South Africa: Nuclear Weapons and Bioweapons

Speaker 1: The Kalahari Desert nuclear test site in South Africa. An American satellite is watching.

Speaker 2: South Africa has informed us that they do not have and do not intend to develop nuclear explosive devices for any purpose. Either peaceful or as a weapon, that the Kalahari test site, which has been in question, is not designed for use to test nuclear explosives, and that new— and that no nuclear explosive test will be taken in South Africa.

Speaker 1: How much truth is there in this statement? Many people have spent Many, many hours searching meticulously records of all kinds from all sources. And their research raises some very serious questions.

Speaker 3: Who are the real proliferators, seeking to obtain the technology and divert the material to fashion a bomb, to become a member of the nuclear club? Or is it the exporting country that provides the technology, the manpower, the equipment and the material necessary for membership.

Speaker 1: There are many questions to be asked. What was the U.S. role in the development of the South African nuclear capability? What about West Germany? And what does this say about the truthfulness of our leaders and their real intentions? We'll discuss this tonight on Alternative Views. With the recent changes in South Africa and the unification of East and West Germany into a superstate, The following documentary, made in the late '70s, takes on increasing importance.

Speaker 4: Washington, August 6th, 1977. The Russian Embassy contacts the White House with a warning that South Africa is about to test a nuclear device in the Kalahari Desert. Will the Americans cooperate in trying to prevent it? As the story goes, President Carter was taken by surprise at this news. He ordered immediate satellite surveillance of the area in question. American intelligence confirmed that the South Africans were indeed preparing what looked like an underground test explosion. The Americans threatened South Africa with the gravest possible consequences.

Speaker 2: In response to our own direct inquiry and that of other nations, South Africa has informed us that they do not have and do not intend to develop nuclear explosive devices for any purpose, either peaceful or as a weapon; that the Kalahari Test Site, which has been in question, Is not designed for use to test nuclear explosives, and that new— and that no nuclear explosive test will be taken in South Africa.

Speaker 4: The Kalahari incident demonstrated that the great powers could act together forcefully where their mutual interest was at stake, and to both, nothing was more vital than halting nuclear proliferation. While the great powers could halt an atomic test, They could not stop repression in South Africa. Within a month of the test that never was, Steve Biko had died of injuries inflicted in a South African prison. Within 2 months, there were mass arrests of opponents of the regime.

Speaker 5: The bannings, prohibitions, detentions, and acts of repression must come to an end. The federal government is deeply dismayed at the developments in South Africa, of which the events in Soweto and the death of Steve Biko are the most tragic results. The Security Council must declare in a manner which is binding on all states that the supply of weapons to South Africa is bound to heighten even further the tension in that area. This supply must therefore cease.

Speaker 4: In the wave of revulsion against South Africa, for the first time, West Germany, France, Britain, and the United States voted in favor of a full arms embargo.

Speaker 6: We're undertaking a thorough review of relations with South Africa in all areas, including the area of nuclear cooperation. The possibility that South Africa might explode a nuclear device and develop nuclear weapons capability has been of gravest concern to my government, as it has to all members of the international community. Such a step would be a serious blow. To the security situation in Africa, and also to global efforts to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Speaker 4: But the value of the arms embargo was almost completely negated by the omission of any ban on the materials and technology for apartheid's most vital weapon, nuclear capability. And a recent book has effectively demonstrated that without the help of the Western powers, above all West Germany and the United States, South Africa today would not be in a position to build nuclear weapons. The Julian Friedman Publishing Company operates out of a cramped and busy attic in North London. Himself an expatriate South African, many of Friedman's books deal with Africa, and he harbors strong feelings about the government of his native land. In exile, he can publish works that would be banned in South Africa. Recently, he produced a book on South Africa's nuclear development. I'm a nuclear physicist. Entitled The Nuclear Axis.

Zdeněk Červenka: Publishing a book like this is, up to a point, a crusade.

Julian Friedman: I do select some of the books I publish because of the political values I hold. I believe that nuclear proliferation is a very serious problem. I believe that the South African government is trying to win its way or woo its way into A sort of Western anti-communist front. The South African government has policies which are completely abhorrent, and any attempt which the West makes to bolster up a white regime in South Africa must be opposed.

Speaker 4: The co-authors of The Nuclear Axis have long experience in African affairs. At Uppsala in Sweden, Zdeněk Červenka is research director of the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.

Zdeněk Červenka: In my opinion, I think that the very fact that it has been proved that she was ready to test the bomb amounted to the same as if she indeed did test the bomb. The political effect was the same.

