Revisiting South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program: Its History, Dismantlement, and Lessons for Toda - Paperback

by Andrea Stricker (Author), David H. Albright (Author)

In 1989, South Africa made the momentous decision to abandon its nuclear weapons, making it the first and still the only country that has produced nuclear weapons and given them up. Over thirty years, the apartheid regime had created a remarkably sophisticated capability to build nuclear weapons-both the nuclear warhead and advanced military systems to deliver them. The program was born in secret and remained so until its end. The government initially sought to dismantle it in secret. It hoped to avoid any negative international consequences of possessing nuclear weapons. The apartheid government's strategy did not work, because too many intelligence agencies knew about South Africa's nuclear weapons. Faced with intense pressure, South Africa's President F.W. de Klerk reversed course and adopted a policy of transparency in 1993. However, he decided to hide many of its aspects. Nonetheless, most of the remaining secrets emerged over the ensuing 25 years. Revisiting South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program draws on previously secret information to provide the first comprehensive, technically-oriented look at South Africa's nuclear weapons program; how it grew, evolved, and ended. It also finds lessons for today's nuclear proliferation cases.

Author Biography

David Albright is the president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security. He has been frequently quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal and has appeared on CNN, NBC Nightly News, FOX News, The NewsHour, and the Colbert Report. He was a United Nations inspector in Iraq, has testified numerous times before the US Congress, and has written five other books. He lives in Alexandria, VA and Muenster Germany.