ABSTRACT: The late Dr LD (Niël) Barnard, who served as director-general of South Africa’s National Intelligence Service during the turbulent 1980’s, remains a controversial figure – seen by some as a condescending, self-aggrandising egoist, whilst lauded by others as a key figure who had helped launch South Africa on the path to a negotiated non-racial new constitution. This appreciation by Dr Willem Steenkamp (ambassador, political scientist specialised in intelligence, lawyer and co-editor of Nongqai Magazine) looks at Barnard’s contribution from the different institutional and academic vantage points from which Steenkamp had had the opportunity to observe Barnard first-hand, striving to explain the context in which Barnard had to take important and unconventional decisions, from which he had not shied away.

FOCUS KEYWORD: Dr LD Niël Barnard an appreciation

KEYWORDS: Niël Barnard, Dr LD Barnard, National Intelligence Service, NIS, BfSS, Bureau for State Security, NIFS, PW Botha, FW de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, Dr WP Steenkamp.

1. MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT NIëL BARNARD – BOTH FOR AND AGAINST…

Tall trees catch the most wind…

The late Dr Niël Barnard was one such tree, due to the position he was placed in at a very young age by PW Botha as DG of the National Intelligence Service (NIS). 

It is not surprising that, upon his passing, one would read varied comments – some of which pay tribute to his undeniable contribution to national security and in kicking off the negotiation process. Others, however, still scourged him, mainly ad hominem for his pre-history and aspects of his personality and style. Those so inclined dismiss his alleged contributions as mere flights of egotistical imagination, or manifestations of an intelligence service that seriously exceeded its mandate. 

It is also not surprising that the tributes come from the side of those close to him, especially within the National Intelligence Service. The flogging, on the other hand, came mostly from those who served in other components of the bureaucracy of that period, being often officials who had crossed swords with him in the many inter-agency battles of those years. Or from people from the then left of the political spectrum who felt that their rights had been violated by Barnard and/or the security services.

2. FEW LEGACIES ARE EITHER PITCH BLACK, OR PURE WHITE…

What value can I hope to add to this polemic, and: why me?

Perhaps Nongqai ‘s editor asked me to write this appreciation on the logical assumption that – in addition to the conflicting opinions of the deceased’s friends and his enemies respectively – a political-scientific analysis of Niël Barnard and his NIS team’s impact on the change of course that South Africa experienced in the run-up to the political transformation of the early nineties, may be of value to readers.

An emotionally neutral analysis, written by someone who indeed knew him personally, and who also knows the professional milieu in which he operated (from both the practical and academic side), but who in addition served in other capacities such as ambassador, which allowed for a broader perspective. Someone who was neither an intimate friend of the deceased, nor an ideological or bureaucratic “enemy” of his…

3. HOW AND WHERE I GOT TO KNOW NIëL BARNARD

I knew Niël Barnard well, both as a Political Science lecturer and as DG of the NIS. Stretching from our Kovsie days in Bloemfontein during the early seventies, when he was my junior lecturer in Political Science. Through his appointment as DG of NIS and his first handful of years as head of the service. (Thus, after I had been a student of his, I had joined the Bureau for State Security and stayed on through its changing iterations of the (short-lived) Department of National Security and subsequently, the NIS – all in order to complete my compulsory national service and Public Service Commission bursary obligations. In the NIS, I held positions (as I will show) where I could observe Barnard first hand.

Upon completing my aforementioned obligations I said goodbye to the NIS, to subsequently obtain admission as a lawyer, and then joined the diplomatic service. This winding path has given me the advantage of now being able to look back on Barnard’s contributions from the necessary distance, and from different career angles.

Academically speaking, my doctorate in Political Science with its specific focus on the role and function of intelligence within the political system, as well as my (parallel) training as lawyer, equip and oblige me to assess the extent to which the actions that the NIS in the end chose to execute (and which undoubtedly impacted political decision-making) can normatively be seen as having been within the scope of its statutory mandate, and functionally appropriate for an intelligence service to have chosen to embark upon.

My broader institutional experience and thus wider perspective came first from my family connection to the Security Branch of the Police (my father at one stage headed it). As mentioned, also my own later life as a diplomat (which included being head of the diplomatic academy, and then the New South Africa’s first ambassador to once-hostile Black Africa). Thus, I can assess Barnard and his NIS team’s contribution during the critical late eighties and early nineties without having been limited to just one institution’s silo vision.

Furthermore, since I became co-editor of Nongqai, the South African Forces history magazine, much unpublished information about once-hidden decisions and shenanigans have come to my eyes and ears, first-hand from reliable eyewitnesses. This has also contributed greatly to providing perspective and understanding regarding the whys and wherefores of what really happened during those turbulent years. Especially within the often dysfunctional and through-out, deeply-divided security and intelligence bureaucracy…

That said, if someone had told me fifty years ago there in Bloemfontein that I would one day write an obituary for Niël Barnard, I would probably have just laughed in amazement.

3.1     THOSE KOVSIE YEARS:

At the time on the Kovsie campus, the two of us certainly didn’t see eye to eye ideologically. And with our respective personalities, we weren’t exactly born to ever be close friends on a personal level…

Niël, about four years older than me, was a junior lecturer in Political Science in Bloemfontein when I was a third-year Law student who took Political Science as an extra major.  With me being not exactly tongue-tied (I had won the national debating competition for Afrikaans high schools in my matric year), my classmates often incited me to get under Barnard’s skin, whenever his lectures became a bit too academically tedious. Through hours of often fiery class debates with him about the current affairs of that time, I came to know his outlook at that point as politically severely “verkramp” conservative (and he probably perceived me as an outspoken left-wing rebel).

3.2     THE DNS/NIS YEARS:

Great was Barnard’s surprise when, a few years later (upon his arrival at the Intelligence Service, as the designated future DG) he found me, the “left-wing” student rebel, there – and to crown it all, then in charge of the South-West Africa analytical desks! (One of my most effective teaser tactics in those varsity debates with him – Barnard being a born and sworn Southwester – was to argue then already that SWA was a millstone around the RSA’s neck that needed to be gotten rid of as soon as possible!).

In the several years that I subsequently served under Barnard at the NIS, I was able to observe him as a leader, in very challenging times. Times that were future-defining, seen from the national security angle. Times made extra challenging by the political context of a dogmatic head of government (PW Botha) who did not tolerate dissent. Plus, by our then security bureaucracy’s often heated and sly internal politics and tendency to turf protection, operating in silos, and plain personal jealousies.  

Thus, Barnard was thrust into a leadership position of a particularly high degree of difficulty and responsibility, which he had to master at a very young age at short notice.

4. AN EFFECTIVE MANAGER, BARNARD CONTINUED THE BUILDING OF THE NIS

My aim here is not to simply chronologically list Niël Barnard’s professional successes as NIS-DG. It has already been sufficiently pointed out by competent NIS members (who had been by his side throughout Barnard’s intelligence career), that the Service under him was professionally respected internationally, among peer agencies.

However, some of the more glowing tributes to him as head of department have gone too far, in my opinion. Especially as regards how he supposedly totally transformed the Service, as if the leadership and entities that had gone before had had little merit.

In my book it is unnecessary to, in effect, denigrate those who had gone before in order to highlight Barnard’s undeniable merits – especially if doing so does violence to the facts.

As a few examples of this exaggeration (which I highlight here not to disregard Barnard’s undoubted contributions to the continued development of the Service, but for the sake of balancing the record) is the claim that he was the first intelligence head to have done justice to the analytical component of the Service. That he, allegedly, had completely transformed the Service in this regard.

4.1 PROMOTING PROFESSIONAL INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS:

Barnard indisputably had built substantially and very well on the foundation laid by his predecessors. However, it was General Hendrik van den Bergh who, with the creation of the then Bureau, established South Africa’s first contingent of professional intelligence analysts as an integral part of it. Unlike in the SAP and SADF, where policemen or soldiers were temporarily assigned to doing analysis, at the Bureau we were expert economists, ethnographers, political scientists, or from other such professions, recruited from outside specifically for focused careers as professional intelligence analysts. 

The fact is, those of us who were there at the time – through the triple-jump transition from the Bureau to the (short-lived) Department of National Security and then to the National Intelligence Service – know very well that it was still the same team, still in their same offices, charged with the same tasks.

In essence, just with new labels…

And, as I will show, that corps of analysts’ fundamental professional ethos and also their foundational view regarding what the true nature of the national security threat was (and what government would be best advised to do about it) did not change in any way, with the transition from Van den Bergh’s Bureau to the NIS under Barnard.

What is true is that Barnard (with his conspicuous intellect and his willingness to listen and learn), mastered not only his leadership task, but also the intelligence picture remarkably quickly. With that intelligence picture, in particular, leading thereto that he underwent a total turnaround in his understanding of South Africa’s challenges and the appropriate political solutions (he himself openly admitted this fundamental change of heart, replacing his erstwhile “verkrampte” views, in his autobiography about his time as a spy boss).

Much to Barnard’s credit, he had the intellectual integrity to admit that his initial assumptions and political views were untenable. This he realised from the moment that he could measure his former views against the realities that the true intelligence picture so clearly showed.

So, in terms of the fundamental intelligence analysis of the true nature of the South African dilemma of the time, it was not a case of Barnard transforming the outlook of his inherited team of Bureau analysts. In fact, it was that old Bureau team of eminent experts such as Cor Bekker and Mike Louw (who continued to lead the Service’s analytical component) that completely transformed Barnard’s own thinking.

4.2     THE ROLE OF COMPUTERIZATION:

In terms of outward “trimmings” it is true that Barnard’s time was marked by innovative and very substantive expansion of the Service’s capabilities, products and facilities.

However, it is also true that he took over at a time when, with the dawn of the computer age, intelligence services around the world were experiencing a profound revolution in their profession. Not in ethos or outlook, but in terms of the outwardly visible manifestations of their work.

Within the space of a few years, which just happened to coincide with Barnard heading up the NIS, most services around the world took advantage of computerization and especially the new horizons it opened up, particularly as regards the production and especially the visual presentation of their analytical intelligence reports destined for the eyes of the political decision-makers, .