Speaker 4: Barbara Rogers is a political scientist who has worked for the British Foreign Office and the United Nations. Rogers and Chervenka have sifted through a mass of material mining statistics, export licenses, congressional hearings, magazine articles, documents stolen from the South African embassy, to compile an impressive file of data that the South Africans and Western powers have tried to keep secret. The book examines how a renegade state like South Africa, starting in the 1950s with no nuclear technology whatsoever, could advance to nuclear weapons status in an amazingly short space of time. It points out the failures of American nuclear policy and raises serious questions about West Germany's nuclear intentions.

Julian Friedman: When we, when we launch it with the statement about Germany wanting its own nuclear deterrent, quite independent of NATO, I think we're going to interest a lot of people in it who have no interest in South Africa specifically. So far, most people think the story is about the transfer of nuclear technology to South Africa, which is fine, but actually, if we're going to get the book off to a really big launch, I want to play up the other side of it, which in fact I think is more important.

Speaker 4: The issues raised are so important that we decided to examine some of the book's claims by talking to the people concerned in West Germany, Sweden, London, and Washington. Barbara Rogers' research has convinced her that the root of nuclear proliferation lies in the American capital.

Barbara Rogers: When you start looking into the archives, talking to people in Washington, you begin to realize that there have been conflicting policies in the nuclear field.

Speaker 4: The atom bombs which ended World War II made the United States master of the world, but this situation soon came to an end. When the Russians exploded their bomb in 1949, the world became a much more dangerous place to live in, even for Americans.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: The secret is also known by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has informed us that over recent years it has devoted extensive resources to atomic weapons. During this period, the Soviet Union has exploded a series of atomic devices, —devices, including at least one involving thermonuclear reactions. If at one time the United States possessed what might have been called a monopoly of atomic power, that monopoly ceased to exist several years ago.

Speaker 11: The United States—

Speaker 4: In this new realpolitik situation, Eisenhower's solution was the Atoms for Peace program.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of the soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.

Speaker 4: The aim of the Atoms for Peace program was twofold: to try and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to open up markets for the immensely costly domestic nuclear industry. With its head start, the US became the dominant producer of nuclear technology. More, at the present time, the US produces almost the entire supply of enriched uranium outside the communist world. Enriched uranium is critical. It is the fuel for reactors as well as the explosive material for atomic weapons. And at this moment, the United States has a near monopoly. It is big business, but a business that is immensely dangerous to world peace. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, a United Nations body, was set up to try and ensure that nuclear fuel is used for peaceful purposes only. Unless a country opens its reactors to the IAEA inspectors, it cannot receive enriched uranium from the handful of supplier countries. The system has its inadequacies, as Dr.

Dr. Barnaby: Barnaby, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, IAEA safeguards are not 100% effective, and they could not be by the very nature of safeguards, even if perfect technology were used. Safeguards cannot be 100%. It's not— just not possible.

Speaker 4: An attempt was made to plug the holes in the safeguards system through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. By this treaty, nuclear have-nots, in order to gain access to the materials, Pledge not to acquire nuclear weapons, while the haves pledge not to give others the possibility to make nuclear weapons. But neither the IAEA safeguards nor the Nonproliferation Treaty solve the basic contradictions of the nuclear marketplace.

Zdeněk Červenka: You have a very strong anti-nuclear lobby, you know, the people who are pressing for arms limitations, for nonproliferation. But then you have an equally powerful lobby of the nuclear industry, the people selling, making, and exporting the nuclear power stations.

Speaker 4: Cervantes maintains that security was sacrificed to business.

Zdeněk Červenka: First of all, it was the Americans who started it all. You know, the Atoms for Peace program was the beginning of this new era and what we now describe as a proliferation of nuclear energy, and then, of course, as a result, Nuclear weapons.

Speaker 3: And this raises the big question, which politicians in the United States and Western Europe and Japan refuse to face. Who are the real proliferators? Is it the country who is seeking to obtain the technology and divert the material to fashion a bomb to become a member of the nuclear club, or is it the exporting country that provides the Technology, the manpower, the equipment, and the material necessary for membership. I contend that it is the exporting country, and it's a mythical notion to assume that when you sell somebody nuclear power technology, you are not selling them nuclear bomb technology.

