Weapons & Spare Parts

During the 1980s, South Africa pursued research into nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Six nuclear weapons were assembled . more...

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With the anticipated changeover to a majority-elected government in the 1990s, the South African government dismantled all of its nuclear weapons, the only nation in the world to date which voluntarily gave up nuclear arms it had developed itself.

The country has been a signatory of the Biological Weapons Convention since 1975, the Chemical Weapons Convention since 1995, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1991.

Nuclear weapons

South Africa developed a small finite deterrence arsenal of gun-type fission weapons in the 1980s. Six were constructed and another was under construction at the time the program ended.

Testing the first device

The AEB selected a test site in the Kalahari Desert at the Vastrap weapons range located at 27°50′S, 21°38′E north of Upington. Two test shafts were completed in 1976 and 1977. One shaft was 385 meters deep, the other, 216 meters. In 1977, the AEB established its own high-security weapons research and development facilities at Pelindaba, and during that year the program was transferred from Somchem to Pelindaba. In mid-1977, the AEB produced a gun-type device--without an HEU core. Although the Y-Plant was operating, it had not yet produced enough weapon-grade uranium for a device. As has happened in programs in other nations, the development of the devices had outpaced the production of the fissile material.

AEC officials say that a "cold test" (a test without uranium 235) was planned for August 1977. An Armscor official who was not involved at the time said that the test would have been a fully instrumented underground test, with a dummy core. Its major purpose was to test the logistical plans for an actual detonation.

How that test was canceled has been well publicized. That summer, Soviet intelligence detected test preparations and, in early August, alerted the United States. U.S. intelligence quickly confirmed the existence of the test site. On August 28, the Washington Post quoted a U.S. official: "I'd say we were 99 percent certain that the construction was preparation for an atomic test."

The Soviet and Western governments were convinced that South Africa was preparing for a full-scale nuclear test. During the next two weeks in August, the Western nations pressed South Africa not to test. The French foreign minister warned on August 22 of "grave consequences" for French-South African relations. Although he did not elaborate, his statement implied that France was willing to cancel its contract to provide South Africa with the Koeberg nuclear power reactors.

Read more at Wikipedia.org