[THS] Revealed: How Israel Offered to Sell South Africa Nuclear Weapons

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Revealed: How Israel Offered to Sell South Africa Nuclear Weapons

Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear
weapons

By Chris McGreal in Washington

Masy 24, 2010 "The Guardian" -- Secret South African documents reveal that Israel
offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official
documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres and P W

Photograph: Guardian[photo of document]

The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and
P W Botha of South Africa. 

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries
in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads
and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded
by offering them "in three sizes". The two men 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.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in
research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide
evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither
confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government
declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be
an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New
York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons,
it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as
Iran cannot be trusted.

A spokeswoman for Peres today said the report was baseless and there were "never
any negotiations" between the two countries. She did not comment on the
authenticity of the documents.

South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as
a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.

The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in
his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance
with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials "formally offered to sell South
Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal".

Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff,
Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid
out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were
fitted with nuclear weapons.

The memo, marked "top secret" and dated the same day as the meeting with the
Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood
because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day
and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: "In
considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain
assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear
warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere."

But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more
than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the
Jericho project had the codename Chalet.

The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest
in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available."
The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in
three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for
advice." The "three sizes" are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and
nuclear weapons.

The use of a euphemism, the "correct payload", reflects Israeli sensitivity over the
nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional
weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong's
memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as
a means of delivering nuclear weapons.

In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from
Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other
warheads.

Botha did not go ahead with the deal in part because of the cost. In addition, any
deal would have to have had final approval by Israel's prime minister and it is
uncertain it would have been forthcoming.

South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli
assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the following
years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel
required to develop its weapons.

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.

Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two
defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as
Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: "It is hereby
expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement... shall be secret and shall
not be disclosed by either party".

The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.

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.

Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents
obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "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," he said. "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."

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010