Speaker 4: Of the many countries that have refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, South Africa is one. This does not seem to have impeded in any way South Africa's march towards nuclear weapons capability. Exploitation of South Africa's vast uranium resources began in the 1950s. Financed by British and American capital, it was tied to the guaranteed supply of uranium to those countries. South African uranium was considered essential to the West's strategic stockpile of weapons. From the beginning, all nuclear activities came under the strict control of the South African government through the Atomic Energy Board. Pelindaba Walindaba is South Africa's nuclear headquarters. By stringent laws, all stages of South Africa's nuclear activities are hidden in secrecy. Not content to be merely a supplier of raw uranium, The South African government decided to acquire reactors and to compete in the field of uranium enrichment.

Donald Bell-Sole: It is only natural that we should enter the field of nuclear power, bearing in mind that we are a major producer of uranium. In fact, if I can recall the figures correctly, we produce at the moment about 18% of the requirements of uranium, which is number 3 in the Western world. And when you do have a natural resource, it is the natural tendency to develop that resource, to use it in every possible application, and that is what we are doing. In the nuclear field, we are in a position to cover the whole nuclear cycle With the exception of reprocessing plants.

Speaker 4: The importance that South Africa places on nuclear cooperation with the United States can be seen at the South African Embassy in Washington. The present ambassador is a specialist in nuclear affairs, having served for some years with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Donald Bell-Sole: However, Ambassador Sioll is unwilling to concede that South Africa received any special assistance This was a contribution, but the development of South Africa's nuclear energy advances had in its origin fundamentally our own particular genius, if I may call it that, in this particular field.

Speaker 14: U.S. cooperation with South Africa in the nuclear field has been going on since at least 1957. The United States signed agreements for cooperation with South Africa at the time, and it is fair to say that without this particular cooperation, South Africa wouldn't be as advanced as it is today. The cooperation is broad. It runs the gamut from trade in special nuclear materials— that is, nuclear materials that can produce explosives— To exchange and technical assistance, to many other fields where it is necessary for South Africa to have expert advice on the development of its technical capability.

Barbara Rogers: Without the Americans, the South Africans would have no research establishment and development capability for nuclear power today. Their only reactor is an American reactor.

Speaker 4: In buying this reactor, built by the American company Allis-Chalmers for a mere $4.5 million, South Africa gained access to the fruits of years of American research and development. It is part of US-South African nuclear cooperation that is to extend beyond the year 2000. The Pelindaba reactor uses uranium enriched to weapons grade. Since the enriched uranium is supplied by the United States, it comes under strict IAEA controls. What is not controlled is the training of South African scientists. Which has been carried out on a wide scale by the United States, a favor not extended to all countries. As a result of more than a little help from their friends, the South Africans were quickly able to build their own reactor and then a pilot uranium enrichment plant. Although the enrichment plant comes under no safeguards, the United States government nevertheless in 1974 granted a license to an American company The Foxboro Corporation, to export computers essential for running the South African plant. It is not known why the US did not insist on safeguards as a condition of sale, since the South Africans would probably not have been able to buy the computers elsewhere.

Speaker 14: The problem really doesn't begin with the production of nuclear weapons by South Africa. It begins in a chain which has at its beginning technological cooperation. To that extent, South Africa has been shopping around for sophisticated laser technology and other electronic means of not only adding to its ability to enrich uranium, but to develop processing and reprocessing capability, so that it seems to me we have to look at this situation as one of a broad range of technological cooperation, which at the end of it you may or may not have— as I argue, you probably will have— the production of nuclear weapons.

Speaker 3: I believe that the attitude of government officials, particularly in the State Department and the Department of Energy, about South Africa acquiring a nuclear weapons option is cynical and self-serving, and that although publicly these officials do espouse rhetoric concerning their distress over South Africa developing nuclear power. They privately have conceded to me, in fact, that South Africa's acquisition of nuclear weapons has been inevitable, and that because proliferation worldwide is inevitable, it might as well be the United States doing the selling, since we're more responsible than the next guy.

Speaker 4: While sales of fuel and equipment may have been the prime motivation for the critical American involvement in South Africa's nuclear development, there is no doubt that the South Africans gained infinitely more than the Americans. It might even be asked, where was the business acumen in establishing a nuclear industry that would inevitably compete one day with the United States, as well as being outside proliferation controls? With the US role in South Africa's nuclear development in mind, it is worth looking more closely at the published version of the discovery of South Africa's underground test. It will be remembered that it was stated that President Carter reacted to Russian warnings of the forthcoming test. But with the critical importance of this area, why were the Americans caught unawares? Or were they? After all, they too had been monitoring the area by spy satellites. In Sweden, at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Upendra Jasani, a nuclear physicist, analyzes the movements of spy satellites. From open information available from NASA, it is possible to plot ground tracks of a satellite and thus make an intelligent guess at what the satellite is monitoring on the ground.