Again, in South Africa’s case, it was Van den Bergh’s Bureau that had spearheaded this new technology and that had laid the foundation for the expansion that would come to fruition under Barnard – to the extent that the NIS was internationally recognised by other services as a world leader in the application of the new technology to intelligence. I remember very well how the then head of technology of the West German BND had, during a course I took with them in Munich, half apologetically started his lecture with the statement that he did not actually understand why he should address us NIS guys (and not the other way round), because we were then internationally among the recognized leaders in the field of utilization of computing capabilities in an intelligence context…

One of the most significant applications of the new technology which came to full fruition shortly after Barnard’s takeover, was a new system of daily production and distribution of analytical intelligence products (the NIFS – National Intelligence Flashes and Sketches). Of this, Barnard was rightly proud. However, the NIFS was undeniably merely the logical completion of a project that had already been conceptualised in pilot form under Van den Bergh and tested at division level in the Bureau/DNS, subsequently then to be established (with the arrival of sufficient computer terminals) throughout the “new” Service’s Research (or Analysis) branch.

I know this first-hand, because I myself was central to this process, as regards it conceptualization and initiation (still under the BfSS/DNS), and then the systematic implementation and expansion of this new reporting system under the auspices of the NIS… With my interest in computers, it was I who had first conceived and introduced the system of producing daily analytical reports within my then division (the Bureau/DNS’s old analytical Division “K” that dealt with constitutionally related issues such as those associated with Coloured and Indian politics, plus the Homelands, and of course SWA/Namibia.

Equally, under Van den Bergh already, emphasis was placed on the scientific analysis and interpretation of raw information on the basis of social-scientific and economic theory (that, after all, was why he had specifically recruited analysts with the necessary academic training). Barnard’s great merit was how remarkably fast he learned, and how enthusiastically and managerially brilliant he had actively built upon the foundations of what he had inherited.

To claim that Barnard had “restored” the integrity and ethos of the Service (insinuating that what had preceded the NIS was something apparently horrifying?) is also an overstatement. Moreover, averring same is an unnecessary insult to the integrity and honour of all who served in the Bureau at the time (and subsequently continued to form the vast majority of the “new” Service’s corps).

4.3     THE ROLE OF THE POLITICS OF THAT ERA:

The Afrikaner politics of the era must be remembered here, because the PW Botha camp’s needs and concerns provided the context for such higher claims. This was the time of (and just after) the palace revolution against Prime Minister Vorster, Drs Connie Mulder / Eschel Rhoodie and General Van den Bergh.

A coup that was instigated to put PW Botha and his militaristic circle in power.

During and after this “bloodless coup” underhand tactics were used that today would be called “fake news” and “lawfare”. Especially in the form of the so-called Information “scandal” and the thoroughly manipulated, always politically self-serving Erasmus Commission.

Practically all of the aspersions then cast on the old Bureau and Van den Bergh (with Barnard subsequently being held up as a saving transformer and restorer of integrity) actually stemmed from the Botha regime’s political need to destroy the image of their predecessors, rather than being based on empirical facts. However, that wheel would turn… (For more on the Palace Revolution, you can read this article: “QUIET COUP D’ETAT” AGAINST PM JOHN VORSTER – Nongqai BLOG )

4.4 BARNARD DID NOT EXAGGERATE IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY:

An example of the ethos that Barnard did continue to cultivate and which he rightly presented in his autobiography as characteristic of the steadfast approach of the Service’s analysts, is that we were always bound to convey to political decision-makers what they needed to  hear, and not what they wanted to  hear – something we did without hesitation.

The example that Barnard presented in his autobiography of such unwavering standing by the facts was that of a young analyst who did not succumb during an altercation with the then Administrator-General of SWA, the formidable Dr. Gerrit Viljoen.

I noticed that my fellow former ambassador, Dr Riaan Eksteen, stated in his critical review of Barnard’s book (2015) that in his opinion this story is so highly unlikely that it could hardly be true. In his view, it rather serves as evidence of the “self-serving exaggeration” of which he accused Barnard.

Again, I can personally attest that this incident did indeed happen and that it was by no means exaggerated in the book. I was that analyst, at the time at the head of the SWA analytical desks. In that particular case, I was my department’s (DNS) representative on a high-level interdepartmental fact-finding mission to Windhoek, sent there by the cabinet. Other members were Niel van Heerden, who represented Foreign Affairs, and senior officers of the Armed Forces and Security Branch.

Viljoen was so dismayed by the analysis I had presented of what actually was going on in the border war, that he immediately phoned my then head of department, Alex van Wyk, to personally complain about how “precocious” I was, due to me having stood so firmly by our analysis – one that did not serve Viljoen’s (and the SADF’s) political narrative.

Upon my return from Windhoek I was immediately called in, on the carpet in front of Van Wyk, Cor Bekker and Niël Barnard. They in no way condemned me but in fact encouraged me to “keep up the good work, but to please try to not make people so angry unnecessarily…”.

The only “error” in the account of this incident in Barnard’s book is therefore regarding chronology – this had happened still under the banner of the DNS iteration of the Service, with Van Wyk as DG. Barnard was already present that morning, because of him then doing his six month “apprenticeship” consisting of preparatory orientation with a view to the eventual takeover of the later NIS iteration, which then still lay several months into the future.

This chronological context is important, not in support of Koedoe Eksteen’s doubts about the veracity of the story, but in support of my position that the ethos of incorruptible analysis was not newly introduced by Barnard, but was already integral in the Bureau/DNS days. For more details on this incident, please click on the following link: NONGQAI SERIES THE MEN SPEAK Dr Willem Steenkamp Part 2 – Nongqai BLOG

5. A POLITICAL CHALLENGE CANNOT BE SOLVED MILITARILY

The essence of the Bureau/DNS/NIS’s threat analysis regarding South Africa itself was always that the country was essentially confronted with a political dilemma, and that a political issue cannot be solved militarily.

If you don’t put out the fire under the porridge pot, then sooner or later you won’t be able to keep the lid on it – it’s going to boil over.

This fundamental insight was ultimately crucial in bringing the De Klerk government back to the negotiation-based strategy of Premier John Vorster. However, it would be laying claim to too much, if it were to be suggested that exclusively the NIS/Barnard had at the time held this (correct) insight. This position was also strongly articulated, for example, in an early February 1987 Security Branch memorandum to Cabinet, in which my late father had made it unequivocally clear that the “blue line” would not be able to last forever. He therefore repeatedly advised that it was appropriate to start negotiating for a political settlement without delay, doing so while the government could still engage from a position of relative strength.

What my father and Barnard also wholeheartedly agreed on was that we had to stop looking for a communist behind every bush. Non-White resistance, for one thing, could not be fully, nor even primarily, attributed to Soviet incitement. It was essentially Black nationalism, in its essence no different from the Afrikaner’s own resistance to domination, my father wrote…

It should be mentioned here that my father as head of the Security Branch held Barnard in high professional esteem. He also knew Barnard much better, in the work context, than some of the other peers who headed other components of the security/intel community knew him. This was because, whereas the others knew Barnard only in the interdepartmental context, my father had been seconded to the top management of the NIS for some length of time as then the permanent SAP-SB liaison with the Service, before he became commander of the SAP-SB. Thus, his office was there inside the NIS head office in the Concilium building. As a member of the NIS top management, he sat in on everything, including having been part of the NIS team at the crucial meeting held early in Barnard’s reign at Admiralty House in Simon’s Town to settle between the different services their different jurisdictions (where Barnard in fact saved the NIS, which Military Intelligence – and some in the Police, such as Johan Coetzee – had wished to effectively see disappear).

My father thus not only knew Barnard in the inter-departmental context (as between heads of services) but, had earlier also been able to observe and assess him in his day-to-day leadership, within the context of the NIS as such.

In addition to the correct threat analysis arrived at by the NIS and SAP-SB members like my father, the Department of Foreign Affairs obviously also had had complete clarity throughout that seeking a negotiated political solution would be the only workable strategy.

Although I’m writing here from a “within the intel-community” perspective, it is very important to stress that the experts at the Department of Constitutional Development had also held this same view from early on, leading for example to their input to the so-called “Skrik vir Niks” (fear nothing) report of recommendations for fundamental change that had emanated from the non-security state departments around 1987 – which expert advice PW and the “total onslaught” brigade again roundly ignored.  (I have it on good authority from within the then Secretariat of the State Security Council, that they as a matter of course had always sought inputs on constitutional matters not from Constitutional Development, but from the NIS).

The political scientist Prof Fanie Cloete, who at that time had been centrally involved at Constitutional Development with the formulation of that input (which had been signed off by 21 senior representatives of different civilian departments) is on record describing its gist thus: “The report concluded that the only way to avoid a revolutionary bloodbath in South Africa, was to implement a blitzkrieg of immediate strategic reforms. These reforms included the temporary suspension of parliament, the unbanning of black liberation movements, the release of political prisoners, and an interim GNU representing all South African citizens to draft a new constitution based on a number of non-negotiable principles providing for racially fully integrated democratic legislative and executive political power-sharing among all South Africans at all levels of government.”

6. CENTRAL REDACTION, THE “KIK” AND “LEGAL ADVISOR” TO BARNARD

Soon after Barnard eventually took over as DG of the “new” NIS, and thanks his keen interest in implementing a daily reporting system throughout the analytical branch, I was promoted to help head the new division N.11 – the central redaction and coordination component for the entire analytical production of the Service, charged initially with rolling out the new system and subsequently with managing the daily intelligence flow.

This division fell directly under the Chief Director who headed the analytical branch (called “Navorsing” or research in Afrikaans, hence his alpha-numerical designation as N.1). N.11 thus served as a kind of staff officer component to him, in which capacity I also performed duty as secretary to the interdepartmental coordinating intelligence committee (commonly called the “KIK”, in accordance with its Afrikaans acronym) which was managed by the NIS.

Since it was N.11 that edited the input received from the analytical divisions and from it compiled the first draft of the daily NIFS report for consideration by the “Sanhedrin” (top management) at their early morning sessions, where we had to capture and formulate any changes decided upon, I regularly sat in on those meetings.

Furthermore, Barnard knew of course from our university days that my other field of study (parallel to Political Science) had been Law. Since the Service did not have its own legal advisory component when he took over, he therefore started tasking me with preparing legal opinions for him whenever needed.

In the N.11 context as editor, as KIK secretary and as “legal advisor”, I thus had frequent direct contact with Barnard (in other words, not in the typical indirect manner, with a number of hierarchical levels between us, that was the case when I had headed the SWA/Namibia desks).

