarton Armstrong, formerly Chief of the Air Force and at that time SADF Chief of Staff, the memorandum opens with the following introduction:
In considering the merits of a weapon system such as that offered, certain assumptions have been made:
a. That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufac- tured in the RSA [Republic of South Africa] or acquired elsewhere.
b. That the missiles have an acceptable rack life, i.e. that they will remain stable and operational while in storage for a considerable number of years.14
The memorandum proceeds to justify the need for a nuclear de- terrent and to discuss alternative nuclear delivery systems, finally con- cluding:
In spite of the considerable cost involved in acquiring even a limited number of missiles with the JERICHO weapon system, in view of the potential threat which faces the RSA in the forseeable (sic) future, the possession of such a system will greatly add to our ability to negotiate from a position of strength.15
The source of the offered missile, though not named in the memorandum, is obviously Israel, which had the only known missile named “Jericho.” The 500-kilometer (-km) range specified in the memorandum matches the estimated range of Israel’s Jericho 1, as it came to be called when follow-on versions appeared. Israel first deployed the Jericho 1 around 1970.16 The memorandum’s references to the “considerable cost” and “the quotation given” indicate that the Israeli government had made a specific proposal rather than just an exploratory suggestion.17
The mention of the option of arming the missiles “with nuclear warheads manufactured in the RSA” suggests an awareness of South Africa’s nuclear explosives research program. But there is surprisingly no additional discussion of issues that would be critical in the indig- enous production of warheads for imported missiles, such as an ex- pected timetable for their completion or warhead mass and size. South African Prime Minister John Vorster in 1973 or 1974 had authorized the development of peaceful nuclear explosives, purportedly for civil- ian mining applications, and the drilling of an underground test site in the Kalahari desert. But the head of the uranium enrichment pro- gram recalls that at the time there was still uncertainty about whether the program would ultimately be successful.18 In early 1975, South Africa’s uranium enrichment program was still three years from pro- ducing any highly enriched uranium at all, and over four years from producing enough for a bomb.19 It would seem rather risky and prema- ture to recommend procuring an expensive nuclear delivery system without confidence in the near-term availability of a warhead.
The alternative option of acquiring warheads “elsewhere” did not specify a source. But there were no other plausible suppliers of nuclear weapons to South Africa besides Israel. Moreover, reference in the quotation above to the desired nuclear warhead as “the JERICHO weapon system” strongly implies a warhead already identified with the Jericho missile.20 The memorandum does not specifically discuss the “Chalet” proposal of Israeli “special warheads” for the Jericho, described by Gerhardt. But it is plausible that the reference to war- heads “acquired elsewhere” reflects Armstrong’s awareness of this of- fer. Armstrong’s mention of domestic or foreign warheads might have stemmed from uncertainty about either the relative cost of Israeli ver- sus domestically produced warheads, or uncertainty about whether the offer would stand.
To sum up, the March 1975 memorandum makes it clear that Israel offered Jericho 1 missiles to South Africa, probably in late 1974 or by March 1975 at the latest. The evidence about a warhead offer is less conclusive: Ben-Menashe’s claim, Gerhardt’s report about Project Chalet’s “special warheads,” and the 1975 memorandum’s references to a “JERICHO weapon system” warhead that could be either built at home or “acquired elsewhere.” Gerhardt’s memory appears very sharp, so I would judge it highly probable that such an offer was made, even if no Israeli warheads were ever transferred to South Africa.
It remains much less clear whether Israeli nuclear technology was ever transferred to South Africa. In 1993, President F.W. de Klerk declared that “at no time did South Africa acquire nuclear weapons technology or materials from another country, nor has it provided any to any other country, or cooperated with another country in this re- gard.”21 Waldo Stumpf, the top atomic energy official who directed the dismantlement effort, recalls a prior internal discussion in which the longtime defense minister, Gen. Magnus Malan, informed de Klerk that this was indeed the case. In numerous subsequent interviews, South African nuclear officials involved in the program have consis- tently denied any deliberate technological collaboration. In the words of a particularly knowledgeable and forthright scientist/manager,
…the technical team had no contact with any foreigners, nei- ther Israelis nor other nationals. We also had no knowledge of any nuclear explosives/weapons cooperation with any other na- tion…. It was only when the space program was launched in the 1980s that Armscor’s missile development program personnel had contact with people in Israel (and other countries). But right up to the termination of the nuclear weapons program we never cooperated with outsiders on nuclear weapons design and devel- opment.22
Program rules allowed only South African–born citizens access to nuclear weapons facilities. The plutonium-based Israeli weapon technology, moreover, would not have been relevant for South Africa’s simple highly enriched uranium design.23 South African revelations in 1993 of a dismantled nuclear weapons program apparently satisfied the IAEA and most other foreign experts that the program and arsenal, while relying on a host of sensitive dual-use imports, was not deliberately aided by foreign nations or scientists.24
The question should not be regarded as closed however, as the program’s “need to know” security policies could well have compart- mentalized technology or scientific transfers. Sharing technology would have been no more egregious a violation of nonproliferation norms than offering missiles or warheads. In addition, various intelligence assessments and participant acknowledgments—albeit fragmentary and vague—suggest something further. A partially declassified 1979 Cen- tral Intelligence Agency (CIA) report states that “Israelis…participated in certain South African nuclear research activities over the last few years,” although another from 1983 acknowledges:
…little confirmed information about South African-Israeli nuclear cooperation. Given Israel’s overall technical expertise and South Africa’s uranium resources and enrichment technology, each side could contribute to the nuclear weapons program of the other. [Brief passage redacted.] Nonetheless, we have no confirmed re- ports of equipment or technology transfer.25
Herman J. Cohen, Africa Director in the National Security Council, 1987-1988, and Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, 1989- 1993, recently recalled, “When I was asked about Israeli cooperation
with the nuclear program” in closed congressional hearings “I answered that we had received good intelligence that it was taking place.”26 The deputy chief of mission at South Africa’s Washington embassy admitted in 1993 that Israel and South Africa had nuclear, as well as conventional, weapons cooperation agreements still in force.27 Former SADF Chief (1980-1985) Gen. Constand Viljoen acknowledged to a reporter that “we wanted to get nuclear knowledge from whoever we could, also from Israel.”28
In 1994, a leaked secret court judgment revealed that South Af- rica had in 1977 secretly imported from Israel 30 grams of tritium, code named “tea leaves” (teeblare in Afrikaans), while exporting 600 tons of uranium oxide. The trial, held in camera, concerned a retired South African Air Force pilot who had ferried the shipments and was later accused (and cleared) of blackmailing the Minister of Mines, Dr.