Upendra Jasani: Here is an example. This is a photograph of the very well-known satellite called the Big Bird, which was launched on June 27th, 1977. And as you can see on this chart, that there are several passes made in the region of South Africa, rather close passes and at regular intervals, but there are specifically There were 3 which I'd like to point out, which made passes over the South African nuclear test site on the 4th of July, 15th, and 26th of July. And it's possible that at that time the Americans may well have seen what was happening.

Speaker 4: The ground tracks of the Big Bird satellite follow a path directly over the test site in the Kalahari Desert. What is significant is that at the end of July, before being warned by the Russians on August 6th about the South African test, Big Bird had been maneuvered into a position which would give it a closer view of the test site area. These preparations for an underground test took place in a location not unlike the supposed South African site in the Kalahari. In a desert landscape, With no cover, the conditions for aerial photography are perfect. Misinterpretation of what was going on was hardly possible. Elaborate structures and equipment not easily concealed are essential to such a test. Portable buildings have to be moved in. Miles of cable have to be laid out for recording the blast and its effects. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Speaker 11: Zero time.

Speaker 4: The South Africans must have known that neither their preparations nor the test itself could go undetected. What the Russians said could be discounted as propaganda. As for the Americans, did the South Africans have reason to believe that they would not interfere?

Barbara Rogers: Obviously, the Americans knew about the Kalahari test. They must have known about that test site before the Russians did. So then the question becomes, why did they keep quiet about it? It seems fairly obvious to me that those elements in the American administration which received the information about the test in the Kalahari were precisely those which had an interest in Allowing South Africa, or even helping it along a bit, to get its own nuclear potential, whereas those who were trying to stop South African proliferation were those who don't get access to the most secret and sensitive material.

Speaker 4: In the pre-Carter administrations of Ford and Nixon, it was Kissinger who decided foreign policy, and Kissinger's policy towards South Africa had been one of accommodation with Prime Minister Vorster. It was during Kissinger's tenure at the State Department that the computers went to South Africa's enrichment facility. The Carter administration is less well disposed towards South Africa's white regime.

Speaker 6: Finally, I am sure you are aware of assurances Prime Minister Vorster has given President Carter concerning their nuclear program. We take these assurances seriously and would respond promptly and vigorously in concert with others should it appear that South Africa does not intend to honor them.

Speaker 4: But the Americans have left themselves with very little leverage. They sold, without safeguards, the computers that now enable the South Africans to enrich their own uranium and thus eventually become independent of U.S. supplies. For that reason, the one weapon available The cutoff of American fuel no longer holds any fears for South Africa.

Donald Bell-Sole: We would then simply have to produce our own fuel, and this might lead to a couple of years' delay, but no longer.

Speaker 4: Of all the countries outside the Nonproliferation Treaty, South Africa is unique, for it is the only one that has abundant supplies of domestic uranium As well as the ability to enrich it. As a result, US policy towards South Africa has been a carrot-and-stick approach. Since 1976, the US has withheld supplies of enriched uranium to South Africa. These supplies would be resumed were South Africa to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Speaker 16: Yes, I think the United States has, up to a point, is better off in supplying South Africa with certain types of nuclear materials, assuming the South Africans were willing to abide by an international safeguards agreement, than by trying to prevent these materials from going to South Africa. If you drive a country that is on the fringe further away from the center, It seems to me that you run the risk of having that country simply say, we will not pay any attention whatsoever as to what the international community thinks, and we will go ahead and make nuclear weapons and do whatever we like in order to assure our continued existence. That has to be balanced against the obvious pressures that can be brought to bear as a result of withholding trade and, you know, and other contacts. with the South Africans, for example. I think it's fair to say that a certain mixture of rewards and punishments, if you will, you know, might be applied in this case in order to achieve the result that we seek.

Speaker 17: Officials do still articulate the idea, which I think is rather far-fetched, that if you continue to supply them relatively small amounts of enriched material and supply technological assistance, training, and so forth, that this will guarantee some sort of access for the, for the United States to their operations and will give us some leverage against them. That almost assumes It assumes that South Africa has no intention of competing with the United States, when in fact much of what they say and what they're doing would imply just the reverse.

