---
title: P.W. Botha
aliases:
  - P.W. Botha
  - P. W. Botha
  - Pieter Willem Botha
  - Piet Botha
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-09
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
  - Person
  - Politician
  - Military
  - SouthAfrica
  - Israel
  - NuclearWeapons
summary: "P.W. Botha (1916-2006), South African Prime Minister (1978-1984) and State President (1984-1989), forged a covert wartime alliance with Israel and, in 1979 told his party's congress that South Africa had weapons not known about."
born: 1916-01-12
died: 2006-10-31
location: "Paul Roux, Orange Free State, South Africa"
relations:
  - type: subject_of
    with: "[[VELA Satellite]]"
    role: "prime minister whose September 25, 1979 statement about unknown weapons drew comment from the U.S. embassy"
    start: 1979-09-25
    end: 1979-10-26
    fn: 4
---

P.W. Botha served as Prime Minister of [[South Africa]] from 1978 to 1984 and as State President from 1984 to 1989. He had also served as Defense Minister and played a key role in developing South Africa's military and nuclear capabilities.[^1]

### Israeli Alliance and SIMWA

In 1978, [[Menachem Begin|Prime Minister Begin]] dispatched [[Ezer Weizman]], then Israeli Defense Minister, to [[Pretoria]] to meet Botha to discuss Israeli-South African relations. Despite Begin's intentions to downgrade the relationship, Weizman agreed with Botha on a wartime alliance between the two governments as the price for continuing nuclear tests. This led to the creation of [[SIMWA]] (SADF-IDF Mutual Wartime Agreement).[^1]

Minutes of 1975 meetings between Botha and [[Shimon Peres]], reported by the [[Mail & Guardian]], record a meeting in Zurich on June 4, 1975, at which Botha "expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available."[^2] The same article reports that a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment was signed some weeks before Peres's offer, and quotes its clause: "It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement … shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party."[^2]

### VELA Incident (1979)

On September 25, 1979, three days after a [[VELA Satellite]] recorded a double flash from a region that included the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Botha warned the Cape National Party congress that South Africa had and could produce sufficient arms to counter terrorism. He hinted that they might have military weapons that others did not know about, which [[Seymour Hersh]] wrote suggested that South Africa and its Israeli partners had successfully conducted a secret nuclear test.[^3]

A telegram from the American embassy in Pretoria dated October 26, 1979 recorded Botha's statement to the Cape National Party congress on September 25 "that South Africa had weapons to fight terrorism and that if anyone thought of trying something else, they might find that South Africa had weapons that are not known about." The ambassador wrote that he had asked Foreign Affairs Secretary [[Brand Fourie]] about the statement on September 27, and that Foreign Minister [[Pik Botha]] interjected on October 26 that the prime minister was referring to conventional weapons. The ambassador replied that there had been "media speculation at the time that P.W. was possibly hinting at nuclear weapons (speculation which was not specifically scotched subsequently)." The telegram records Pik Botha as saying that he had spoken to the prime minister by telephone.[^4]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^2]: Chris McGreal, "Revealed: How Israel offered to sell SA nuclear weapons," *Mail & Guardian*, May 24, 2010. https://mg.co.za/article/2010-05-24-revealed-how-israel-offered-to-sell-sa-nuclear-weapons
[^3]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20.
[^4]: Telegram from the Embassy in South Africa to the Department of State, October 26, 1979, "Suspected Nuclear Event: Talk With South African Foreign Minister," Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XVI, Southern Africa, Document 366, paragraphs 7 and 8. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v16/d366