S.P. “Fanie” Botha, for payments he believed were his due. According to the judgment, the deals were orchestrated by intelligence chief General Hendrik Van den Bergh and Fanie Botha, with the approval of Prime Minister Vorster and of Atomic Energy Board chief Dr. A.J. “Ampie” Roux.29 The judgment identifies the Israeli contact as “Benjamine, a member of the Israeli Council for Scientific Liaison.” This was probably Binyamin Blumberg, who headed LAKAM (a He- brew acronym for the Defense Ministry’s Scientific Liaison Bureau) from the late 1950s until 1981. LAKAM was responsible for techno- logical espionage and providing security for Israel’s nuclear weapons program.30
While not mentioned in the judgment, South Africa’s Secretary of Information Eschel Rhoodie, who had helped the Vorster govern- ment cement ties with Israel (see footnote 10), was also privy to the “tea leaves” deal. Rhoodie later recalled that while in exile in Paris in 1979, he received an urgent visit from Gen. Van den Bergh, worried that Rhoodie might disclose sensitive information. Van den Bergh “was particularly concerned with the purchase of certain cases of ‘tea leaves’ to which reference was made in a top secret document signed by [Secretary of Foreign Affairs] Brand Fourie, approved by Vorster,
and of which I had knowledge… I remember being on the same air- craft which brought the ‘tea leaves’ to South Africa.”31
Leaks on the Israeli side on nuclear dealings with South Africa have been more rare and ambiguous. Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician who disclosed secret technical information about Israel’s Dimona reactor (and was imprisoned in 1986 for 18 years for doing so) claimed that Dimona employees had been to South Africa, and that South African nuclear scientists had visited Dimona.32 And in an unguarded moment, Israeli Major General Avraham (Abrasha) Tamir recalled discussions with a South African military exchange mission in 1977:
In the same way that we would describe the existential dangers facing Israel due to the Soviet Union’s involvement and control over Arab states, they also talked about the Soviet footholds around South Africa. Their conclusion was identical to ours: to defend against these dangers it was necessary to develop an ex- tremely potent offensive capability, including nuclear capability. Obviously we had deep cooperation with them in all spheres. We were looking for a country that could invest enough in our projects so that they could be pursued independently. That [cooperation] increased hugely with South Africa after the fall of the Shah of Iran. Shimon Peres was the progenitor of this conception, which eventually covered a great many areas.33 [emphasis added]
Although Pretoria never did acquire the Jericho missile or nuclear warheads off the shelf from Israel, it clearly did rely heavily on Israeli technology for its nuclear delivery systems. The primary delivery system adopted for the nuclear weapons built by Armscor in the 1980s was a television-guided air-to-surface glide bomb known as the H2. This was apparently based on an Israeli system called “Blue Bat.”34 Meanwhile South African-Israeli missile collaboration in the 1980s progressed toward the development of an intermediate-range ballistic missile. In 1987 Armscor informed the South African Cabinet it could build a missile, based on an Israeli design, which “could hit a target in Nairobi within 300 yards,” about 2,500 km from South Africa.35 A test rocket was launched in July 1989 from the southern cape that flew 1,800 km over the Indian Ocean. 36 A partially declassified 1989
CIA report stated that “signs of preparation for ballistic missile developments were observed” in South Africa in the early 1980s. “Ample evidence exists linking Israel to South African initiary programs; therefore, the possibility of a direct transfer of missile components from Tel Aviv to Pretoria cannot be discounted. However, analysis [text redacted] suggests that South Africa may have produced the solid motors used for the July launch.”37
Nuclear testing is another long-suspected dimension of South African-Israeli nuclear cooperation and might help explain the early 1970s Israeli offer to sell Jericho missiles to Pretoria. Although the diplomatic risks were very high, Israel had a military-technological motive to conduct nuclear testing, which was required for gaining confidence in advanced low-yield battlefield nuclear weapons and thermonuclear triggers. Some experts on Israel’s nuclear posture have argued that the shock of near defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War led Tel Aviv to seek a tactical nuclear option.38 A low-yield Israeli test in or near South Africa might go undetected, or at worst be claimed as the handiwork of South Africa’s “peaceful nuclear explosives” program. Ben-Menashe, whose charge about an Israeli offer of nuclear weap- ons has been subsequently reinforced by Gerhardt and the 1975 memo- randum, also claimed that Israel sought nuclear testing grounds in South Africa. As reported by Hersh, Ben-Menashe held that two Is- raeli defense ministers, Moshe Dayan in 1974 and Shimon Peres in 1976, made secret trips to Pretoria to discuss the possibility of an Is- raeli nuclear test in South Africa. Peres, he says, obtained a commit- ment in principle to conduct joint nuclear tests. To the extent that Ben-Menashe’s story of a warhead offer is bolstered by Gerhardt’s, his claims on testing are also strengthened. Hersh also quoted another unnamed former Israeli official with “firsthand knowledge of Israel’s nuclear policy” specifying South African natural resources and nuclear
“testing grounds” as incentives for military collaboration.39
A question for future research is whether Pretoria had considered allowing Israeli use of the Kalahari test site. According to South Afri- can official accounts, the test site had been chosen and approved in 1974 for the sole purpose of testing South Africa’s peaceful nuclear
explosives technology then under development. The disclosure of the test site occurred as the Atomic Energy Board was preparing for a “dummy run (a simulation of all the activities for a test explosion) on site in August 1977, during which the instrumentation trailers, instru- mentation cables and all other equipment would be installed.”40 Al- though this exercise took place two full years before sufficient highly enriched uranium would be ready to conduct an actual nuclear test, it seems unlikely that this could instead have been preparation for an actual Israeli test, which would have been hard to conceal from South African personnel present.41 However, some media reports of Israeli presence at the test site raise the question of whether Israel might have been an intended customer for the Kalahari test site.42
If so, offshore testing would have been a natural fallback option for Israel after the United States and other powers discovered the South African underground test site in the Kalahari and pressured Pretoria to abandon it in August 1977. A U.S. Vela satellite observed a double flash just before dawn on September 22, 1979, over the ocean south of South Africa, indicative of a 2- to 4-kiloton nuclear atmospheric explosion. Although a White House–commissioned expert panel judged that the Vela data was probably a malfunction or “zoo event,” the U.S. CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and the Naval Research Laboratory (which detected consistent hydroacoustic signals) argued that a nuclear test had in fact occurred. South Africa had not yet produced enough fissile mate- rial to detonate a nuclear device and lacked the technological capa- bility to fabricate such a “clean” and low-yield bomb. Since no other known nuclear power or threshold state had both the incentive and the capability to conduct such a test, suspicion has fallen largely on Israel.43
Besides securing uranium and testing grounds, another motive for Israel to offer nuclear missiles to Pretoria might have been financial. This goal is suggested by Tamir in the quotation above, as well as by Armstrong’s reference to the “considerable cost involved” of acquir- ing the Jericho weapon system. Selling sophisticated weapon systems or technology could have compensated Israel for its development costs.
By dangling a nuclear transfer option, even disingenuously, Israel could have enticed South Africa into buying the Jericho missile or other weapon systems and technology. Arms deals following the 1974 alli- ance amounted to billions of dollars in Israeli military exports to South Africa.44
Of course, disclosure of the transfer of nuclear weapons technol- ogy or of nuclear testing would have posed serious risks to the special relationship between Tel Aviv and Washington. Although the Nixon administration was rather blasé about nuclear proliferation, the U.S. Congress, and later the Ford and Carter administrations, adopted a more forceful nonproliferation stance following the April 1974 In- dian “peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) test, evident in Congress’ June 1976 Symington Amendment, 1977 Glenn Amendment (which cut off foreign aid to non-nuclear-weapon states that conduct nuclear tests), and 1978 Nuclear Nonproliferation Act.45 The August 1977 contretemps over the Kalahari test site might also, by precluding an underground test in South Africa, have altered Israel’s calculations. If Israel had in fact seriously offered nuclear missiles to South Africa in 1974, it might have backtracked in light of shifting winds from Wash- ington. This would have been an important success story for U.S. nonproliferation policy. It is also possible, however, that Pretoria may have found the Israeli price too high as South Africa’s indigenous capability approached fruition.