All of these roles at N.11 had provided me with an ideal perch from which to observe him at problem-solving (such as when a legal problem had surfaced). As I will come back to later when discussing Barnard’s contribution regarding strategy, it also allowed me first-hand insight into issues that would later become key. Such as: when to release Mr Mandela (reviewed within the KIK context) or, how best to try and manage what we knew had been for many decades already a deep rift within the ANC (between the moderate non-racialists and the Africanists – with the latter bent on a “National Democratic Revolution”, if necessary to be achieved in two steps, as had happened in Tsarist Russia).

This “privileged observational perch” at N.11 lasted till my request for a transfer to the Service’s clandestine collection component was eventually approved (which I had requested in order to expand my professional experience). At that time, a proper Office of Legal Counsel was established.

Of course, in my new, highly compartmentalised covert capacity I had no further contact with Barnard, nor could I ever set foot again in the Concilium Head Office complex…

In fact, my next (and only) direct physical presence at any of the more or less “open” facilities of the Service was during the transition to democracy, when – then as ambassador – I was asked to present a lecture to the joint intelligence transition team (at the Intelligence Academy on the Rietfontein “Farm”) regarding the role and function of intelligence withing the political system – as per the theme of my doctoral dissertation.

7. BARNARD AND HIS TEAM’S MAJOR CONTRIBUTION AT THE STRATEGIC LEVEL

The real value of Barnard’s contribution to achieving a peaceful transition (and his contribution was indeed great, especially in getting the process officially kicked off) went far beyond his achievements in managing and expanding the Service as such.

With the broader institutional perspective that my own later life has offered me, I would like to shed some light on the key role that Barnard (and the Service) played in the late eighties in averting a potential bloodbath in South Africa. Referring here to the fact that it was the NIS that, for the first time, had established a concrete – albeit secret – liaison channel with the external ANC and actually met with them at senior official level. In this way the NIS reversed the one-time PW Botha ban on any contact with the external ANC. This was a laudable and crucially important breakthrough. Even if the NIS did it – as I will point out – by way of presenting the FW de Klerk government with a fait accompli for which the NIS had “obtained approval” through a slight of hand (but which does raise normative questions about whether it ever behoves any intelligence service to effectively force vital policy decisions by deed, rather than purely by means of the analytical intelligence product they convey to those elected to take government decisions).

Be that as it may, it indeed resulted in a breakthrough in terms of government strategy that ministers Chris Heunis and Pik Botha had not been able to achieve…

Undeniably, it was that first official meeting in Switzerland in 1989, between the NIS’s Mike Louw and Maritz Spaarwater on the one hand, and Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma on the other, that got the negotiation process going (an initiative that had potentially held quite some risk for Barnard and the Service).

Thankfully, as history records President De Klerk did get on board with it, so that negotiation once again became the official government policy. This had cut the knot of PW’s ban on any official conversation with the ANC (which had previously cost officers such as Cloete and Jordaan of Constitutional Development their security clearances and thus their careers in government service).

Against this brief introductory background sketch, my goal will now be to help contextualize Barnard’s contribution on a strategic level – rather than just documenting his managerial accomplishments.

Barnard’s job description as DG of the NIS obviously encompassed much more than just management. It is fundamental to that position that Barnard and his analysts (headed by Mike Louw – whom Barnard was wise enough to listen to) had to inform and advise the top political decision-makers on threats to national security as well as strategic options for dealing with the those threats.

The Service’s undeniable contribution, therefore, was in the strategic field, fundamentally changing government policy and strategy. Away from the “total onslaught” strategy of preparing for war, back to negotiating for a political settlement.

This result was possible because Barnard and his team understood the true nature of the real threats and were able to conceptualize the optimal counterstrategies – as said, not that they alone had come to those conclusions, but they had the necessary credible standing to allow their voice eventually to be heard. Even though such analysis during those years had run directly counter to the then still Apartheid-inspired political policy of PW Botha and also to the prevailing strategy propagated by the “total assault” brigade in the SADF.

PW Botha did not know the young Niël Barnard personally when he appointed him as DG of the NIS. Niël’s doctoral dissertation (in which he had made the case for a South African nuclear deterrence capability) naturally had fitted in with the Defence Force’s world view. PW Botha, who before was constantly at loggerheads with the then Bureau and Lang Hendrik van die Bergh, was, in my opinion, mostly motivated in his nomination of Barnard by an objective of “I’m going to make you Bureau bastards understand your irrelevance”. This he did by way of appointing such a young outsider over the heads of the “old hands” of the then Bureau, as DG of the newly re-titled National Intelligence Service. Barnard being someone whom he felt would respect the primacy that PW wished to accord the SADF.

Because Barnard was parachuted in by PW as NIS-DG, therefore making him entirely dependent upon PW’s good will (since he had not worked his way up through the ranks), it is undeniably the case that Barnard could very easily have chosen – like the many other yes-men with whom PW surrounded himself – to just keep “going with the flow” within that “total onslaught” brigade’s perception of reality. Especially since their outlook had admittedly embodied his own initial views.

The fact that Niël Barnard – after seeing and quickly beginning to understand the real intelligence picture – had had the intellectual honesty to realise that his initial beliefs were wrong, speaks volumes for his integrity and sharp insight.  He realized that, proverbially, the emperor (in terms of policy and strategy) was without clothes. Many could see it at the time, but few were willing to admit it, and still fewer were willing to take the necessary action to set things right before it could quite possibly have become too late…

7.1 THE DISPUTE OVER STRATEGY – SHOOT OR SETTLE? 

What was it that had so deeply divided the security and intelligence community at the time? Essentially, it was a battle around the nature of the threat faced and, consequently, about the best strategic options.

Coming since the days of John Vorster, it had in essence been a dispute about choosing between shooting or settling (which may appear to be an over-simplification, but which is nevertheless aptly descriptive, as I will show).

The men with the big guns had wanted to retain political power at all costs – in final analysis, with military force. They saw as inevitable a coming armed conflict over who would hold political power and thus own the country, so that (in their view) the highest priority had to be to prepare the entire state and society for total warfare against such a total onslaught. They were not blind to the need for there to be at least the semblance of political change, but the real power had to be retained at all cost.

Their strategy, then, was to try to dictate incremental change from above, following the (later discredited) model of the American political scientist, Samuel Huntington.

This culminated, for example, in the disastrous enforcement of the tricameral parliament, which PW had refused to negotiate with the non-White majority in advance, against the explicit advice of his own intelligence community as conveyed to him by the Secretariat of the State Security Council (which had correctly predicted that imposing it was only going to inflame political resistance even higher).

Those in favour of seeking a settlement, on the other hand, realized that the very attempt to try and keep control over political power would bring about the white minority’s downfall. It was recognized that it was precisely this unwillingness to recognize majority rights (and ipso facto to relinquish real power) that caused the fire under the porridge pot to burn higher and higher, both domestically and from abroad.

Rather than continuing to fight to the bitter end for the preservation of total power, the side wishing to settle believed that the offer of an orderly, peaceful transfer of political power should be used as a carrot to ensure that the constitutional model under which such power would be exercised in future, would be based on Western democratic and capitalist values.

The danger, in their view, was not so much who would acquire power, but rather: in terms of what type of constitutional dispensation it would be exercised. Certainly, the revolutionary imposition of a Marxist People’s Republic (as then still advocated by the ANC/SACP alliance) had to be averted at all costs. However, doing everything to avoid a People’s Republic was not necessarily synonymous with the whites striving to retain all power to the exclusion of non-Whites’ rights.

Evidently, the quid pro quo of exchanging the power then held by the whites as colonial heritage, by swapping that for an acceptable state model based on Western values, could only  be put into play and legitimately concluded by way of truly free and inclusive negotiations leading to a settlement based upon sufficient consensus.

In the media and in academia, as well as in political discourse in general, this debate within the security and intelligence establishment about “shoot” or “settle” as strategic options did not really figure – in the public arena there was discussion about things like being “verlig” or “verkramp” (literally, enlightened or cramped, broadly meaning leaning somewhat liberal or towards very conservative). Also, about what types of constitutional models would theoretically be best, or about which Apartheid measures were petty and could be abolished.

Within the intelligence community, on the other hand, it was precisely this conflict over strategy – whether to prepare for inevitable shooting in order to maintain power, or rather to prepare well and in timely manner for an inevitable eventual settling, that was the primary dividing factor, already from the late sixties onwards.

It was also the configuration of the intelligence community as such that, since the establishment of the Bureau in 1969 (under Van den Bergh’s leadership, as official Security Advisor to the Prime Minister), that had caused conflict. Van den Bergh had been seriously at odds with PW and the military leadership. Essentially because the latter believed that they and their input on strategy did not carry the weight they thought it deserved within this new configuration (this, in addition to the intense interpersonal feuds between PW and Lang Hendrik).

There is still today a perception that Vorster and Van den Bergh had doggedly wanted to cling to Apartheid. This persists, despite all the evidence of what they did with regard to, for example, putting SWA/Namibia on the road to a negotiated non-racial dispensation. At Nongqai , we received evidence from impeccable sources that Vorster had already during his reign stated privately, in confidential conversation, that Apartheid could not work.

Looking at how Vorster, Van den Bergh and the Foreign Affairs team of Minister Hilgard Muller and Dr Brand Fourie (as ably supplemented by the efforts of the erstwhile Information Department – Drs Connie Mulder and Eschel Rhoodie) had approached the SWA/Namibia and Rhodesia conundrums is revealing as regards the strategy which they had in mind for resolving South Africa’s own situation.

What I experienced first-hand when I headed up the BfSS/DNS analytical desks on SWA/Namibia during the latter part of Vorster’s reign, was that Vorster and his team had understood the defining importance of process over fixating about policy positions.  They understood that no policies unilaterally dictated by any side would be accepted as legitimate. The only policy positions that would be internally and internationally acceptable, would be those born out of and shaped by the give and take of an inclusive, legitimate negotiation process. The fact that Southern Africa was at a crossroad and that it was imperative that peaceful settlements be reached, was publicly very clearly articulated by Vorster already on 23 October 1974, when he unequivocally stated that the alternative to peaceful settlement would be “too ghastly to contemplate”.

 “Apartheid” could thus be no more than an initial bargaining position (simply because of being the then pre-existing reality, as thus the historical point of departure). Neither Apartheid, nor any clever permutation of “power sharing”, qualified voting rights, or for that matter Marxist People’s Republic could be put forward during such a process of negotiations by any one side as an immutable goal. Nor could peace be assured by attempting, top-down, to manage by force a series of incremental changes (leading to what, and when?). To be credible and acceptable, the chasm between endless conflict and peaceful co-existence had to be leapt in one jump.