Barbara Rogers: Probably the most important installation that South Africa has as of now is its enrichment plant, and this is the thing that is most worrying the nonproliferation specialists. It has an enrichment plant which is totally unsafeguarded. In other words, no outsider has any access to it, despite the fact that it is precisely this process of enrichment which has been isolated by many, including the Americans, as the one process which they have to keep control of at all costs.

Speaker 4: In 1976, during congressional hearings, an attempt was made to find out why the South Africans were so interested in enrichment capability. The Energy Research and Development Administration, defending the policy of nuclear cooperation, saw no need for concern. We believe that South African officials have been open and candid in discussing their reasons and plans for achieving an independent enrichment capability. There is nothing suspicious, illogical, or inconsistent in South African claims that their enrichment plant is for commercial purposes.

Speaker 5: And yet—

Speaker 4: This statement was made against a history of South Africa's refusal to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty, where signing would be an indication that they did not want atomic weapons.

Donald Bell-Sole: For example, if we were to accede to the Nonproliferation Treaty, it would be necessary for all our nuclear activities to be placed under IAEA control. Now, we do have in South Africa an enrichment facility, of course not on a commercial scale, but the IAEA is not in a position to tell us what safeguards would apply to an enrichment facility. There is no IAEA Safeguard system for an enrichment facility. The only countries which do have enrichment facilities are countries which have nuclear bomb capacity. And to the best of my knowledge, they have never admitted IAEA inspectors Into their enrichment facilities.

Speaker 4: The formulators of the Nonproliferation Treaty already have nuclear weapons and, for security reasons, are not about to share their secrets with anyone. It is to be assumed that the same security guides South Africa. It reveals a gaping hole in the Nonproliferation Treaty which South Africa is uniquely free to exploit.

Speaker 17: I think it's very evident that South Africa has something to gain in holding out against signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, because what it seeks by developing its own enrichment facility is the capacity to sell enriched material on the open market to whomever wishes to buy it, whether or not the purchaser has signed the Proliferation Treaty or intends to abide by the inspection obligations and so forth. It gives South Africa an expanded market, a competitive edge against the Western powers, if it is free from those limitations as it tries to sell its enriched material.

Barbara Rogers: South Africa, in fact, could in a sense undercut the traditional suppliers of enriched uranium, who are in fact the Americans and the Soviets. Simply by saying we will quietly ignore, or we will truncate in some way, the normal safeguards on the supply of this material. This is where the real danger to nuclear proliferation comes in.

Dr. Barnaby: And particularly as South Africa becomes more desperate in its situation and possibly desires and is finding it very difficult to get allies and friends, it may use enriched uranium even to weapons-grade uranium as a means of winning allies and friends. It could be extremely serious. There are obviously a number of countries who may desire to be in a market for weapons-grade fissile material, including enriched uranium. I think most people now believe that A world of many nuclear powers is a very dangerous world in the sense that the probability of nuclear war would increase, and therefore the situation would, for these reasons, be a very dangerous one indeed, something that we should do our utmost to avoid.

Speaker 4: In August of 1977, shortly after abandoning the test, then Prime Minister Forster made a defiant attack on the Non-Proliferation Treaty countries.

Speaker 11: Even 13 who are sitting on the board itself. Why must South Africa again be singled out? The USA, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom are parties to the treaty, but they have fully protected their positions as nuclear weapons states. With large nuclear arsenals. If these things continue and don't stop, the time will arrive when South Africa will have no option, small as it is, to say to the world, so far and no further. Do your damnedest if you so wish.

Speaker 4: South Africa's survival as a white state depends ultimately on the support of the West. Was it Vorster's hidden threat that the West should continue that support or face uncontrolled proliferation and nuclear chaos, which South Africa is in a position to bring about? The Ruhr is West Germany's industrial heartland. Formerly, the might of the Ruhr of Germany was based on coal. Now the mines are dying. But the companies that own the mines are not dying. Their interest is in energy, wherever it comes from. Yesterday it was coal, tomorrow uranium. West Germany, like the rest of Europe, has decided that its future lies with nuclear power. Nuclear technology is one of West Germany's fastest-growing industries. In international markets, the West Germans, who started much later, are competing very seriously with the Americans. Seeking independence from the American enrichment monopoly, the Germans developed their own technology to enrich uranium. Known as the jet nozzle, it is more expensive than the American system, but it is more The company responsible for the development and marketing of the jet nozzle In 1969, after great pressure from the United States, West Germany signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Zdeněk Červenka: One has to recall the debate about Germany signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was done after heated debate against very strong opposition and after a long delay. I mean, after delay when it started— when people have started to have suspicions why, you know, Germany hesitated to sign.