ORIGINS OF POLITICAL AND MILITARY INTEREST IN ACQUIRING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Armstrong’s 1975 memorandum is the earliest clear piece of evidence of interest from the armed services, or indeed the rest of the South African government, in acquiring nuclear weapons per se. In 1971, the South African minister of mines had approved a research program on peaceful nuclear explosives, ostensibly for commercial purposes such as digging harbors, carving out underground oil storage cavities, and shattering solid rock to facilitate mining. With theoretical re- search complete, Prime Minister Vorster in 1974 authorized the de-
velopment of a nuclear device and a test site. But the nuclear scien- tists, generals, and cabinet members who have written or granted in- terviews on this matter report being unaware of any explicit weapons goal until 1977. The South African nuclear official tasked by F.W. de Klerk to review the program in 1989-1990 could find no documen- tary evidence of an official decision to weaponize it before then.46 Indeed, the March 1975 document probably survived the systematic destruction of nuclear policy documents in the early 1990s because it predated the official launch of the nuclear weapons program.47 It is possible, of course, that the top leadership had resolved to acquire nuclear weapons earlier, before committing a formal decision to paper and informing their subordinates, and that the PNE project was a convenient fig leaf. This would explain the otherwise puzzling tight secrecy surrounding an ostensibly commercial PNE program. But the secretive and personalized nature of Voster’s nuclear decision making has made it difficult to identify an earlier turning point.
The 1975 Armstrong memorandum provides some new clues to this historical enigma. The evidence is indirect and ambiguous, how- ever. On the one hand, in arguing for acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, the memorandum implicitly assumes that the government had not yet decided to do so. The SADF Chief of Staff had obviously not been informed by March 1975 of any prior decision to go nuclear, whether or not one had been made. Indeed, the fact that the memo- randum was apparently sparked by the Jericho offer, and nowhere mentions South Africa’s nuclear infrastructure, suggests that the au- thors may have had little or no prior knowledge South Africa’s own nuclear explosives program.
On the other hand, Israel’s offer of nuclear-capable missiles to Pretoria suggests that Vorster and/or Defense Minister P.W. Botha had already developed a serious interest in a nuclear weapon capability by that time. It is difficult to imagine Israel offering nuclear-tipped mis- siles, or even unarmed ones with no real alternative use, to South Africa without any prior hint of interest on the part of the South African government. A leak of an offer of nuclear-capable missiles with “special warheads” would have been too diplomatically damag-
ing for Israel to risk without any reason to expect Pretoria to be recep- tive. More likely, Vorster and/or Botha had already indicated to their Israeli counterparts an interest in nuclear weapons and then (as Gerhardt has described) asked the SADF leadership for a response to the ensuing Israeli offer.
The memorandum also indicates earlier high-level interest in the SADF in nuclear weapons than has been recognized. In addition to the Chief of Staff, the Director of Strategic Studies was a nuclear ad- vocate. The memorandum’s argument for “the need for a nuclear de- terrent” is explicitly based upon another, still-unreleased “recent study made by the Director of Strategic Studies” in which “the conclusion was reached that a direct and/or indirect nuclear threat against the RSA has developed to the point of being a real danger…in the rela- tively short term.”48
It is unclear how much beyond Armstrong and the Director of Strategic Studies this interest went in 1975. In a major 1972 strategy speech, Admiral Biermann had alluded obliquely to the need for nuclear deterrence in Southern Africa: “…it is a prerequisite for the successful defence of the Southern Hemisphere that the deterrent strat- egy based on nuclear terror and the fear of escalation should also be applicable in this region.” Overlooked in U.S. global containment efforts, “…[i]t is only southern Africa and the surrounding oceans that are deprived of this deterrent umbrella and where there is a vacuum in Western prior presence.” Biermann concluded that “we must per- suade the West that Communist penetration into the Southern Hemi- sphere is a direct threat to Western Europe and the rest of the Free World,” but an alternative conclusion to his argument would have been that South Africa needed its own nuclear weapons.49 It remains unknown whether Biermann advocated acquiring a nuclear deter- rent within the SADF or to Cabinet.50
Even so, other top generals apparently did not lobby the govern- ment to acquire nuclear weapons. Gen. Jack Dutton, who succeeded Armstrong as SADF Chief of Staff in mid-1976, did not recall any discussion of the 1975 memorandum, Jericho missiles, or nuclear weap- ons at the time.51 Gen. Magnus Malan, SADF chief from 1976 to
1980, and other top generals have claimed they were not consulted in Vorster’s decision to acquire nuclear weapons.52 Still, the Armstrong memorandum indicates that there was greater and earlier support in the military, at least from a few politically connected officers, for a nuclear weapons program than had been previously thought.
THREAT PERCEPTIONS, STRATEGY, AND STRATEGIC EMULATION
Armstrong’s rationale for acquiring nuclear missiles differed from the arguments used later to justify the program. The main scenario that preoccupied later strategists was an attack by Soviet-backed Angolan and Cuban troops on the Angolan-Namibian border, or a Soviet-backed invasion of South Africa from Mozambique. A South African nuclear capability was intended to deter such threats from materializing, and if the deterrent failed, South African strategists aimed to try to black- mail the United States into intervening to halt the conflict by threat- ening to disclose, test, or utilize its nuclear capability.53
In contrast, the Armstrong memorandum did not refer to any So- viet or Soviet proxy threat. Soviet arms were just arriving for the first time in Angola in March 1975, perhaps unbeknownst to Armstrong, and it would be several more months before Cuban forces were de- ployed there. Rather, the threat envisaged was of a nuclear attack by a liberation organization or army, and the strategy one of pure deter- rence. “There is a danger that an enemy assuming an African identity such as terrorist organizations, or a OAU ‘liberation army’ could ac- quire and launch against us a tactical nuclear weapon. China appears to be the most likely nuclear power to associate herself with such an adventure.”54 Moreover, aid could not be counted on from Western powers, whose solidarity had been undermined by East-West détente, multipolarity, nuclear proliferation (marked by the April 1974 Indian nuclear test), and “divergent interests and political systems.”55
The memorandum’s strategic rationale for acquiring nuclear weap- ons, in contrast to the subsequent emphasis on leverage, focused on direct deterrence: “Should it become generally known that the RSA possesses a nuclear weapon and that we would use it if we were sub-
jected to a nuclear attack, such a deterrent strategy could be used as a positive weapon in our defence.”56 Accompanying the memorandum was a map showing the Jericho missile’s striking range if launched from Rhodesia or Namibia (then under South African control), in- cluding the capitals of Angola and Mozambique. The memorandum, however, neglected to explain how South African nuclear weapons would deter “terrorists,” who would have been difficult to locate and target for nuclear retaliation. Presumably, the aim would be to deter host nations from harboring “terrorist” forces that might consider at- tacking South Africa with nuclear weapons.57 Nuclear deterrence would have been more effective against frontline states than against the So- viet Union, since nuclear use against the latter would have been sui- cidal. Indeed, the memorandum’s author may have had some coercive uses of the nuclear capability in mind when referring to negotiating “from a position of strength.”
While the discussion of strategy was cursory, the threat assessment can only be described as paranoid. Besides a claim that “the psychol- ogy underlying terrorism, modern revolutionary theory and Red Chi- nese doctrine would not preclude the use of nuclear weapons against the RSA,” the memorandum provided no explanation of why China would transfer nuclear weapons, nor why black South African na- tionalists would consider using such devastating weapons against their own country.58 Admiral Biermann had, a few years earlier, expressed concerns over Chinese support for anticolonialism and development in Central and East Africa since the early 1960s.59 But, although the memorandum described the threat as one developing in the “rela- tively short term,” South African military intelligence had not re- ported a Sino-African nuclear threat against Pretoria.60 I have been unable to find a single published analysis of South African nuclear weapons or security policy that even considered the idea, though some in the South African leadership did later fear the possibility of Cuban or Soviet chemical, biological, or nuclear threats or use against South African troops or soil.61 There was no sign of Armstrong’s concerns in the Defence Minister’s reports to Parliament in either 1973 or 1975.62
According to former Armscor official Dr. André Buys, who sup- ported Pretoria’s nuclear acquisition after the deployment of Cuban troops in Angola and who helped develop the formal leverage strat- egy in the early 1980s, the idea in 1975 of a nuclear threat against South Africa in the “relatively short term” was “crazy.”63 Other Armscor officials characterize this notion as “a typical example of the extreme paranoiac frame of mind of some individuals in the Defence Force at the time.”64 It is also curious that while the memorandum emphasizes “a real danger…in the relatively short term,” it begins with the ex- plicit premise that “the missiles have an acceptable rack life, ie that they will remain stable and operational while in storage for a consid- erable number of years.”65 Unless this premise reflects purely budget- ary concerns, it demonstrates an awareness that the threat envisaged was indeed a very remote one. The implausibility of the threat and unexamined questionable assumptions reveal a generally poor quality of strategic analysis by high-ranking individuals in the SADF at the time.