Legitimacy and acceptance of the final outcome would be assured not so much by the WHAT of the constitution (throughout history, there hasn’t been one single “correct” answer as to what a perfect constitution should contain, applicable to all places and all times). So that the exact form that the eventual constitution would or should take, could not be precisely predicted, nor imposed, at the outset of the process.

It was thus the process of negotiation itself that would produce the final form. What was essential, was therefore to prepare your side as best as possible for participating effectively in the negotiation process. To hold as strong a hand of cards as possible. Not having given anything away, gratuitously, beforehand. Focusing on seizing the initiative, on having allies, and crucially on being seen as credible and trustworthy. Achieving such respect and acceptance by not trying to dominate and unilaterally impose your will – whilst all the time ensuring also that your side is subliminally perceived and understood by the others to be a key party whose fundamental interests and strengths had to be very much taken into account by them.

In other words, Vorster and his team understood that there was no point in first trying to reform Apartheid, or to try to incrementally enforce change from the top down, in a manner determined by them alone. They understood that they would, first and foremost, need to accept negotiations as the only legitimate way forward, and then trust in the strength of the cards they could muster and in their own negotiating ability, all the while doing their utmost to prepare the ground as favourably as possible and well in advance, thereby to strengthen their hand as much as possible.

Which is precisely the strategy they had implemented in SWA/Namibia, ably assisted by the superbly competent Dirk Mudge and the allies he could quickly muster. The Vorster team furthermore understood that international legitimacy would in large part also be bestowed by acceptance on the part of the African states, hence the emphasis on détente and on building relations with them.

If peaceful transitions could be achieved in Rhodesia and in SWA/Namibia, it would have as very important consequence that it could provide a road map for South Africa itself and help incline white South Africans to accept the previously unthinkable, based on proven success… Even though I know from own experience that the military had mostly held illusional expectations that the “moderates” would win in those territories, I know equally well that that had not been the clearly-expressed assessment of the non-military component of the intelligence community – of people like my father and myself (based on simple ethno-demographic reality); it is therefore in my experience not correct to assume that the acceptance of the need to negotiate non-racial constitutional dispensations was actually driven by fond though unrealistic expectations that doing so would somehow lead to whites being able to retain disproportionate power or privilege.

Vorster’s strategy of negotiation rather than confrontation which dated from the late sixties had showed early promise, at least till PW Botha’s disastrous foray into Angola in 1975 and the subsequent worsening of South Africa’s own internal situation. What was nevertheless significant regarding white politics in the subcontinent was that the SWA/Namibia experience (as embodied in the Turnhalle process), did in fact demonstrate clearly that a conservative white populace could be convinced to put their trust in a non-racial constitutional dispensation – as more than nine out of ten white Southwesters in fact did, when they voted in the referendum held amongst them to approve of the Turnhalle constitution. This fundamental acceptance by otherwise conservative, mostly rural Afrikaners in SWA that a non-racial dispensation was both inevitable and necessary, I actually saw illustrated not only by that referendum’s results, but by a very thorough scientific opinion survey conducted beforehand among SWA whites in which I had been intimately involved. This in-depth testing of opinion showed that there were no illusions nor false expectations – just the common-sense realism for which common folk are not often enough given credit.

It is sad history that Vorster’s initiatives regarding SWA/Namibia in the end came to naught, when PW Botha took over and slammed on the brakes (as one general told me late one night in the Kalahari Sands hotel in Windhoek: war over who would own South Africa was inevitable, and the SADF needed battle space to “bleed in” our troops and give them combat experience – which the SWA/Angola arena conveniently provided…).

Fact remains that Vorster clearly had understood the inevitability of resolving Southern Africa’s conflicts through negotiations, from which non-racial constitutions would equally inevitably result (as demonstrated in the case of Zimbabwe and later fully confirmed in Namibia by the late eighties, when even PW had to succumb to this reality – only, after ten wasted years, and then with far fewer cards in hand). Of equal importance was Vorster’s understanding that the emphasis should be on the negotiation process (and properly preparing for that) rather than focusing intra-governmental debate on developing all kinds of policy positions (i.e., constitutional models) to be incrementally imposed from above – because the latter approach was akin to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, instead of realising that the ship was irredeemably doomed and an entirely new vessel urgently needed to be found…

The same necessity to trust in negotiation proved to be true of South Africa itself, as eventually understood by FW de Klerk and his team – again, unfortunately, a lost decade later and without time for the careful building of alliances that had marked Vorster’s thorough preparation for SWA/Namibia.   

As regards General van den Bergh and his understanding of the fatal flaws in Apartheid, he himself had also made it clear in his unpublished autobiography that he was well aware of these. One such fundamental defect was that, in his view, “Separate Development” offered no logical solution with regard to civil rights for the so-called Coloureds and Indians, and that the tricameral parliament would neither work nor gain acceptance.

The main defect of Apartheid that he identified, however, was that the policy did not provide for what Van den Bergh saw as the country’s greatest single challenge. Which he understood to centre around South Africa’s most important demographic, economic and geographical reality – namely, that the vast bulk of the country’s most economically significant surface area was in fact “shared territory”, inhabited and worked upon by all population groups, inextricably intermingled (in this regard, he had concurred with prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s position).

That is why, for example, Van den Bergh had us, his analysts, investigate the possibilities of a unitary state model organised on consociative principles.

Under Vorster’s team, it was axiomatic that strategy should be focused on preparing well and timeously for holding the best hand of cards possible when inevitably the parties had to sit down at a future negotiating table. Therefore, Vorster and his team took the initiative with regard to such preparation (such as through seeking détente with Black Africa) so that negotiations would not ultimately be forced upon a South Africa unprepared for it…  On this score, the Bureau, Foreign Affairs, Department of Information and quite a few in the Police (such as my father) all had agreed.

7.2     UNDER PW BOTHA, TALKING TO THE ANC/SACP WAS A NO-NO:

On the other hand, there were many in the forces, especially in the Army under Magnus Malan, who saw the strategy of preparing for negotiations (as embodied in Vorster’s détente initiative and the process of encouraging Rhodesia and SWA/Namibia to move to majority rule by way of negotiation) as a sell-out. This group’s political leader was the ambitious, abrasively self-centred PW Botha.

The PW Botha/Magnus Malan contingent’s approach of trying instead to dictate incremental cosmetic change top-down, and to rely on physical force in South Africa’s relations within the region, had led to many conflicts already under Vorster and especially with Van den Bergh – internal conflicts within government that were brought to a head by the overthrow of the Caetano regime in Portugal in 1974 and the independence of the one-time Portuguese colonies.

Few people realize how fierce this internal struggle was, and what significant consequences it would have. PW, as defence minister, followed his own head, launching operations on his own authority. Vorster and Van den Bergh, for example, were only able to stop our forces at the last minute at Komatipoort, when PW had ordered them to enter Mozambique to take over the radio station to support a planned coup in Lourenço Marques by right-wing Portuguese settlers there.

Another example was PW’s support for Zambian rebels who wanted to overthrow Kenneth Kaunda – this, while KK was a key interlocutor for Vorster in his détente initiative.

Eventually, PW’s wayward military decisions under (but not approved by) Vorster, taken without due consultation nor authorization, culminated in him transforming what had only been authorized as no more than rendering training assistance to UNITA, into a full-scale conventional advance by South African troops in own uniform and armour on Luanda, to try and take it over (Ops Savannah). A strategic catastrophe that resulted in massive deployment of Cubans into our region, but – more importantly – that sank Vorster’s détente.

In strategic-psychological terms, the consequence that we at NIS had most feared (and then saw come true before our eyes) was that when Operation Savannah inevitably failed, it would puncture our balloon of invincibility. In the perceptions of South Africa’s non-White population and the rest of Africa, from the moment that they saw the SADF obliged to abandon their Savannah incursion, White South Africa was no longer invincible. The insistence on the transfer of power inevitably began to flare higher soon after, as illustrated by the outbreak and rapid spread of the Soweto riots from June 1976 onwards.  

The “total onslaught” men may have thought that they had won the battle against the “settle” faction when Vorster was brought down in the palace revolution instigated through the Information “scandal”, when in 1978 PW Botha was elected as Prime Minister by a narrow margin, helped across the line by Pik Botha.

An octopus-type control mechanism to keep the entire bureaucracy in line was soon introduced, in the form of the National Security Management System or NVBS by its Afrikaans acronym (created by decree, outside of the provisions of the Act on Security Intelligence and the State Security Council). The SADF was firmly ensconced in the chair.

Nevertheless, Foreign Affairs for example continued with their negotiation initiatives and was able to obtain cabinet approval for the Nkomati Treaty. However, Prime Minister PW Botha told the SADF that they need not bother with this Accord, to the great detriment of our international credibility. The Defence Forces’ wilful ignoring of the Nkomati Treaty led, among other things, to serious head-butting between Niël Barnard and Constand Viljoen as head of the SADF, with Barnard lashing out at Viljoen in a call to him over the SADF’s flouting of what was a Cabinet decision (the one that had authorised the treaty – at that time, the Cabinet was still the highest executive authority under the then constitution, which PW then immediately wanted to change).

It must be said at this point that Barnard (his nickname behind his back among other department heads was: Billy the Kid) was not a beloved personality outside of the NIS.

Stiff and regarded by many as condescendingly intellectually superior, he made more enemies than friends in the bureaucracy. Because the NIS’s field of responsibility encompassed reporting on everything that affects national security – including what might go wrong in other departments’ areas – the typical bureaucratic trend of everyone wishing to crow from atop their own dung heap didn’t work in his favour either…

Be that as it may, back now to PW Botha and his autocratic management style and the battle between the “shoot” and “settle” camps. It is an open question to me, to what extent PW’s stubborn insistence, against advice, to force through the constitutional changes of 1983 (which included the gimmick of the tricameral parliament) was in fact more motivated by the other leg of those changes – being, to abolish the cabinet system of joint authority and make him executive president,  with extraordinarily broad powers centralized in his person…

Continuing his disapproval of negotiation, PW immediately had begun to undo the hard preparatory work of his predecessor in SWA/Namibia (with the establishment of Turnhalle process and the creation of the non-racial DTA alliance). The last major decision of the previous cabinet, namely, to accept UN Security Council Resolution 435, was put on hold and PW began to put pressure on Dirk Mudge and the DTA to revert to a more ethnocentric (“Apartheid”) vision, which eventually culminated in a total rift between him and Mudge.

