The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa.
Newly-declassified minutes from a 1975 meeting show Israeli officials offered to sell South Africa nuclear warheads, a fascinating detail of Cold War history that is the first hard evidence proving Israel has nuclear weapons.
The top-secret documents, published by British newspaper The UK Guardian, show that South African Defense Minister, the late PW Botha, asked for Jericho missiles fitted with nuclear warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israeli Defense Minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes.”
P.W. Botha
The “three sizes” are believed to refer to conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons. At the time, South Africa was still unable to produce its own nukes but could make the other two types.
South African officials said during the March 31, 1975 meeting that the nukes were wanted as a deterrent and for possible strikes against neighboring countries. The country was actively involved in The Angolan War, which was raging to its north in South-West Africa, now Namibia.
Botha and Perez also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.
South Africa eventually turned down the Israeli offer because it was too expensive. It later developed its own nuclear weapons, allegedly with the help of Israel. It is also believed that South Africa sent yellow cake uranium to Israel.
Simon Perez
The documents were uncovered by American academic Sasha Polakow-Suransky for a book he is writing on the close relationship the two countries had. Israeli officials tried to stop the declassification of the memos, as their publication weaken the country’s negotiating hand at this week’s Middle East nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York.
“The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date,” Polakow-Suransky told the UK Guardian. “The South Africans didn’t seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime’s old allies.”
The UK Guardian notes some other interesting aspects:
Sasha Polakow-Suransky's book
The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with “special warheads”. Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.
The existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.
Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.
Related posts:
No proof, as usual it's pure anti-semitism! Hatred against jews!
And for south-africans, how is your country? I'm pretty sure it was better before when irresponsible "persons" weren't in charge there.
Even if this deal existed, I have really no problem with that, seeing how nobody in Africa then helped SA fight terrorists.
At least (if that deal existed) it prevented savage neighbors invading SA
This may be true, and it may not. I don't trust the media, and will not blindly accept their word for anything. As the UK Guardian is a liberal publication, I automatically am suspicious of it's content. My main question is why they are publishing it at all. Liberal news and propaganda organizations have a hidden socialist agenda for everything they say. What are they up to?
Why can't Israeli politicians or representatives travel anywhere in the world without protests breaking out. If any Israeli politician came to the UK (or any other European country), they would be handcuffed and arrested for war crimes.
Even Nelson Mandella said that Palestinians have it much, much worse than blacks did in South Africa during apartheid.
America does not need friends like Israel, who also spied on it (remember Jonathan Pollard) and sunk one of our naval ships, the USS Liberty with 34 loss of life. Best friend? Go take your medication.
The British newspaper, the UK Guardian, is known in his hostility to Israel and it even has claimed that this newspaper is anti-Semitic.This newspaper use every opportunity to promotes its objective to hurt israel and its existence by lies and manipulations,in every opportunity, when the subject of israel is rising, in any context on the international stage
More rubbish from a rubbish nation. This is the nation that sold Rhodesia and South Africa down the river, isn’t it? The same nation that thinks it defeated Hitler, but was getting it’s butt kicked until the USA helped them out. If SA had the chance to blow Angola off the map, do you think they wouldn’t of done it.
As a Jew of conscience, I am ashamed that Israel claims to represent all Jews. This apartheid country denies an entire population their human rights, ignores international laws, like the 4th Geneva Convention, and murders innocent men, women and children. The few homemade rockets that were sent into Israel were the desperate actions of a people who are treated as “human garbage”. Gaza is the largest open air prison in the world and when ‘Operation Cast Lead’ ended, 1,417 Palestinians were murdered. How many Israelis lost their lives? 13 (a few were the result of friendly fire). Please do your bit and join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign. Boycott Israel!
I only WISH South Africa had nuked Angola! Send that cigar chewing maggot Fidel Castro and his hegemonic flying monkey lackeys packing back their shitty island!
And as for Israel, GOOD FOR THEM! Israel should be allowed to sell all of its military technology to whomever it chooses! They are America’s best friend not only in the Middle East but throughout the WORLD – this only proves it!
Ol' PW looks rather jewy in that pic… just sayin'…