The lack of a real threat and the lacunae in strategic calculation in motivating acquisition of nuclear weapons in 1975 raises the ques- tion of whether there were unstated incentives or logics for going nuclear, at least on the part of Armstrong. If Armstrong saw an oppor- tunity for the SADF to wrest control of South Africa’s nuclear explo- sives research program from the Atomic Energy Board, he did not betray much knowledge about this program in the memorandum. SADF leaders would have faced organizational incentives to resist a new program so far removed from their traditional counter-insurgency missions and potentially entailing a large drain on their budgets. This interpretation is consistent with the apparent lack of knowledge and support within the SADF for this proposal beyond Armstrong and the Director of Strategic Studies. 66
As mentioned earlier, the Israeli Jericho proposal implies that the Defense Minister had already developed an interest in nuclear weap- ons acquisition. We have today still no direct evidence about nuclear thinking in this period on the part of the prime minister or defense minister. But a number of factors make plausible the hypothesis that their interest in nuclear weapons was reinforced by an impulse to
emulate Israel. I review these factors briefly below, not to argue con- clusively that emulation occurred, but to argue that there is enough circumstantial evidence for this issue to warrant further research.
International emulation is an understudied phenomenon, but prior research has elucidated conditions conducive to it. In accordance with structural realism, states face strong security incentives to emulate for- eign military models of success. This explains, for instance, the impor- tation in the late 19th century by Meiji Japan and Latin American nations of European military technologies and organizational mod- els.67 Emulation is especially likely to occur in states lacking strong indigenous expertise, or in those having recently suffered major policy failures. States are likely to emulate the policies of “role models” that are viewed as similar and as successful, and those with whom they have frequent interactions.68 Prestige-seeking can also prompt emula- tion, as weaker and poorer states seek the status symbols—whether inefficient national airlines or nuclear arsenals—identified with stron- ger and richer ones.69 But nuclear prestige does not appear to have been a strong attraction for Pretoria, which—like Israel—kept its bombs hidden away in the basement where they could impress neither do- mestic nor foreign audiences.70 Rather than being badges of prestige, nuclear weapons may have been regarded as a security talisman, the value of which was decided as much by an isolated state’s admira- tion for a successful military innovator and ally as by rigorous stra- tegic calculation.
The conditions for South African emulation of Israel’s nuclear posture were ripe in the mid-1970s. Insulated for decades by white- ruled colonies to the north, South Africa lacked both real security threats and, as a consequence, lacked a substantial community of stra- tegic studies experts. Magnus Malan, Defense Minister from 1980 to 1993, had some exposure to nuclear strategy during a foreign officer course at Fort Leavenworth, but says he was neither particularly inter- ested in nor expert on the subject, nor was he consulted in the deci- sion to acquire nuclear weapons.71 Dr. L.D. “Niel” Barnard, chief of National Intelligence from 1980 to 1992, had written a dissertation on nuclear strategy and describes himself as the only person in South
Africa who had studied it. But he did not join the government until the program was already under way, and even then was not involved in high-level nuclear discussions or decision making until the mid-1980s.72 Thus it is not surprising that South African leaders tended to look abroad for sources of strategic expertise and theory. One influential source was the prolific French Army General and writer André Beaufre. His “total strategy” for counterrevolutionary war, based on the French experience in Indochina and Algeria, was introduced to South Africa in the late 1960s by SADF lecturers (with future Defence Minister Magnus Malan in attendance), and by the mid-1970s they permeated military college courses.73 Defense Minister (and later Prime Minister)
P.W. Botha avidly read Beaufre’s works and met with him several times. He incorporated Beaufre’s terminology into his public speeches and into the Defence Ministry’s official strategy statements increasingly from 1973 onward.74
Israel was a model of military success, having by 1973 repeatedly defeated more numerous Arab armies. South African elites also viewed Israel as being similar to South Africa in key respects. Conservative white South Africans viewed themselves and the Israelis as culturally civilized outposts in remote, backward, and predominantly hostile regions. Both states had emerged in the 20th century from brutal wars of independence. Both had limited military manpower, lacked a su- perpower patron, and faced international criticism over their domi- nation of disenfranchised ethnic groups.75 P.W. Botha expressed his empathy with Israel on numerous occasions. For instance, in an Au- gust 1977 National Party congressional speech the defense minister argued that South Africa was “moving more and more in the direc- tion in which the state of Israel has already been since 1948.”76 At the end of a 1999 interview about South Africa’s reasons for acquiring nuclear weapons, he spontaneously raised the subject of Israel and emphasized his great admiration and past support for it.77
Secrecy is an obvious impediment to emulation, and although Israel’s nuclear capability was common knowledge by the mid-1970s, Israel’s policy of opacity limited public information about its program. However, the new security alliance between South Africa and Israel
involved high-level confidential talks over nuclear missiles and fissile materials (tritium for uranium), and apparently nuclear warheads and testing as well, along with a wide range of conventional military deals. Covert meetings between the heads of state and defense ministers offered the opportunity for the transmission of strategic ideas from Israeli to South African leaders. Defense Minister Shimon Peres, who had negotiated the military alliance with Vorster and P.W. Botha in November 1974, and who had been a prime mover behind Israel’s nuclear weapons program, would have been a likely conduit of nuclear advice.78 Tamir’s recollection of frank discussions about nuclear deter- rence with his South African counterparts in 1977, quoted above, appears to indicate the presence of nuclear matters on the agenda between the two states.79
Israeli leaders may even have hyped nuclear deterrence to their South African counterparts, as they appear to have been seeking cus- tomers for the Jericho missile, nuclear test sites in or near South Af- rica, and a source of uranium ore. A bit of circumstantial evidence for the Israeli leadership in this role is an anecdote about South Africa’s acquisition of Israeli tritium. Reportedly, the idea for importing Israeli tritium came not from the Atomic Energy Board, but from the minis- ter of mines and from an intelligence chief with extensive dealings in Israel. Since these individuals were unlikely to have independent knowledge of tritium’s military and scientific applications, they might have been informed of its value by Israeli officials. 80
Three additional aspects of South Africa’s nuclear decision mak- ing are suggestive of emulation processes. The first known official South African proposal for acquiring a nuclear deterrent, the Armstrong memorandum, occurred in response to Israel’s offer of the “JERICHO weapon system” and the advent of the Israeli-South African alliance. In addition, the formal nuclear strategy that was adopted by South Africa in the early 1980s, which envisioned using the threat of nuclear disclosure, testing, or use to leverage U.S. and British assistance, re- sembles Israeli’s reported nuclear blackmail of the United States in order to obtain aid in the 1973 war. Even if the story of Israeli nuclear blackmail is apocryphal, it was widely believed abroad.81 South Afri-
can nuclear officials were aware of it, and it may have influenced their strategy.82 Third, South Africa followed in Israel’s footsteps by devel- oping a nuclear missile option in the 1980s, even though such a capa- bility was of marginal use for the nuclear leverage strategy ultimately adopted.
IMPLICATIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
There are valuable lessons to be drawn here, both for supply-side and demand-side theories of nuclear proliferation. On the supply side, the Israeli offer of the Jericho missile, based on French technology, high- lights the problem of second-tier suppliers of unconventional weap- ons. The 1975 memorandum provides the first hard confirmation that Israel offered Jericho missiles to South Africa, apparently off the shelf. It also provides support for participant accounts claiming that Israel either offered to furnish nuclear warheads along with them, or dangled the possibility of such a deal. A state widely thought in the West to be a responsible nuclear power turns out, probably, to have seriously con- templated becoming a nuclear supplier.
This is just one, though apparently abortive, instance of a broader set of cases of proliferation assistance. In the mid-1950s, Canada sold a plutonium-producing reactor to India, which the United States fur- nished with heavy water.83 The Soviet Union provided important ini- tial assistance to China’s quest for nuclear weapons.84 France sold the Dimona nuclear reactor and a reprocessing plant to Israel.85 Second- tier and third-tier nuclear weapon states have continued to share nuclear weapons technology: China to Pakistan (including warhead designs) and Pakistan to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.86
Motives have varied, but export profits are a common incentive. By noting the costliness of the weapons, the 1975 Armstrong memo- randum suggests this was a significant incentive for Israel. Israel would not have had the kind of balance-of-power incentives for aiding South Africa that motivated Soviet assistance to China and Chinese assis- tance to Pakistan.87 Shimon Peres also arranged in April 1977 to sell Jericho 1 missiles to Iran, in a deal that was derailed by the 1979
overthrow of the Shah.88 As discussed earlier, Israel’s interest in secret nuclear tests might also explain its readiness to sell Jerichos to Pretoria. If it is true, as Ben-Menashe and Gerhardt have claimed, that Israeli nuclear warheads were offered to Pretoria as well, this raises important questions as to why the offer never came to fruition. Was the possibility of a warhead transfer disingenuously dangled to whet Pretoria’s appetite for a costly Jericho deal? Or, if it was it a serious offer, did South Africa take a pass because it found the cost too high, particularly as its own indigenous nuclear weapons capacity devel- oped. A quest for self-reliance is evident in Pretoria’s decision to de- velop its own missile production capability using Israeli technology, rather than acquire off-the-shelf missiles as recommended in the 1975 Armstrong memorandum. Alternatively, Israel might have retracted the offer as it observed growing U.S. opposition to nuclear prolifera- tion from the mid-1970s, which might have jeopardized U.S. aid had the deal been exposed. This would underline the historical impor- tance of the nonproliferation regime, and the ongoing value of U.S.
and other pressure on potential nuclear suppliers.
The realist security demand-side explanation for why states seek nuclear weapons does not gain new support here, due to the remote- ness of the threat envisaged in the 1975 memorandum and the flimsi- ness of its security arguments. The April 1974 collapse of the Portuguese government, with prompt ramifications for the dissolution of white colonial rule in Angola and Mozambique, could well have concerned some South African policy makers, despite the unlikelihood that these states could ever project significant military power against South Af- rica.89 The memorandum also indicates a somewhat greater receptiv- ity to nuclear deterrence on the part of the South African military than previously realized. However, the fact that Armstrong’s succes- sor as chief of staff and most other generals at the time appear not to have taken much interest in nuclear weapons suggests this effect was very limited.
The fact that the offer of advanced, foreign-supplied missiles prompted high-level officials to recommend nuclear acquisition, in the absence of a realistic threat, suggests two additional historical hy-
potheses. One is that technological opportunity triggers proliferation decisions; this would be consistent with Pretoria’s formal decision to build nuclear weapons in 1977, when the capability to do so was just within reach. An alternative is that emulation played a role in South Africa’s interest in nuclear deterrence. The policy lessons of such an effect are obvious: that nuclear proliferation has an even greater ten- dency to snowball than balancing incentives would imply. The evi- dence for these interpretations remains circumstantial—unsurprising considering the paucity of information about the South African deci- sion to build nuclear weapons. But they deserve further attention by researchers.
The analysis presented here raises several additional questions about South African decision making. Did the April 1974 Portuguese coup, which initiated the independence of Angola and Mozambique, send waves of panic through the military leadership? Did the Novem- ber 1974 negotiations with Israel include discussions about nuclear deterrence, and did these heighten high-level South African interest in nuclear weapons? What was the impact of the Armstrong memo- randum; in particular, how did Admiral Biermann, Defense Minister Botha, and Prime Minister Vorster react to it? The missing pieces of the puzzle remain far more numerous than the ones that have fallen into place.
Research on these questions will not be easy. The status of its nuclear weapons program, not to mention possible proliferation ven- tures, remains a taboo subject in Israel, due to its potential impact on Israel’s special relationship with the United States and on threat per- ceptions on the part of its neighbors. The new democratic South Af- rica has much less to lose from disclosing additional details about its nuclear diplomacy and decision making. But South African nuclear policy making was so closely held that few individuals alive today have a clear understanding of it. Old secrecy laws, originally imposed by a state determined to conceal the existence and location of a co- vert nuclear arsenal, remain on the books, discouraging former offi- cials from discussing their historical knowledge. Moreover, the systematic destruction of records after the program was dismantled
limit the potential fruitfulness of future archival research. Despite a new freedom of information law, the government has been somewhat hesitant to review and declassify Apartheid-era documents. The short- age of resources committed by the government has hampered this process as well, though the release of the 1975 Armstrong memoran- dum should encourage researchers to continue to seek new information.90
1 Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), pp. 264-276.
2 Ronen Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience,” Ha’aretz, April 7, 2000.
3 The main works providing and analyzing new information about the program are David Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50 (July-August 1994); Mark Hibbs, “South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Program: From a PNE to Deterrent,” Nuclear Fuel 18 (May 10, 1993); Mark Hibbs, “South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Program: The Dismantling,” Nuclear Fuel 18 (May 24, 1993); Peter Liberman, “The Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” Interna- tional Security 26 (Fall 2001); Frank V. Pabian, “South Africa’s Nuclear Weapon Program: Lessons for Nonproliferation Policy,” Nonproliferation Review 3 (Fall 1995); Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear Capabilities (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995), pp. 7-44. The key participant accounts are Hannes Steyn, Richardt van der Walt, and Jan van Loggerenberg, Armament and Disarmament: South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Experience (Pretoria: Network Publishers, 2003); Waldo Stumpf, “South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme,” in Kathleen C. Bailey, ed., Weapons of Mass Destruction: Costs versus Benefits (Delhi: Manohar, 1994).
4 The document had been requested, as part of a larger nuclear history project, by the South African History Archive (SAHA) under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) of 2000. SAHA is based at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg; particulars about SAHA and its nuclear history program can be accessed at <http://www.wits.ac.za/saha/>.
5 The document was released in September 2003 to SAHA, which had requested nuclear policy documents under the PAIA of 2000.
6 For example, Helen E. Purkitt, Stephen F. Burgess, and Peter Liberman, “Correspondence: South Africa’s Nuclear Decisions,” International Security 27 (Summer 2002).
7 In addition to the published literature, this article draws on interviews and correspondence with former South African officials.
8 Quoted in Hersh, Samson Option, p. 276.
9 Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 322-324. In 1997 Hersh was quoted as saying that Ben-Menashe “lies like people breathe”; Ian MacLeod, “Agent Ari,” Ottowa Citizen, April 6, 2002.
