Apartheid South Africa Signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
On 10 July 1991, apartheid South Africa, which was by then a nuclear-armed state, signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), after admitting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to confirm the destruction of the country’s nuclear weapons’ stockpiles.
The end of the Cold War dramatically altered the political and strategic landscape of Southern Africa. Cuban troops were already withdrawing from Angola when F.W. de Klerk replaced P.W. Botha as president on 15 August 1989. The Berlin Wall fell in November that year and de Klerk soon embarked on a different course that led to the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and other movements including the South African Communist Party (SACP), as well as the release of Nelson Mandela in early 1990.
With “the Soviet and Cuban threat” gone, South Africa could no longer appeal for Western support by invoking anti-communist arguments, nor could it rationalise repression of the democratic opposition by cloaking apartheid in Cold War rhetoric. The political landscape in Pretoria was changing, but the formidable nuclear arsenal that apartheid South Africa had constructed with Israel’s help remained a major concern for the United States government in the early 1990s.
Despite the ANC’s commitment to the principles of non-proliferation, certain United States and British officials, as well as some Israelis, feared
