South Africa's Weapons of Mass Destruction. By Helen E. Purkitt and Stephen F. Burgess. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Pp. 313. $65.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.
In 1993, South Africa's President F. W. De Klerk, announced that it had fully dismantled its stockpile of six operational nuclear weapons. While many close observers had long supposed that South Africa had the bomb, especially after bright flashes had been observed via satellite in 1979, the capabilities and intentions of the South African government were, until the 1993 announcement, unknown. Indeed, many of the details of the program remain unclear. Similarly, until the 1997 arrest of a South African scientist, …