The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/P. W. Botha.md

category	tags	summary	born	died	location
Intelligence & Government	Person Israel Military	Prime Minister of South Africa who hinted at nuclear weapons capability after the 1979 VELA Satellite detected a probable nuclear test.	1916-01-12	2006-10-31	Paul Roux, Orange Free State, South Africa

P. W. Botha was the Prime Minister of South Africa. On September 25, 1979, three days after a VELA Satellite recorded probable evidence of a nuclear explosion over the South Indian Ocean, 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, suggesting that South Africa and its Israeli partners had successfully conducted a secret nuclear test.¹

Footnotes

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1. Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20. ↩︎