The Rivonia Arrests – Apartheid Security Branch Pounces on the MK High Command
On the morning of 11 July 1963, Lieutenant van Wyk of the apartheid Security Branch had a briefing with a team of policemen telling them about a plan to use a dry-cleaning van to deceive the suspects, following his discovery in Rivonia after driving with his African informant, who indicated that he recognised a church.
Meanwhile, Ruth First, a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and wife of Joe Slovo, met Bob Hepple at his house and asked him to give some messages to Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki. They then discussed the ongoing debate over guerrilla warfare, with Hepple saying the existing plan was crazy and would provoke brutal repression that would retard for many years the main task of building up an effective political and trade union organisation among the people. South Africa was a highly armed state and backed by the United States in the Cold War. The plan, according to Hepple, had no chance of succeeding and would only bring suffering.
Indeed, as Hepple predicted, the situation was getting from bad to worse. Denis Goldberg collected Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu and Raymond Mhlaba from Travallyn in the early afternoon and drove them in a Volkswagen Kombi to Rivonia. Arriving at Lilieslief Farm, at approximately 14:40, they noticed a car with a white man inside, which Walter Sisulu approached. The white man was actually Arthur Goldreich’s brother-in-law, Reeve Arens