7.3     PW BOTHA WOULD NOT CROSS THE RUBICON:

Pressure on the South African government to start negotiations began to ramp up seriously by the middle of the decade, both domestically and internationally.

Another catastrophe came quickly enough, in 1985, with PW’s “Rubicon” speech.

A week before the date set for the speech, the cabinet had met for a brainstorming session at the old Observatory (part of Military Intelligence’s training facilities at the time). I’ve had sight of the recently unearthed entire verbatim transcript of that meeting. Contrary to what people like Pik Botha had later pretended, fundamental political change and a consensus text for PW’s speech (from which PW then supposedly had deviated in delivery) were NOT agreed upon during that brainstorming session.

In fact, Pik was uncharacteristically quiet all the time.

Chris Heunis, then in charge of constitutional planning, was the only cabinet minister who at all had tried to advocate that the circumstances (Chase Manhattan bank had just caused the Rand to stagger with the refusal of further loans) necessitated a new direction to be announced, but his circumspect pleas were not accepted by PW.

It was evident that PW Botha would deliver his own speech. However, those who had wanted to, could present draft inputs to him. The Departments of Constitutional Development (Heunis) and Foreign Affairs (Pik Botha) did indeed prepare separate such drafts. PW didn’t even want to invite Heunis into the Groote Schuur residence – snapping at him from the porch that Heunis could forget about him (PW) delivering that “Prog” speech (i.e., favouring negotiations) that the experts at constitutional planning had drafted…

Pik Botha, however, had evidently hoped that he could paint PW into a corner by pushing ahead and widely promoting the draft prepared by Foreign Affairs, overseas and in the media – as if that was what PW was set to announce. It contained the “crossing the Rubicon” analogy and was touted by Pik in Vienna and elsewhere as heralding a brave new direction.

However, the only portion of that draft which PW eventually used in his own speech, was the Rubicon phrase… His focus was not on announcing any fundamental change in policy, but instead on making it abundantly clear to the world that he would not allow himself to be prescribed to. Given what Pik has been foreshadowing in Vienna and elsewhere, this message from PW was obviously experienced exceedingly negatively, both domestically and abroad.

I’m referring to this incident, not to re-hash the past, but to point out how fierce the battle was between either negotiating, or rather sticking to “shoot” and – if necessary – to eventually “go down hard-arsed” (“hardegat ondergaan” as per PW’s own words to Barnard, which Masada-like outcome increasingly appeared to PW to be our only remaining option).

PW Botha would not tolerate discussions with the external ANC/SACP alliance, and the consequences for any official who violated this edict were severe (as Cloete and Jordaan of Constitutional Development found out, when Jordaan went on one of the “African safaris” to meet with the external ANC).

7.4     PW ANSWERS THE COMMONWEALTH EPG WITH BOMBS:

Pik Botha would soon once again try to paint PW into a corner about entering into negotiations. During the visit of the Commonwealth’s Eminent Persons Group (EPG) in 1986, Pik prepared for them a text of points on which he told the EPG that the SA cabinet would be willing to agree, with a view to starting negotiations – if only the EPG would agree with him to use his text as their statement about the way forward. The EPG then in good faith released Pik’s text as their own. PW’s response to this consisted of an Air Force officer phoning up Niel van Heerden at Foreign Affairs with the news that the bombers were already in the air to attack the capitals of the Frontline states… Of course, the EPG immediately packed up and left, convinced that the PW Botha government was not amenable at all to negotiations, and even stricter international measures soon followed.

Not to dwell too much on how PW saw fit to browbeat Margaret Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary, as well as Ronald Reagan’s ambassador…

7.5 THINGS GET HAIRY IN ANGOLA, WITH CASTRO THREATENING INVASION:

As can be seen, even during the late eighties the “shooting” faction remained unwilling to give in to those who could see that settle was the only viable way forward. However, the balance of power within government began to change when the conflict in southern Angola began to go badly wrong militarily, with a costly stalemate at Cuito Cuanavale and Castro then opening a second front north of Ovamboland. Advanced Cuban MIGs started flying through our airspace.  (Barnard is alleged to have, in later years, privately mentioned to a confidant that those MIGs had in fact even flown above the Union Buildings).

A Citizen Force contingent of 140,000 men was called up. The Army’s first battle plan was to go in even deeper and “clear” south-west Angola of Cubans, including the port of Namibe (Ops Excite/Faction, part of Ops Hilti). However, this fell through when the Air Force and Logistics made it unequivocally clear that they would not be able to help make such a plan work. Accordingly, as an alternative (if the Cubans did indeed invade SWA), a new battle plan was then prepared in terms of which the Cubans would be allowed to enter as far as south of Etosha, with a “killing ground” to be prepared for them in the northern agricultural districts. (Ops Prone/Pact, part of Ops Handbag).

Full-scale war, then, from the back foot…

Fortunately, Foreign Affairs was able to report that the Cubans simultaneously had reached out to begin negotiations. Also, the NIS had a high-level source in the direct line of command between Havana and Luanda, who confirmed that Castro’s deployment of his second front was just bluffing, in order to try to force South Africa to the negotiating table. The USSR had by that time also fundamentally changed their stance about Southern Africa (more about which later) favouring negotiation over continued war.  And so, belatedly, the UN Security Council’s Resolution 435 was dusted off again and finally implemented (as Vorster already had known to be inevitable). Now however, because of the “lost decade” under PW, with much weaker cards in hand for the negotiations…

7.6     IN SOUTH AFRICA, CIVIL SOCIETY INCREASINGLY AGITATED FOR NEGOTIATIONS: Within South Africa itself, the growing insistence on negotiating coming from within business ranks, academic circles, the media and the government’s own constitutional planning experts began to pick up more and more speed, but PW still continued to enforce his dictate within the bureaucracy and assert his influence within the Cape Afrikaans press against any such contact – just look at Rapport’s then headline of “DOM DOKTORE VAN DAKAR“, (Dumb Doctors of Dakar)  referring to those leading academics who went to meet the external ANC in Senegal.

This disorganised situation with all kinds of missions that began to reach out to the external ANC from civilian circles, had worried Barnard. It wasn’t because he was opposed in principle to making contact and negotiating. After all, he himself was already in talks with Nelson Mandela (then still in custody), and the NIS had established links with the KGB in previous years. His concern was that uncoordinated efforts could do more harm than good.

7.7 RELEASING MANDELA AND KNOWING WHICH WING OF THE ANC WOULD PREVAIL:

Some of Barnard’s detractors from within former government circles criticise him for having supposedly accepted the need for Nelson Mandela’s release only very late. Furthermore, for then allegedly being over-awed by Mandela (even at one point tying Mandela’s shoelaces) and for prematurely accepting that Mandela would be the next president. Without Barnard sufficiently realising that the ANC saw the CODESA process merely as phase one of their “National Democratic Revolution” (the phase of getting rid of the former white regime) and that they would persist in seeking to implement their anti-capitalist, anti-democratic NDR soon after gaining power.

These criticisms stem, I believe, from those that made them not having had full knowledge of, nor complete comprehension for, the intelligence picture that the NIS had known to actually pertain with regard to these matters (which is not a counter-critique, since it was understandable under those circumstances that very few were then let in on these secrets – most of the cabinet, for example, did not know).

I can attest that there was firstly no lack of clarity at all within the NIS about the extra-ordinary personal qualities of Mr Mandela as master politician, as far back as the early eighties already. I remember vividly being secretary to a KIK meeting, convened specifically about how to advise the PW Botha government regarding the issue of Mr Mandela’s detention. Invited to this meeting was the senior psychologist of the Correctional Services, who had been pertinently tasked with observing and assessing Mr Mandela on a continuous basis – which he had done for a considerable length of time and great acuity. This gentleman was very clear: once released, Mr Mandela, with his exceptional charisma and intellect, would run rings around the then crop of white cabinet ministers and would utterly dominate the South African political scene.

One of the Army generals present asked (somewhat disbelievingly) whether the psychologist reckoned that Mr Mandela would run rings around the likes of Dr. Gerrit Viljoen as well? (Viljoen, former Broederbond chair, SWA/Namibia administrator-general and then minister of national education, was regarded as the top Afrikaner intellectual of his time).

The answer of the psychologist was an adamant “Yes!”.

Barnard and the NIS therefore knew two things with total clarity: It would be a disaster for South Africa if Mandela should die in prison, but secondly, that it will be even more of a disaster if he should have been released at the wrong moment. As much as Mandela needed to be thoroughly prepared for his release (to which Barnard himself would later assiduously attend) it was absolutely necessary that the context into which he would be released, be prepared and be conducive to a positive outcome.

There would probably be only one chance to do it right (in terms of thereby achieving the desired result of putting the country on the path to peace) because otherwise, his release held the potential for a sharp increase in confrontation.

It needs to be understood that Mandela could under no circumstances be released as merely a token part of top-down incremental change. Firstly, because Mandela himself would not accept conditional release, or being used in a publicity stunt. Secondly, because, if he was released outside of a pre-agreed framework of definitive negotiations for a new non-racial constitution, then confrontation was sure to follow. Especially if released whilst the authoritarian “groot krokodil” was still at the helm and sticking to his guns, literally and figuratively, that there will be no negotiations for a transfer of power to the non-white majority (just think back and imagine PW and Mandela squaring off in public!). That would inevitably have led to serious political confrontation at the highest level, which would assuredly have spread lower down, and abroad. With the PW Botha government most probably not being able to handle Mandela as political adversary…

Mr Mandela could, therefore, only safely be released once (and only if) the white government had beforehand been convinced to accept the need for, and had publicly committed itself to fully inclusive, unconditional negotiations for a new non-racial constitution based on one person, one vote.

As much as the NIS and Barnard understood this, it was also understood that it would be absolutely essential – also from the viewpoint of white interests – for Mr Mandela to indeed be released. Not as a publicity stunt to curry favour, but because Mr Mandela was the essential persuader needed to ensure that the moderates within the ANC around the likes of Thabo Mbeki, would overcome the hitherto dominant radical Lusaka faction under the likes of Jacob Zuma and Chris Hani.

The NIS obviously knew very well about the decades-old cleft that had existed within the ANC (and which finally came very publicly to the fore in the run-up to the 2024 elections, with Jacob Zuma and his MK party breaking away). We all knew, back then, with total clarity that there were those within the ANC who would indeed see any negotiations as just phase one of their revolution, allowing them to be rid of the white regime, whereupon they could then in typical Marxist-Leninist fashion focus on instigating a second revolution (the NDR) to thereby impose their ideological ideals. About this risk, there had been no misunderstandings whatsoever. The key intelligence question, though, was which faction within the ANC would prevail if the lure of political power was on the table, offered in exchange for constitutional guarantees for minorities and for property rights.

