Apartheid's Friends

Book excerpt: Very little has been written about the South African secret intelligence, but revelations to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the new culture of confessions now make that possible. James Sanders has gathered classified documents and interviewed ex-operatives since 1997 and has pieced together an extraordinary, unsavoury picture of the Intelligence Service, both inside South Africa and overseas. He reveals evidence of state-sponsored murder not only to intimidate the ANC but also to allow hard men within the police and the armed forces to let off steam. He reveals that Republican political candidates in the US were assisted in elections against anti-Apartheid Democrats. He shows that South Africa supplied Argentina with weapons during the Falklands War and that Harold Wilson's surprising outbursts, when he claimed that South African intelligence agents were trying to bring down his government, were based on hard evidence. At operational level, South African Intelligence had intimate links with counterparts in the CIA, British Intelligence, and other agencies worldwide. Apartheid's Friends not only provides an insight into a dark area of South Africa's past, it is also an important contribution to the international history of secret service.