10 Gerhardt reports the agreement being signed in Geneva; see Bergman, “Treasons of Con- science.” In a November 22, 1974, letter (marked “top secret”) from Peres to Eschel Rhoodie, South Africa’s Secretary of Information, Peres thanked him “for the great efforts you employed to ensure the success of the meetings which took place in Pretoria on the 13th and 14th of this month.” He goes on to say “that a vitally important cooperation between our two countries has been initiated. This cooperation is based not only on common interests and on the determination to resist equally our enemies, but also on the unshakeable foundations of our common hatred of injustice….I am convinced that the new links which you have helped to forge…will develop into a close identity of aspirations and interests which will turn out to be of longstanding benefit to both our countries.” The letter is reproduced in Eschel Rhoodie, The Real Information Scandal (Pretoria: Orbis, 1983), p. 117.
11 Quoted in Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience.” Hersh reports, citing an anonymous Israeli
official, that “Weizman signed an agreement before the 1979 tests calling for the sale to South Africa of low-yield 175mm and 203mm nuclear artillery shells…trigger[ing] an internal dispute with senior nuclear officials.” Hersh, Samson Option, p. 276.
12 Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience.” I have made a few corrections to the Ha’aretz article text, based on a September 2000 interview with Gerhardt. Gerhardt told me that Bergman confused “Jericho 2” with “Jericho 1,” and he also stated that Chalet was a separate proposed “project” rather than a “clause” of the Israeli-South African alliance. Gerhardt also suspected some kind of nuclear application of a 155-millimeter (-mm) artillery cannon, developed by Israel and South Africa (using a patent held by the Canadian scientist Gerald Bull). To gain some additional information, Gerhardt states that he “sent an ostensibly innocent letter to the chief of staff, suggesting that the Defence Force turn the Bull project to non-conventional use. But he replied that this has already been taken care of by the Israelis and South Africans.” Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience.” Hersh describes Israeli development of this capability in the early 1970s; Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 216-217, 220.
13 Gerhardt was arrested by the U.S. CIA in 1983, convicted of treason, and imprisoned in South Africa, but released by F.W. de Klerk in 1990 and subsequently pardoned by Nelson Mandela; Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience.”
14 Memorandum dated March 21, 1975, Lt. Gen. R.F. Armstrong, “The Jericho Weapon System,” SADF HS/11/4/34, top secret, declassified September 25, 2003 (SAHA reference no. AL 2878, A 3.1.1, 1975), p. 1. The memorandum is in English, which is not uncommon as South African government records alternated in this period between English and Afrikaans. There is a barely legible, unsigned Afrikaans annotation on the first page of the document, which appears to be “Begrotings,” or budgets.
15 Ibid., pp. 1, 3.
16 “The accuracy indicated by the supplier is acceptable if the missile is armed with a nuclear warhead (500m at 500km),” Ibid., p. 3. On the Jericho1 and 2, see Seth Carus and Dov Zakheim, “North Africa/Israel,” in Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, ed., Report, Appendix III: Unclassified Working Papers, (Washington DC: GPO, 1988); Non-Prolifera- tion Project Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Missile Proliferation/World Missile Chart/Israel, <http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/numbers/israel.asp>; Intelligence Resource Pro- gram Federation of Atomic Scientists, Missile Proliferation/Israel, <http://fas.org/nuke/guide/ israel/missile/index.html>; Dinshaw Mistry, Containing Missile Proliferation: Strategic Technology, Security Regimes, and International Cooperation in Arms Control (Seattle: University of Washington, 2003), pp. 110-113.
17 Armstrong, “Jericho Weapon System,” p. 3.
18 W.L. Grant, interview by author, Pretoria, January 28, 1999; Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” p. 52.
19 David Albright, “South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Weapons,” ISIS Report 1 (May 1994), p. 7; Stumpf, “South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme,” p. 70; Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 8, 11.
20 In the one other instance the phrase “JERICHO weapon system” appears, besides in the title and the above quotation, it is less clear whether it refers to a missile, a warhead, or both. There is also a reference to “JERICHO missiles.”
21 F.W. de Klerk, “Speech on the Nonproliferation Treaty to a Joint Session of Parliament, March 24, 1993,” Joint Publications Research Service, Proliferation Issues, March 29, 1993.
22 Dr. André Buys, correspondence with author, April 2004; in the late 1970s Buys was Head of the Nuclear Engineering Sub-division of the Reactor Engineering Division (responsible for the Peace- ful Nuclear Explosives Program) of the Atomic Energy Board. Buys has also been a proponent of controlled declassification of South African nuclear history; see his “Statement on Secrecy and Disclosure About South Africa’s Past Nuclear Weapons,” Conference on Unlocking South Africa’s Nuclear Past, University of the Witwatersrand, July 31, 2002,” <http://www.wits.ac.za/saha/ nuclearhistory/conf/contrib.htm>. Similar statements were made by the top South African atomic energy and armaments officials after the disclosure of the program; for example, in “S. Africa
Denies Nuclear Cooperation with Israel,” Reuters, July 13, 1994.
23 Although, South Africa did conduct basic research into more advanced thermonuclear designs until 1986; Reiss, Bridled Ambition, p. 25.
24 Some of the imports are described in Pabian, “South Africa’s Nuclear Weapon Program.”
25 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Director of Central Intelligence, The 22 September 1979 Event, December 1979, secret document partially released July 1990; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, New Information on South Africa’s Nuclear Program and South African- Israeli Nuclear and Military Cooperation, March 30, 1983, secret document partially released May 7, 1996, <http://www.foia.ucia.gov>.
26 Herman J. Cohen, correspondence with author, November 9, 1999.
27 Ibid., p. 26.
28 From a Ha’aretz article discussed in “S. African Officials Confirm Nuclear Arms Aid in the ‘80s,” Chicago Tribune, April 21 1997, p. 7. This article also reported a more ambiguous statement by South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad about Israeli-South African military-scientific coop- eration. Gen. Viljoen subsequently decided not to give additional interviews concerning the South African nuclear weapons program.
29 Court of South Africa, Cape Province Division (Judge J. Friedman), The State versus Johann Philip Derk Blaauw, Case no. 270/87, Top Secret, September 9, 1988, pp. 16-25.
30 Albright, “South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Weapons,” p. 5; William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. 450-452; Hersh, The Samson Option, 205.
31 Rhoodie, The Real Information Scandal, pp. 522-524. While Rhoodie’s book was published in 1983, the meaning of “tea leaves” became clear only with the leak of the Blaauw judgment. Rhoodie also recalled that, together with only five to six people in South Africa, he “knew most, if not all of the country’s strategic secrets and its secret programmes concerning other states.” These secrets were sensitive enough that, when informed by French police that foreign agents were looking for him, Rhoodie observed that “now some of these countries, and perhaps even South Africa, had appar- ently sent a ‘hit team’ to get me because they were afraid I might talk about top secret matters.” Ibid., p. 551. Rhoodie died in 1993, Van den Bergh in 1997.
32 Vanunu did not claim to have been informed of the purpose of the Israelis’ visits to South Africa; Yoel Cohen, Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Vanunu, and the Bomb (New York: Holmes & Meier, 2003), pp. 200, 81, 306, cf. also p. 4. In this context it is worth noting the report that Wouter Basson, the head of the South African chemical and biological warfare program (“Project Coast”), told U.S. investigators that he learned a method of breeding a “stealth” anthrax strain from Israeli govern- ment scientists and that he and a colleague had made extended trips to Israel in the 1980s. See Joby Warrick “Biotoxins Fall Into Private Hands: Global Risk Seen In S. African Poisons,” Wash- ington Post, April 21, 2003; Page A1.
33 The exchange mission included Dieter Gerhardt, who was the focus of Tamir’s interview; Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience.”
34 Dieter Gerhardt, interview with author. See also Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience”; Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” p. 54; Steyn, et al., Armament and Disarmament, p. 74.