The logically necessary sequence of events, from an intelligence perspective, was therefore to firstly obtain certainty about Mr Mandela’s likely future moderate stance (as Barnard was busy doing, in his many prison meetings with him).  Then, secondly, to ascertain whether the external ANC was indeed open to participating in the negotiation of a new constitution. Thirdly, in parallel and doing so through the NIS’s penetration of the ANC’s communications and decision-making circles (by means of the likes of the hugely significant and very successful Operation Cruiser), to ascertain which faction would likely prevail, if Mr Mandela should be freed and then would cast his considerable weight on the side of the moderates. And fourthly, that the environment into which Mr Mandela is released be conducive to peace, through the white government having publicly and unequivocally accepted the imperative need for inclusive negotiations to arrive at a non-racial new constitutional dispensation.

7.8     OPERATION FLAIR – THE NIS MEETS WITH THE EXTERNAL ANC:

British businessmen with large investments in South Africa in the latter half of the eighties had begun to work on facilitating negotiations (doing so in secret consultation with the Thatcher government). Their focus was on fostering confidential dialogue between Afrikaner leaders and the external ANC. This is when the NIS stepped in to create its own channel for future direct contact with the ANC’s external wing, specifically with Thabo Mbeki. Because Barnard and his team were not inclined to see “volk” and nation “go down hard arsed” in imitation of PW Botha and his “total onslaught” brigade’s Masada fixation…

One of the delegates to these discussions (being held in the English countryside), Prof Willie Esterhuyse from Stellenbosch, was recruited by the NIS as agent “Gert”. His task was not to spy on the conversations, but specifically to reach out to Mbeki. “Gert” had to clandestinely identify himself, his NIS connection and his very specific mission to Mbeki, and then test whether there was willingness on Mbeki’s part to establish a direct channel between the NIS and himself, representing the external ANC. Long story short, Mbeki provided “Gert” with a phone number. Identifying code names were agreed. And so, the table was set for the NIS to contact Mbeki directly at the opportune moment, in order to arrange a first official but still secret meeting.

These events coincided with the end of PW Botha’s reign in 1989, when he was given an ultimatum by his cabinet colleagues to resign. FW de Klerk took over, and during his first chairmanship at a meeting of the State Security Council, the NIS put an innocuous-sounding resolution on the agenda. The thrust of it was that, because it was necessary to find out more about views held within the external ANC, the NIS is tasked with doing what was necessary to ascertain this… (SSC Resolution 13/1989). That resolution was passed routinely, without debate…

Immediately, Operation Flair was put into action by the NIS.

Mbeki was called, as previously arranged. On 2 September 1989, Mike Louw and Maritz Spaarwater of the NIS, officially met Mbeki and Jacob Zuma of the external ANC at the Palace Hotel, in Lucerne, Switzerland.

On their return to South Africa, Louw and Spaarwater flew to Cape Town to brief President de Klerk. When they told him that they had met with Mbeki and Zuma in Switzerland, De Klerk’s first, highly upset reaction was to confront them quite vehemently about where they had obtained permission to take such an important step?  They then held up Resolution 13/89 and replied that it was the SSC itself, chaired by him, De Klerk, that had authorised it.

The new president could have taken very strong exception, for two reasons. Firstly, because the resolution was clearly a deliberately woolly-worded ploy that in no way directly and unambiguously requested authorisation to officially meet with the ANC. De Klerk could therefore rightly have perceived this as an undermining of his authority. Secondly, FW could have felt that he wanted to abide by PW’s previous prohibition on official contact.

Fortunately, De Klerk magnanimously accepted the “explanation” and immediately started running with the ball. That it could have turned out very differently, however, with less pleasant consequences for Barnard and his NIS colleagues, underlines that it took courage to take the bull by the horns and do what was necessary, come what may… (especially considering that the preparatory work had obviously already been surreptitiously done under PW).

To sum up about Barnard, the Mandela release and the question as to which faction within the ANC would prevail, it is my read that the NIS under Barnard’s leadership had ensured that they were in a position, at the end of 1989 shortly after FW de Klerk took over (who knew nothing about the prison contacts or the direct contact with the external ANC, or of that with the USSR), to go to him and brief him and his government, presenting an intelligence estimation that we can assume may be broadly be paraphrased in the following terms.

Mr President:

• you cannot hope to forever contain the growing internal unrest by force, nor forever resist the ever increasing foreign pressure; a political problem cannot be solved by military means.
• Incremental change imposed top-down weakens rather than strengthens the government because it is perceived as concessions being made under pressure, and thus as a sign of weakness that emboldens the opposition; accordingly, it has been proven over the last ten years not to be a realistic option.
• The only way to avoid a bloody and ultimately unwinnable fight to the finish, which could result in a racial bloodbath destroying the Afrikaner people and whites in general, is to inclusively and unconditionally negotiate for a new, non-racial constitution, the result of which we have to accept would inevitably be majority rule.
• There is no strategic benefit in further delaying negotiating, because the internal situation is only likely to become more polarised and difficult to contain resulting in wider and more lasting societal damage, plus punitive measures from abroad are likely to sharpen and further weaken the economy, and the international climate within which to negotiate can furthermore take a serious turn for the worse, if the currently relatively friendly governments in the USA and UK are replaced by Democrats and Labour;
• Should the government opt for a strategy of negotiation, then we believe that the West will thoroughly support such a move and from their side will work towards ensuring an outcome preserving their economic interests as well as values, meaning that foreign pressure on us will immediately start abating and that their pressure will instead then shift to be exerted on the likes of the ANC to accept a constitution based upon Western democratic and free market values.
• We believe that the USSR will also encourage a process of negotiation, to lead to a constitution that will guarantee the rights of minorities and the whites in particular – this we say, on the basis of secret contact with the USSR over a number of years, through which it has been possible to help turn the Soviet leaders away from continued support for the ANC, leading to the Soviets now actively cooperating with us in important areas such as busting economic sanctions, upgrading our key weapons systems such as the SAAF’s jet fighters with their MIG-29 engines, and openly supporting negotiations rather than violent revolution at places such as the United Nations.
• Another reason for it being an opportune moment to turn to negotiation is because the ANC is historically weak now, given the fact that the USSR as their former main sponsor has been weakened lately and has furthermore undergone a change of heart, plus the fact that MK has been severely debilitated militarily, with their nearest base areas now in Uganda.
• When the government opts for negotiations, then there will be a need for a principal interlocutor in order to give structure and some discipline to the negotiations; the experience in Zimbabwe, for example, has shown that no white government can select its negotiation partner – only the liberation movements will enjoy the necessary legitimacy to take the masses with them and, through their participation, bestow legitimacy upon the entire process.
• It should furthermore be comprehended that the internal UDM is incapable of being an effective negotiation partner because of being an amorphous, poorly structured and disorganised group of loosely associated celebrity individuals with whom it will be very difficult to conduct effective negotiations; they will in any case likely not agree to participate unmless under the auspices of the ANC.
• Because of the foregoing, as well as the PAC and Black Consciousness Movement being, for their part, too radical to be likely to be converted, it needs to be accepted that the ANC headed by Nelson Mandela is the only viable interlocutor, both in terms of ensuring structure for the process and bestowing upon it internal as well as international legitimacy.
• As to what would be the attitude of the ANC/SACP regarding joining such negotiations, it is our analysis, based on some five dozen detailed personal meetings with Mr Mandela and also based on our extensive penetration of the ANC’s communications and decision-making circles, as well as having met directly with Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma abroad, that they would indeed be willing to abandon their failed armed struggle and to enter into such negotiations, if lured by the prospect of thereby acquiring political power at last (which they know they would otherwise not be able to achieve militarily).
• As regards which faction within the ANC would prevail and thus eventually be ruling the country, it is our analysis that – on condition that Mr Mandela be released – the moderate wing of the ANC will prevail over their radical wing. We believe that Mr Mandela and the moderates such as Thabo Mbeki will accept that the new constitution be based on Western norms, abandoning their erstwhile dream of a Marxist People’s Republic in exchange for the chance to hold political power (which will only ever be possible because of the whites, as quid pro quo, being willing to relinquish it to them, under such an exchange).
• It is likely that the SACP will play a positive role in negotiations, on the side of the ANC moderates.
• We believe it to be inevitable that Mr Mandela will, as a result of such negotiations, be elected as the new president because he will enjoy the support of the overwhelming demographic majority; furthermore, we assess that he can be trusted to govern in a responsible way that will respect existing rights and values and not seek vengeance against the white minority in general, and the Afrikaner in particular.

It is history that such an assessment (even if here framed in hypothetical phraseology) was indeed proven to have been correct.

Why could the NIS at that time succeed in convincing the NP government that it was imperative to embark straight away on negotiating such fundamental change, abandoning the policies that they had clung to so steadfastly up to that point? Why couldn’t Constitutional Development achieve that breakthrough, given what they had recommended two years before in the “Skrik vir Niks” report? Obviously, the fact that the obstinate and domineering PW Botha had been replaced as president by FW de Klerk played a role – but beforehand, FW himself had been (alongside PW) one of the two leading brakes on any substantial change being accepted by cabinet.

As the forementioned Prof Fanie Cloete had accurately described: “The underlaying political atmosphere was one of latent fear, born out of a realisation by several cabinet ministers that the system which they were enforcing wasn’t sustainable. But at the same time, there was an unwillingness to openly accept the implications of power sharing, which was the only way out”.

My own analysis is that the NIS could achieve success because of the reality that the NIS, because of the nature of its focus and inherent tasking, was better able (or, at least, more credibly so – from the point of view of the politicians) to answer the fear-driven questions that had been uppermost in the minds of the political decision-makers, than the “civilian” experts with their more narrowly-defined functional fields of expertise could realistically hope to do. Vital questions – for the politicians – that went way beyond which constitutional models or strategies would theoretically be most apt. Questions going to the core of what they had understood as an existential threat, to their people but also to themselves, such as: “Can we hold on by force?”; “if we do this, what would be the reaction of the ANC/SACP, of Mandela, of the USSR, of the West?”; “would we be able to obtain from such a process a constitutional system based on Western democratic and capitalist values?”; and, importantly: “are the new powers-that-be, likely to seek vengeance?” (in other words, the answers listed above).