Speaker 4: There was now a double nuclear restraint on West Germany, since the NATO treaty also binds her not to build atomic weapons on German soil. The army of the Federal Republic is now the strongest in Western Europe, the backbone of NATO. Yet so wary were the NATO allies of a revival of German militarism that West Germany became a NATO member only on condition that she did not have access to the atomic weapons stationed on German soil. Yet firmly under U.S. control. But in 1976, a major scandal in West Germany brought into question the way that country was honoring both the NATO treaty and the Nonproliferation Treaty. South Africa's embassy in Bonn houses an active staff. South African-West German trade has increased enormously in the past decade, and the relationship between the 2 countries has been excellent, despite official German condemnation of apartheid. But in 1975, the South African embassy mislaid some files. It is not known how, but these files came into the hands of the African National Congress, a South African liberation organization, which made them public to the embarrassment of South Africa and West Germany.

Donald Bell-Sole: We managed to get documents which showed the close collaboration between the West German government And the racist regime of South Africa, documents which we have so clearly, that South Africa has support not only from firms and corporations in the West, but from the government, direct government support.

Speaker 4: Dr. Chirvenka believes it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the documents.

Zdeněk Červenka: In any research, especially research in international relations on such hot topics like nuclear cooperation, it happens very seldom that you are actually in a position of a hard piece of evidence, which of course changes the whole picture. In most cases, it's always based on pieces of evidence, how they fit together, and you deduce your conclusions. But they could be always challenged unless you are in a position to We produce what we call a suit of evidence.

Speaker 4: The evidence published by the African National Congress consists of sensitive correspondence between the West German government, military, and industry, and the South African Embassy, much of it on nuclear affairs. The personal files of the South African ambassador were laid open. Prior to becoming ambassador to the United States, Donald Bell-Sole was South African ambassador to West Germany. Before that, he was South Africa's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has also been president of that body. In a letter written when Sohl was taking up his new duties as ambassador to West Germany, his predecessor warned him to tone down his nuclear enthusiasm. I feel that the less said in public at this stage about this aspect of our relations with the Federal Republic, The more success we shall be able to achieve behind the scenes. But it seems likely that Soule's background was the very reason he was chosen as ambassador, for the relationship between South Africa and West Germany in matters nuclear starts a chain reaction from the time of his appointment. It was Soule who brought together Steag, the German company, and the South African Atomic Energy Board. It was the beginning of a flurry of contacts between Palandaba and Steag, culminating in a great coup for South Africa and for Soll personally.

Zdeněk Červenka: The most important aspect of the cooperation between the state company Steag and the South African Atomic Energy Board was that it was through West Germany that South Africa acquired the most important and crucial link in the whole of nuclear business, the enrichment technology.

Dr. Geisler: The enrichment plant is that decisive step for South Africa to get atomic weapons. There are 2 ways to get nuclear bombs, the one by plutonium and the other one by highly enriched uranium. And South Africa has chosen The way by highly enriched uranium. The technology to enrich uranium which is applied in South Africa is the jet nozzle technology. This technology was given to South Africa, and it was tested by the Steag company of Essen in South Africa.

Zdeněk Červenka: When the cooperation between South Africa and Steag was exposed, instead of taking measures that this would not— continue— would not happen, the government took into protection, you know, the company, defending it against its left— as they call it— left-wing critics.

Speaker 4: Dr. Geisler, a leader of the West German anti-apartheid movement, has taken a leading role in asking awkward questions about the contents of the stolen documents. In return, he claims to have suffered harassment from the German authorities.

Dr. Geisler: Members of the anti-apartheid movement were called to be agents of East Germany.

Speaker 4: In the present atmosphere in West Germany, criticism is easily confused with terrorism, an attempt to destabilize the government. It is an atmosphere conducive to cover-ups.

Dr. Geisler: In their family, even, trying to create the impression that these people are criminals.

Zdeněk Červenka: Instead of admitting that mistake was made and to do something about it, all efforts of the government would be to— were directed against those who were raising these allegations and accusations and presented evidence, which was never answered. This is the most interesting thing, that not one of the documents which was presented with a question to the government was ever commented upon, was never denied, but was never answered. But the question of responsibility of a government comes to the point, you know, when you find out that your own companies— and this is even more serious when your own state-owned or subsidized companies are trespassing or go beyond the limits, breaching your own agreements, like the Non-Proliferation Providing the know-how to a country which is not a signatory, like South Africa. And also, I think, going ahead with business, not sort of fully informing the government. But when the government knows and doesn't act, you have the question— the question of responsibility arises. And I dare to say that the West German government did not behave very responsibly when the exposure of cooperation was made.