35 W.N. Breytenbach, deputy defense minister 1987-1990, interview by author, Fish Hoek, South Africa, August 18, 1999.
36 On the South African rocket series and its origins, see Albright, “South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Weapons,” pp. 15-16; Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” p. 54; Mistry, Containing Missile Proliferation, pp. 84-88; Steyn, et al., Armament and Disarmament; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Africa Review-South Africa: Igniting a Missile Race?, secret document, December 8, 1989, partially released April 27, 1997, <http://www.foia.ucia.gov>; L.J. Van der Westhuizen and J.H. le Roux, Armscor: A Will to Win (Bloemfontein: Institute for Contemporary History, University of the Orange Free State, 1997), pp. 179-180; Mark Wade, “RSA-3,” Encyclopedia Astronautica, <http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/rsa3.htm>.
37 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (Directorate of Intelligence), Africa Review-South Africa. See
also R. Jeffrey Smith, “Israel Said to Help S. Africa on Missile,” Washington Post, October 26, 1989. The deputy defense minister at the time recalls that it was an Israeli missile, one of several tested; Breytenbach, interview by author.
38 Avner Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis Under Secrecy: Israel and the Lessons of the 1967 and 1973 Wars,” in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz, eds., Planning the Unthinkable: How New Nuclear Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell Univer- sity Press, 2000), pp. 121-122.
39 Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 264-265. A South African press report attributed additional information about the Vela incident to Gerhardt, but Gerhardt says he was incorrectly named as the source. Gerhardt, interview by author; Albright and Gay, “A Flash from the Past.”
40 Steyn, et al., Armament and Disarmament, p. 41. See also Stumpf, “South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme,” pp. 67-70.
41 On South Africa’s HEU production, see Memorandum of March 21, 1975, pp. 1, 3. Cold laboratory tests were conducted by mid-1977; Steyn, et al., Armament and Disarmament, p. 41.
42 Hersh claims the CIA had intelligence that “Israeli military personnel, in civilian clothes, were all over the Kalahari test site.” Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 268, 271. Another journalist reported that kosher meals were frequently prepared for visitors there; Peter Hounam, The Woman from Mossad: The Story of Mordechai Vanunu and the Israeli Nuclear Program (London: Vision, 1999), pp. 115-116.
43 David Albright and Corey Gay, “A Flash from the Past,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 53 (November- December 1997); U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Director of Central Intelligence, The 22 September 1979 Event; Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 10-11. Hersh also cited unnamed former Israeli government officials, saying that the flash Vela detected was a test of an Israeli low-yield artillery shell, actually the third in a series of tests observed by Israeli military men and nuclear experts, accompanied by a South African naval contingent. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 271.
44 Bergman, “Treasons of Conscience”; Gerhardt, interview with author.
45 Peter Clausen, Nonproliferation and the National Interest: America’s Response to the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 100-154; Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 209-215. On the laxity of U.S. nonproliferation pressure on other democracies, see Glenn Chafetz, “The Politi- cal Psychology of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” Journal of Politics 57 (August 1995). For analyses of probable U.S. reactions to various potential Israeli nuclear disclosures, see Yair Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), pp. 163-170; Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), pp. 211- 233; Shai Feldman, “U.S. Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy: Implications for U.S.-Israeli Relations,” Israel Affairs 2 (Spring-Summer 1996).
46 Stumpf, “South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme,” p. 69. On the question of dating weaponization, see Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” pp. 50-53; Purkitt, et al., “Correspondence,” pp. 191-192. According to Steyn et al., the new prime minister, P.W. Botha, “established a cabinet committee to oversee the military aspects of nuclear devices. At a meeting held on 31 October of [1978], it was decided that Armscor, the Defence Force and the Atomic Energy Board should start to work together intimately and prepare a program to initiate a nuclear weapons program.” But the authors also state that after international pressure compelled the dismantling of the Kalahari test site in August 1977, “it was now obvious that the testing of nuclear devices for civil applications could no longer be executed…and this led to the appreciation that a full scientific program was nearing its end.” Steyn, et al., Armament and Disarmament, pp. 42-43. Nevertheless, the Atomic Energy Board immediately began working on a smaller device that could be tested at short notice, a capability that would only make sense as a means to bolster deterrent credibility.
47 Dr. A. J. Buys, correspondence with the author, November 3, 2003.
48 Memorandum of March 21, 1975, p. 1. The Director of Strategic Studies at the time was General Robbertze, who was the first director of this new office. His successor, Brigadier John Huyser, while of relatively modest rank, would later author a memorandum recommending nuclear acquisition
that, while full of internal contradictions and ambiguities, was officially approved by Prime Min- ister P.W. Botha in 1978. South African nuclear officials who had close contact with Huyser find the language of the Armstrong memorandum similar to Huyser’s style, and thus suspect he might have had a hand in it. Huyser was a close associate of P.W. Botha (Defense Minister, 1966-1980, and Prime Minister, 1978-1989) and of General Magnus Malan (SADF Chief, 1976-1980). Malan and Huyser together served on the defense committee of the secret nationalist society, the Afrikaner Broederbond. Gerhardt and A.J. Buys, interview with author, Pretoria, August 25, 1999;
A.J. Buys, correspondence with author; Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” pp. 53, 63-68; Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom, The Super-Afrikaners (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1978), pp. A52, A70.
49 Quoted in Admiral Hugo Hendrik Biermann, “The South African Response,” in Patrick Wall, ed., The Southern Oceans and the Security of the Free World (London: Stacey International, 1977), p.
89. Cf. Robert Scott Jaster, South Africa’s Narrowing Security Options, Adelphi Papers no. 159 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980), p. 12.
50 Biermann, now in his mid-80s, apparently cannot recall anything about South African nuclear weapons policy in the 1970s; Verne Harris telephone interview with Biermann, November 11, 2003. 51 General Jack Dutton, telephone interview with author, November 3, 2003. Armstrong died in the early 1990s.
52 Gen H. de V. du Toit, interview with author, January 27, 1999; Gen. Jan Geldenhuys, interview with author, August 25, 1999; Gen. Magnus Malan, interview with author, August 27, 1999LOCA- TION?. A top nuclear scientist and manager on the uranium enrichment side, Dr. W.L. “Wally” Grant, recalled vaguely that “defense people” began to become involved in 1975; Dr. W.L. Grant, interview with author, Pretoria, January 28, 1999; see also Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” pp. 63-68.
53 Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” pp. 58-63. For further analysis of South Africa’s security environment and perceptions in that period, see Jaster, South Africa’s Narrowing Security Options; Robert Scott Jaster, The Defence of White Power: South African Foreign Policy under Pressure (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989).
54 Memorandum of March 21, 1975, p. 1.
55 Ibid., pp. 1-2.
56 Ibid., p. 2.
57 This would be similar to a strategy to deter conventional attack from frontline states, imputed to Pretoria by Jack E. Spence, “South Africa: The Nuclear Option,” African Affairs 80 (October 1981), pp. 445-446.
58 Memorandum of March 21, 1975, p. 2. It is possible these assumptions were justified further in the above-mentioned study of the nuclear threat written by SADF Director of Strategic Studies.
59 Quoted in Biermann, “South African Response,” p. 77. Some attribute the notion that China, and before that India, wanted to colonize Africa, to Apartheid rulers’ preoccupation with race issues; Jaster, South Africa’s Narrowing Security Options, pp. 6, 11. For a review of Chinese involve- ment in Africa, see Philip Snow, “China and Africa: Consensus and Camouflage,” in Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh, eds., Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).