8.  BARNARD AND THE NIS’s ROLE IN GETTING THE PARTIES TO NEGOTIATE

What role did Barnard/NIS play at strategic level in bringing the South African government on the one hand, and the ANC/SACP alliance on the other, to the negotiating table? 

8.1 BOTH “APARTHEID” AND A “MARXIST PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC” HAD TO BE ABANDONED:

First of all, both parties had to be brought to the point of understanding that the ideologies which they respectively espoused were precisely the other side’s worst nightmare. In fact, that the dreams of either one was perceived as existential threats by the other, against which each side would continue to fight to the death. Whites against a Marxist People’s Republic. Non-Whites against racial discrimination.

The government therefore had to be moved to face the reality that it was their own racial policies that were underlying the unrest among non-whites, as well as leading to outside pressures. To the same extent, the ANC/SACP had to be made to realise that it was precisely their ambition to try to establish a Marxist people’s republic through violent revolution, which made the Whites cling so fiercely to power. This latter point, the future president Nelson Mandela fortunately had grasped, in part thanks to the intense interaction with him by the secret interlocutors who had engaged with him under Barnard’s leadership while he was still imprisoned.

Secondly, both parties had to be made aware that neither of them would be able to realise their ideological aspirations by force of arms – not the government, nor the ANC/SACP. That such a conflict between them could only result in widespread destruction, and was bound to gravely harm the entire population, with no plausible winner in the end.

So, how did the NIS get the National Party government to understand that it was the government’s own ideology that primarily endangered national security? Here, Barnard and his team pulled off another semantic sleight of hand. They needed to arm themselves with a plausible “mandate” or justification for them as intelligence service to point out to the elected government of the day that  their own policies actually lay at the root of the unrest – because it does not normally behove bureaucrats anywhere to so critically take on the fundamental policies of  governments in this way.

The “paradigm shift” (as it became known) that the NIS made in order to justify such a stance, was to emphasise the name change that the Service had undergone – from State Security to National Intelligence. The term “national” was interpreted to mean that the NIS was obliged to look unbiased at anything and everything that threatened the stability and prosperity of the entire nation. Thus, no longer just focusing on threats to the security of the organs of state … Seen against the broad national perspective, it was evident that institutionalised racial discrimination was what was providing the fuel to the fire.

The analogy used to put this across (depicted graphically with drawings, at briefings to political decision-makers) was that of a pot of porridge that was boiling over – just as the situation in the country was visibly boiling ever fiercer, for all to see. If the fire under the pot was not extinguished, then sooner or later the lid would no longer be able to be kept down on it, even with force of arms…

Developments such as those in the conflict in Angola (when Castro began to make the porridge thicker yet with his second front) obviously also contributed to demonstrating to everyone in government decision-making circles the limits of the SADF’s physical abilities, especially as international punitive measures in the area of arms purchases began to seriously bite – particularly as regards the Air Force.

At the same time, the ANC/SACP’s belief in their model of a Marxist People’s Republic suffered a blow due to the way in which the Soviet Union was on the wane during the second half of the eighties. More importantly, however, was that the South African security forces clearly had the upper hand over Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) in the “armed struggle”, partly thanks to the NIS’s penetration of their internal communications as well as their decision-making inner circles.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that, in military terms, MK never amounted to very much. Their actions constituted at most “armed propaganda” and definitely was not a full-scale guerrilla war (such as in Namibia and Zimbabwe). They had no real hope of ever achieving anything near a military overthrow of the white state. Numerous studies and declarations that can today be found on websites such as that of the Mandela Foundation confirm this truth, from the mouths of ANC leadership figures themselves.

Apart from effectively countering MK in the security sense, the other means to bring the ANC to the negotiation table and to get them to abandon their demand for a Marxist People’s Republic, was the powerful lure of at last achieving political power (albeit in exchange for a constitutional dispensation sufficiently acceptable to whites in order for them to agree to peacefully hand over that power). Last but not least, was to deprive the ANC of the support of its main international sponsor, and to get that sponsor (the USSR) to also exert pressure in favour of negotiations rather than continued conflict.

8.2 TURNING THE SOVIET LEADERSHIP’S MINDS:

The other brilliant strategic insight on the part of Barnard and his team was that the Soviet Union could likely be persuaded to pull back its support for the ANC/SACP’s “armed struggle” and instead start working with the Pretoria government. This did, upon analysis, seem possible because of MK’s poor prospects for presenting the Soviets with success, but especially because of the many shared economic interests between Pretoria and Moscow (regarding, for example, the marketing of minerals, precious metals and diamonds).

If the USSR could be persuaded into such a turnaround, it would deprive the ANC/SACP and consequently MK of their most important sponsor.

Strategically, this was an innovative and daring strategy that had not been attempted by any other government threatened by international communism during the Cold War.

The success that was in fact achieved with this move is certainly one of the least known of the achievements of the South African intelligence community during the late eighties.

As early as June 1981 the NIS began to actively reach out to the KGB, with a view to establishing formal contact with them and through them, with the Soviet Union. On March 29, 1987, these ties were officially formalized. You can read more about this initiative to help “turn the minds” of the Soviet leadership in this Nongqai article:  https://tinyurl.com/mr2uxnxh

In summary, during the last years of the 80’s decade the then ANC president, Mr Oliver Tambo, was no longer able to obtain appointments to meet with the then Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. By contrast, Gorbachev did however receive Niël Barnard warmly, inside the Kremlin, and moreover – he had rescheduled a Politburo meeting at short notice in order to be able to do so.

Dr. Marc Burger (who was Foreign Affairs’ head of sanctions evasion) writes in his book “Not the Whole Truth” of how the Soviet Union has been helpful in evading economic sanctions. An interesting factoid about this sanctions-busting cooperation is that the head of the then KGB in Leningrad (now again St Petersburg) was the main facilitator on the Soviet side – him having undergone part of his schooling at Pretoria Boys High when his father was the Soviet consul in Pretoria just after WW2.  Not the Whole Truth – Kindle edition by Burger, Marc. Politics and Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

The chapter in Barnard’s own memoir on how the link with the USSR was built can be read here: SUCCCESSFUL OUTREACH TO THE KREMLIN, VIA THE KGB (Dr L.D. Barnard – NIS – Issuu

Probably the most telling example of the turnaround in the attitude of the USSR (which was once our erstwhile enemies’ main supplier of weapons) was the important joint project to upgrade the Air Force’s fighter jets with new engines. That project to replace the Air Force’s then-Mirage F1 and Cheetah fighter jets’ obsolete French engines with specially converted engines from the advanced MIG-29s of that era (which had to be built into similarly custom-modified SAAF Mirage airframes), was technically highly successful.

The luxury dacha on the outskirts of Moscow that served as a design studio for the joint team of South African and Soviet aeronautical engineers was actually the one that had formerly been used by an earlier Soviet big boss, Brezhnev…  The full story of the project to replace the Mirages’ engines with those of the MIG-29 can be read in Nongqai ‘s e-book about it:

Nongqai Vol 14 No 6C Jacobus de Villiers by Hennie Heymans, Nongqai Publications – Issuu

The book was written by the then team leader on the South African side, Kobus de Villiers. He’s now a popular novelist, with an easy-to-read skill with the pen – you’ll love it! 

Although the French firmly believed it was completely impossible to replace their engines with those of the Russians, it can be confirmed that our aircraft with the modified airframes and new engines flew excellently (the book contains interesting photos, as well as a link to a video of the “Super Mirage” in flight).

The change in Soviet attitudes to Southern Africa from the late eighties was attested to by Valerie Shubin, an old school apparatchik and academic who had headed the Africa section of the CPSU’s international bureau at the time. In an article published in November 2008 entitled: “The USSR and Southern Africa during the Cold War” Shubin wrote: “However, on the threshold of the 1990s the Soviet Union underwent serious political and institutional changes. Its foreign policy, directed by Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, was rapidly changing as well, and not in favour of the liberation struggle. In a speech to the UN General Assembly in September 1989, Shevardnadze pledged “to oppose … resolutely all kinds of violence, no matter what had caused or motivated it”, and this could be read, in particular, as opposing any resolute action again the racist regime in South Africa…

“Anatoly Chernyaev, then Gorbachev’s assistant for international affairs (and a Central Committee member!), who proved to be another turncoat, wrote in his memoirs: Gorbachev had a rather good nose for people who had no prospects and were “useless to us” … Gorbachev did not believe that by supporting the ANC and supplying it with arms we were assisting the correct process in South Africa.”

8.3 POLITICAL POWER SWAPPED FOR A DEMOCRATIC FREE MARKET CONSTITUTION: That ice-breaking meeting in Lucerne between the NIS and the external ANC was therefore not simply an isolated instance which Barnard and his team had dreamt up on the spur of the moment. It was clearly part of a much more comprehensive plan to ensure that both parties (government as well as ANC/SACP) would see the logic for thus engaging, in terms of the own interests of each, and thus both have the inclination to want to stop the conflict and start negotiating.

This was part of the larger plan to persuade the government and the ANC to abandon their respective ideological platforms in favour of peacefully agreeing around a negotiating table on a legitimate new dispensation with general support and acceptance. A constitutional dispensation that, as quid pro quo, would see the Whites relinquishing their grip on political power, but thereby gaining a constitutional model that enshrined Western democratic and free-market values. 

Barnard could therefore rightly claim that, although the ANC did indeed win political power in the 1994 elections, they lost the battle over the nature of the constitutional order. In any case, it was clearly historically inevitable that the ANC would win the election, given that they had the support of the overwhelming demographic majority. Yet the ANC clearly lost on the substance of what it had ostensibly been waging the “armed struggle” for, for thirty years – in that it had to give up its stated aspiration for a Marxist People’s Republic. This they did in exchange for another prize, namely gaining and exercising power – but bound to do so under democratic, Western-capitalist rules…

Indisputably, this was what scoreboard showed, after the final whistle had blown on the tussle around the negotiation table: Western free-market democracy = 1, Marxist People’s Republic = 0.

The entirety of the Security Forces of the time can therefore rightly boast that they were successful in preventing an armed revolution and the imposition of a Marxist People’s Republic.