Donald Bell-Sole: Okay.

Dr. Geisler: The government has financed the development of this technology, and the government has given the allowance to the companies to deliver material, sensitive nuclear material, to South Africa.

Speaker 4: Since the West German government is supposed to control the nuclear industry, Dr. Geisler interprets the government's failure to explain How much the highest levels of government knew about Steag's dealings with South Africa is by no means clear, possibly deliberately so. Certainly government approval had to be given for the kind of cooperation that took place between Steag and Palendaba. Nevertheless, Geisler's final accusation cannot be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Dr. Geisler: It must be said that the That the West German government is giving voluntarily and with consciousness this technology for the building of atomic weapons to South Africa.

Speaker 4: That there was a West German military interest in South Africa's nuclear potential was revealed in the affair of General Rall. The Rahl scandal was broken by the reporter Werner Heine of the influential German magazine Stern.

Werner Heine: One day in September '75, someone from Bonn called me and said he would have hints that the highest-in-rank German officer at NATO had been in South Africa So I took the next flight on, met some people there, and they gave me a whole file. And when I saw this file through, it seemed very interesting.

Speaker 4: What Werner Heine had been given was Ambassador Soule's correspondence concerning General Raal.

Werner Heine: General Günther Raal, an ex-Nazi officer, Officer, later on in Germany in the new Bundeswehr supreme head of the Luftwaffe, and then later on highest officer at the German delegation in Brussels at the NATO that visited the apartheid regime in South Africa for three weeks in October of 74. The South African ambassador had. prepared for this trip of Mr. Raul a complete program with about 70 items, and that one of these items was a visit at the nuclear research center in Pelindaba, South Africa.

Speaker 4: Raul's itinerary was as follows. 11:00 AM, drive to Atomic Energy Board, Palendaba. 11:30, conference with the president of the Atomic Energy Board. 14:30, visit to the laboratories. West Germany is highly sensitive to accusations of fascist tendencies, and so military collaboration with South Africa is political dynamite. When a leading member of West Germany's military establishment visited South Africa, a good cover story had to be found. This was that he was going on a private visit to an old Luftwaffe buddy who now lived there.

Werner Heine: Well, here's an outgoing secret telegram from the South African Embassy in Cologne to the South African Embassy in London, just to show how they tried to hide that General, General Rall was indeed official there. He writes here, I've arranged for Lieutenant General Günther Rall and Mrs. Rall to visit South Africa as the guests of our Department of Defense. That can't be private, but ostensibly as the guests of Mr. Kurt Darman, editor of the Windhoek Allgemeine Zeitung. General Rall was until 31st of March of this year, head of the Luftwaffe, and is now German military representative to the Military Council of NATO. No publicity whatever is being given to this visit, and for security reasons, General and Mrs. Ralf will travel as Mr. and Mrs. Ball. At the end of his visit, Günter Rall wrote a letter on his private paper, handwritten, to Donald Bissell, and Rall said that such a visit is still a riskful undertaking because of, in quotes, our official political position. He said that there were some rumors in Bonn because some people in the parliament got to know that he was in South Africa as a guest. But then he says a question in parliament was completely denied by my secretary.

Upendra Jasani: Yes.

Werner Heine: Secretary of Defense. And he says further that they both, Rahl and Saul, should further build up their cover-up that he was as a private man on a private trip.

Speaker 4: When Haina went to see Rahl, who didn't know that Haina had all the correspondence, He said there was nothing official.

Werner Heine: And, of course, I had some official contacts. That's quite clear in my position. And they gave me some facilities to do my trip there. But, well, we knew better. We knew that these facilities were the aircrafts of the South African intelligence. The South African intelligence? Defense Forces, that these facilities were— speeches with the chiefs of the research center in Pelindaba. At the end of the talk with Mr. Raul and his secretaries, I had the impression that Raul was nearly smashed. The official speaker of the Ministry of Defense said to me afterwards that he had given the advice to Rall to deny everything if it wasn't proved by us that he was lying.