60 H. de V. du Toit, telephone interview with author, October 2003.
61 Studies prior to the 1993 disclosure include John Davey Lewis Moore, South Africa and Nuclear Proliferation (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987); Robert Scott Jaster, “Politics and the ‘Afrikaner Bomb,’” Orbis 27 (Winter 1984); Richard K. Betts, “A Diplomatic Bomb? South Africa’s Nuclear Potential,” in Joseph A. Yager, ed., Nonproliferation and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1980); Michele A. Flournoy and Kurt M. Campbell, “South Africa’s Bomb: A Military Option?” Orbis 31 (Summer 1988); Spence, “South Africa: The Nuclear Option”; Ronald Walters, South Africa and the Bomb: Responsibility and Deterrence (Lexington, Mass.: Lexing- ton Books, 1987). For post-1993 analyses, see the sources cited in Hersh, The Samson Option. Studies of South African foreign and security policy in that era include James Barber and John
Barratt, South Africa’s Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Chester A. Crocker, South Africa’s Defense Posture: Coping with Vulnerability (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1981); Geldenhuys, Diplomacy of Isolation; Jaster, South Africa’s Narrowing Security Options. Concerns about a WMD threat from Soviets or Cubans were mentioned in interviews with Breytenbach and Malan.
62 Department of Defence, Republic of South Africa, White Paper on Defence and Armament Produc- tion, 1973; Department of Defence, Republic of South Africa, White Paper on Defence and Armament Production, 1975.
63 Email correspondence from A.J. Buys to author, November 3, 2003.
64 Paraphrased account of reactions recounted by A.J. Buys, email correspondence to author, November 3, 2003.
65 Memorandum of March 21, 1975, p. 1.
66 And while the Atomic Energy Board would have had stronger vested interests in expanding their own nuclear program, they had little to gain from a costly investment in foreign-supplied missiles and potentially much to lose if the warheads were imported as well. For a discussion of the organizational politics of South Africa’s nuclear weapons program, see Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” pp. 63-68.
67 Emily O. Goldman, “The Spread of Western Military Models to Ottoman Turkey and Meiji Japan,” in Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff, eds., The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, and Technology (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 41-67; Joao Resende-Santos, “Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems: Military Strategies and Organizations in South America, 1870- 1914,” Security Studies 5 (Spring 1996); Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason, eds. The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).
68 Goldman, “Spread of Western Military Models,” pp. 43-44; Benjamin E. Goldsmith, “Imitation in International Relations: Analogies, Vicarious Learning, and Foreign Policy,” International Interac- tions 29 (July 2003).
69 Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy, and the Postcolonial State (London: Zed Books, 1998); Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996/97).
70 The covert nature of South Africa’s nuclear weapons program does not preclude the possibility that initial ambitions were for an overt nuclear posture, ambitions that may have been subse- quently dampened by the adverse international reaction in 1977 to the Kalahari test site. The 1975 memo implies an overt “generally known” capability, but makes no mention of prestige as an attraction.
71 Magnus Malan, interview by author, Pretoria, August 1999.
72 Barnard was apparently unaware of the strategy working group convened by Armscor in the early 1980s; Dr. L.D. Barnard, interview by author, Cape Town, January 1999 and Dr. André Buys, interview by author, Pretoria, August 1999.
73 Chris Alden, Apartheid’s Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), pp. 41-44; Philip H. Frankel, Pretoria’s Praetorians: Civil-Military Relations in South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 46-70.
74 Alden, Apartheid’s Last Stand, pp. 45-46.
75 Eschel Rhoodie, a South African Information Ministry official who helped initiate the 1974 negotiations between South Africa and Israel, recalled that “we argued that at a time when the West (Free World) was lacking in strong and determined leadership, Israel and South Africa formed the two pillars supporting the Free World’s strategic interest in Africa and the Middle East. We argued, further that Israel was surrounded by a hundred-million hostile Arabs and that South Africa was confronted by more than twice that number of Blacks, most of them politically hostile to South Africa and the West. Should one of Israel or South Africa succumb, the chances were great that the Black and Arab states would gang up against the remaining one with disas- trous results…” Rhoodie, Real Information Scandal, pp. 110-11.
76 Quoted in Jaster, “Politics and the “Afrikaner Bomb,” p. 837. See also Benjamin M. Joseph,
Besieged Bedfellows: Israel and the Land of Apartheid (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), p. 17 and
chap. 10. On commonalities in international diplomacy, see Deon Geldenhuys, Isolated States: A Compara- tive Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Robert E. Harkavy, “The Pariah State Sys- tem,” Orbis 21 (Fall 1977) and “Pariah States and Nuclear Proliferation,” International Organization 35 (Winter 1981).
77 P.W. Botha, interview with the author, Wilderness, April 1999.
78 On Peres’s role in the Israeli program, see Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 17-21.
79 Tamir had participated in a 1960’s working group to develop a nuclear strategy for Israel and had tried to engage Pentagon officials in discussions on nuclear issues in the 1970s; Ibid., pp. 236, 239; Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 269-270.
80 This anecdote was related third-hand from Waldo Stumpf, who heard it from his predecessor as AEB chief, J.W. de Villers. However, it does conflict with the assertion in the State vs. Blaauw court judgment that the AEB chief at the time, Dr. A.J. “Ampie” Roux, had approved of the shipments. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” pp. 62-63.
81 Francis Perrin of the French Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique observed, “We thought the Israeli bomb was aimed against the Americans, not to launch it against America but to say ‘If you do not want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us, otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.’” quoted in Daryl Howlett and John Simpson, “Nuclearization and Denuclearlization in South Africa,” Survival 35 (Autumn 1993). The 1973 story is questioned by Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 71-72.
82 Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” pp. 62-63. Beaufre could be another source. A proponent of small state nuclear deterrence, he had written that nuclear weapons are useful for drawing the assistance of allies, even loose allies or former allies; André Beaufre, Deterrence and Strategy, R.H. Barry, trans. (New York: Praeger, 1965). Nuclear deterrence was also viewed as a psychologically valuable component of the kitchen-sink “total strategy” described earlier. One justification for acquiring nuclear weapons, according to Deputy Defense Minister Kobie Coetsee (1978-1980), was that “every option had to be pursued as part of the total strategy.” Kobie Coetsee, interview by author, Cape Town, August 1999.
83 George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley, CA: Univer- sity of California Press, 1999), pp. 29-31.
84 Victor Gobarev, “Soviet Policy toward China: Developing Nuclear Weapons, 1949-1969,” Journal of Slavic Military History 12 (December 1999), pp. 17-31; John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds The Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 41-44, 60-65; Sergei Goncharenko, “Sino-Soviet Military Cooperation,” in Odd Arne Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-63 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 157-59. The United States collaborated with Britain during World War II on nuclear weapons research, but then cut off cooperation until the mid-1950s; Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), pp. 155-62.
85 Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, chaps. 2-5; Binyamin Pinkus, “Atomic Power to Israel’s Rescue: French-Israeli Nuclear Cooperation, 1949-1957,” Israel Studies 7 (Spring 2002).
86 T. V. Paul, “Chinese-Pakistani Nuclear/Missile Ties and Balance of Power Politics,” Nonprolifera- tion Review 10 (Summer 2003); William J. Broad, David Rohde, and David E. Sanger, “Inquiry Suggests Pakistanis Sold Nuclear Secrets,” New York Times, December 22, 2003; Burrows and Windrem, Critical Mass, passim.
87 Gobarev, “Soviet Policy toward China”; Paul, “Chinese-Pakistani Nuclear/Missile Ties.”
88 Burrows and Windrem, Critical Mass, pp. 452-453.
89 The political leadership did not appear particularly alarmed at the time, as evident in the defense department’s 1975 White Paper on Defence and Armament Production, though it authorized an abortive intervention into Angola in 1975 against the Marxist regime. Department of Defence, White Paper on Defence and Armament Production.
90 Verne Harris, Sello Hatang, and Peter Liberman, “Unveiling South Africa’s Nuclear Past,”
Journal of Southern African Studies 30 (forthcoming 2004).
APPENDIX 1
MEMORANDUM OF MARCH 1975
The Nonproliferation Review/Summer 2004 35
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