The results of the 2024 election furthermore shows that the NIS assessments regarding the deep divisions within the ANC and the likelihood that the moderates would prevail (and keep on prevailing) over the still revolting NDR faction, were correct. The moderates did not seek to make up with Zuma or the EFF, but chose to rather go into a government of national unity with the other parties committed to the 1994 constitutional accord…

8.4 AND IF NEGOTIATIONS HAD NOT KICKED OFF IN 1990?

To understand how important a contribution Barnard and his team had made (in that they effectively forced the initial breakthrough which saw PW’s strategy of “shooting” replaced with an honest willingness under De Klerk to seek to settle, through negotiation), one need only to ask oneself: if the whites had continued to cling to political power with the aid of their armed forces – as they clearly were physically fully capable of, probably for a considerable length of time – what would have happened under the later regimes in the U.S. of a Clinton, Obama, and Biden?   With the Labour Party also in power later in Britain?

How strong (or rather, weak) would have been the whites’ negotiating position at the inevitable end? (Because, at some point, there would clearly have had to be negotiations).

Remember how the Americans, the British and their allies relentlessly had bombed the Serbs in the Balkans during the mid-nineties, to force them to recognise the rights of the Muslims there, doing so over the course of not one, but two intense and very destructive air wars…

What would have been the outcome if intra-governmental debate had continued to be focused on analysing all kinds of options regarding constitutional models, instead of realising (as the NIS had) that it was imperative to accept that only a process of inclusive, unconditional negotiations could ever birth a legitimate constitutional model? This was perhaps the greatest contribution that the NIS had made to initiating change – convincing the FW de Klerk government that initiating such a negotiation process needed to be their clear and immediate focus, rather than to keep on trying to seek ways to re-arrange the deck-chairs…

Given the foregoing, one understands why Stephen Ellis, with his penetrating/critical judgment of the SA security forces and his Africa Confidental background, mentions in External Mission (p. 132): “Barnard was eventually to become perhaps the most influential political strategist of all on the government side.”

9. CONCLUSION

Certainly, Niël Barnard the man was not an easy person to get along with. As the saying goes: he didn’t suffer fools gladly“.

Certainly, he had a very healthy ego – which was, perhaps, an inevitable and necessary shield, given at what young age and without experience he had to maintain himself among senior officers and heads of rival departments.

However, what Barnard did also have, in addition to ego and condescension, was inner steel, the willingness to listen, as well as the intellectual integrity to change his opinions when confronted with facts. Plus, the ability and will to make decisions, even when it involved risk.

Not necessarily everyone’s ideal for a friend, but certainly someone you would appreciate next to you in the trenches…

It is true that other once conservative Afrikaners of the order of a Beyers Naudé could rightly point out that they had recognised the fatal practical and ethical flaws of Apartheid long before Barnard had seen the light. Such claims are undoubtedly true, and such people should rightly be honoured for their insightfulness. To the same extent, Afrikaners of the liberal conviction of a Van Zyl Slabbert could point out that they had already seen the need for negotiations with the ANC long before Barnard did. Once again, that would be true.

However, it is unfortunately also an historical truth that none of the likes of Oom Bey or Van Zyl could ever manage to convince the NP government.  The man and the team that first were able to concretely achieve that, undeniably was Niël Barnard and his NIS colleagues.

Without pretence at religiosity or in any way wanting to elevate a mere sinful mortal like Barnard to the rank of apostle, the biblical story of St. Paul seems to me to provide a rather relevant perspective here: St. Paul was by no means the first apostle to have seen the light and convert to Christ – in fact, as Saul of Tarsus, he undeniably had caused many Christians very serious harm, due to his earlier political convictions. And yet, he was probably the most impactful of all, in the longer run.

Why? Because St Paul had standing as a Roman, and (though hated for it) thus had access to, plus stature and credibility within the decision-making camp.

Barnard was also first a Saul, likely with much to confess to in that guise – but, once convinced of the truth, he could make up for his Saul’s mistakes like a Paul by successfully doing what no one from the left, nor a Chris Heunis or Pik Botha from within, could ever accomplish.

Why? Because Barnard had the necessary position of influence in the inner circle. Foremost, though, because he was willing (once he did see the light), to take responsibility – despite the risk – for doing what he and his team realised needed to be done, urgently, to prevent his people from being led into going under, (be that “hardegat” or otherwise), in a bloodbath of racial carnage.

Does one continue to condemn a Paul solely on the basis of what he did as a Saul, or do you at least also judge him on the strength of the outcome he had helped bring about when it counted most?

On the other hand, speaking normatively, is it ever correct for any intelligence service anywhere to deliberately bamboozle the government it reports to and initiate actions in order to directly change by means of a fait accompli the course of what they as service had full well known to be (rightly or wrongly) long-standing official government policy?  As lawyer and political scientist, I have to say NO. That would certainly not be the norm. An intelligence service is there to collect, verify and interpret information, converting those bits and pieces into timely intelligence products designed to provide governments with the necessary data and insights to inform their decision-making (which is the sole prerogative of government, in a democratic system).

Just as journalists are bound to report news and not to make or shape it, intelligence line-function officers, whether collectors or analysts, need to stick to their function and maintain their objectivity by not becoming active players in the political game (however great the temptation often may be). They need to respect their structural-functional role in the political system, which is not making decisions, but instead informing them.

Are there ever circumstances dire enough to justify breaking with this norm? Was the South African situation at the end of the eighties such?

You be the judge of that.

What one can also see in this conundrum, is a difficulty which often arises for governments and intelligence services around the world. That is, that governments – also democratic ones – do need an instrument for executing in secret, certain delicate policy decisions. Especially abroad. This kind of requirement mostly serves a noble cause, such as protecting by means of secrecy vital outreach from premature disclosure, which may ruin it. Or to provide governments with plausible deniability, when initiatives that had seemed worthwhile turn out otherwise and get exposed.

The dilemma which then confronts most governments, is that their intelligence service is by its very nature, the principal institutional repository of professional expertise at doing things secretly. So that the service then, willy-nilly, gets tasked with also performing such secret executive missions. Even though these are not intended to collect information, but instead to execute policy decisions in secret. Is it sensible, in terms of budgetary cost and efficient organisational structuring, for governments to set up and maintain a separate secret service just for such missions, in order to keep intelligence collection and secret policy implementation structurally completely separate?  In most cases, probably not. But what must then be fully understood and assiduously adhered to in the minds of all involved, is the clear distinction between the functions of intelligence collection/production on the one hand, and of secret executive missions on the other, so that the distinct ethical and objective integrity requirements of each be always respected.

A last but very important normative issue (and a common practical one in most societies, as my doctoral research had shown) is the need for the intelligence function not to be viewed as the privileged domain of a select few who practice it behind over-secretive walls. It is best performed as a system-wide function, thus absolutely needing to be integrated with the rest of the institutions making up the political system (such as relevant “civilian” government departments). Otherwise, when intelligence works only “upwards” to the top political decision-makers, it leads to a lack of effective engagement and coordination with the rest of the (much larger) machinery of the political system, and also to members of an elitist intelligence community often laying claim to their products being of higher value than those produced by experts from civilian departments outside of the secretive intel-bubble. How should such a range of inputs from respectively intelligence and civilian departments (from, for instance, the NIS and Constitutional Development) have been coordinated, and were they in fact? Was the South African political system really functioning at the time as a truly integrated system, or did it suit egos and silos within the intel-community to dismiss the civilian experts as “ivory tower idealists” who are not fully trustworthy and lacking in real-world realism, who thus could (or should) be basically cut out of the loop?

I suspect that the latter view unfortunately prevailed within the then intelligence community, as dysfunctional and internally divided as it was. Since that community was patently at odds with each other, and operating in silos (often at cross-purposes), how would they have sufficiently appreciated and coordinated with those “civilian” experts in non-intel departments outside?  Or did they see them as potential competition for the attention of the top political decision-makers? (It is a clear risk that those involved in secret intelligence work may often develop, regarding themselves, a perception of elite status because of their direct lines to the top, as well as of superior insights because of the information they possess which other experts don’t).   

Which all again goes to show how difficult the decisions were (normatively, legally as well as politically) that Barnard and his NIS team felt compelled to make, when they had effectively taken it upon themselves to kick-start the official negotiations by deliberately creating what was undeniably a self-orchestrated, un-authorised fait accompli with which to confront the new FW de Klerk government. It also makes it quite understandable why the NIS, and Barnard in particular, were seriously disliked by many in the military and the police who still had their minds set on countering a total onslaught, as well as by some constitutional planning experts who patently had been pushed aside when the NIS started taking matters into their own hands.

Whatever one’s own moral and ethical position on what Barnard and his NIS team had done, and especially regarding how they had gone about it, it seems clear in hindsight that the steps they had followed were actually the only viable ones (except of course for not having obtained proper prior authorisation). It seems evident that government in any case would at first have needed to reach out to the external ANC secretly, exactly as the NIS had done with their operation Flair, and that the NIS would have been the logical entity to undertake that initial secret contact.  One may thus proffer the old saying of “all is well that ends well” as justification (although “the end justifies the means” is obviously frowned upon from a legal and moral perspective).

There obviously also will be those who believe (with reasonable justification) that the gravity of the then circumstances constituted a clear emergency situation, and that in emergencies the usual norms and book theories cannot be insisted upon if it impedes taking action that is clearly urgently needed. That principle is indeed true in common law (such as breaking the window of your neighbour’s car without prior permission, in order to urgently save his baby suffocating inside).

I would be personally inclined to support this as long-established principle, but I also need to admit that I do have to ask myself: if they had had time to put a bogus application for authority through the State Security Council, why didn’t they simply ask properly and clearly? Were they scared that they may have been turned down?  Or, that it may have been decided by the SSC to involve other players? Or did they genuinely believe that secrecy was of utmost importance, so that the government could enjoy honest deniability if the answer from the external ANC had been NO to negotiations?

These are all imponderables, and I strongly believe that it would be utterly presumptuous for anyone now to try and judge, after the fact, the decisions taken by those who actually were there and who were brilliant, patriotic, principled men. Undeniably they did succeed at last in getting things started – not for their own glory, but because they rightly believed that that was what the country needed. It is just sad, however, that it is precisely the manner in which they had chosen to operate (and interact with others) that has led so many to still feel aggrieved and critical to this day…

It is, therefore, probably most apt to end this appreciation of Niël Barnard, a complex, controversial yet also very competent man, with the fundamental truth stated in Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”

OM DIE VOLLEDIGE SPESIALE UITGAWE VAN NONGQAI OOR WYLE DR LD BARNARD (VOL 16 NO 1b, JANUARIE 2025) TE LEES OP ISSUU, KLIEK HIER

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