Speaker 4: Unfortunately for Rall, Heine had all the proof he needed. In correspondence with his government in Pretoria, Soull had written that he had the approval of the German Defense Minister Georg Leber for Raul's visit, but this was now vehemently denied by Labour. Sioll insisted that it was all a misunderstanding. Astonishingly, he maintained that he had misrepresented Labour's involvement to his own superiors in South Africa. Shortly afterwards, Sioll was recalled from the Bonn Embassy. Far from being admonished for lying to his government, he was rewarded with the even more prestigious Washington Embassy. Repercussions for Labour, the West German defense minister, were thus avoided. General Rall took full responsibility for the trip and was allowed to resign.

Werner Heine: And Rall, well, he had no, no real damage from this affair. A few months later, he was employed by an arms manufacturing corporation. When I had my talk with Raul, I asked him, of course, what his impression of Pelindaba was, and he said, well, he had no knowledge of nuclear things, and he was led by these officials through great clean rooms, and he met clean people in white dresses, and—

Dr. Barnaby: White shirts.

Werner Heine: There was no impression, he said, he could give me of the technical side.

Speaker 4: No explanation was ever offered of why a top German general in a key position inside NATO was invited to South Africa as a guest of the Department of Defense and granted the rare privilege of access to South Africa's nuclear facilities, including a conference with the president of the Atomic Energy Board.

Julian Friedman: But the other thing that I was—

Speaker 4: Irrefutable evidence for their final thesis is not available to the authors of The Nuclear Axis. If they had it, it could split the NATO alliance wide open and even start a European war. But based on their research, they offer one possible interpretation of the Bonn-Pretoria Axis.

Julian Friedman: We've moved the emphasis more onto Germany and away from South Africa. I think in fact that's where the real I mean, South Africa is not getting its weapons because there are people in Germany with Nazi or ex-Nazi connections who feel altruistic towards the white regime in South Africa. They're not doing it for any other reason than it's going to benefit themselves directly in Germany.

Zdeněk Červenka: And one has to look at it in the light of the fact that until today, The Americans had not made it clear whether or not they would come to the defense of West Germany with the use of nuclear weapons. That means there is not yet a German finger on the nuclear trigger of the nuclear weapons which are stored on NATO sites in Germany. This is a situation which is difficult for the West German generals, very difficult to bear.

Speaker 4: There remains one way for West Germany to develop its own atomic weapons. And still keep within its NATO obligations, although it would violate the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Dr. Geisler: The Treaty of Paris and Brussels of the West European Union in 1954 has forbidden it to West Germany to build atomic weapons on its own territory. And this funny formulation allows it, West Germany, to build this kind of weapons and also rockets on Foreign, other territories. And exactly that is what happened. West Germany tried to acquire atomic weapons, and the main partner for this— the main partner is South Africa.

Zdeněk Červenka: And having access to a nuclear weapon of a country which acquired it through their help, it— this creates a situation that they would have an alternative, the kind of alternative you don't have to spell out but everybody knows about. That means an alternative to own nuclear deterrent.

Speaker 4: Pelendaba and Valendaba, South Africa's nuclear heart, are 2 Zulu words. Pelendaba means, we don't talk about this anymore.

Speaker 20: Valendaba means, we don't talk about this, Tonight on Special Assignment, as Wouter Basson goes on trial, we meet the scientists who tried to develop the ultimate biological weapon in his laboratories. And we expose the Belgian professor who collaborated with the man they call Dr.

Aubin Heinrichs: Death.

Speaker 22: The south of England, where the clash of swords and the hymns of angels still rise from ancient castles and graveyards. It was to this part of the United Kingdom that Special Assignment came in September. Our mission: to unravel one of the best-kept secrets of South Africa's chemical and biological We knew that somewhere between thousands of pages of Truth Commission evidence and countless news reports was a story untold, of a project to breed the ultimate biological weapon— small, undetectable, and lethal. In a manor house on an estate near the hamlet of Hoek, we spoke to Dr. Daan Goeiezen, a distinguished clinical pathologist and A veterinarian who became a professor at the age of 28. At one stage, he headed South Africa's biological warfare laboratories.

Daan Goosen: An irresponsible person could have killed millions of people. Millions of people. It could have had devastating, devastating consequences.

Speaker 22: It was in a secret laboratory 15 kilometers north of Pretoria that Dan Coorsen and his team of scientists hatched their killer bugs. South Africa's chemical and biological warfare program The secret research facility, codenamed Project Coast, was based at the Ruhr-Platt Research Laboratories. Inside the complex was a huge containment laboratory where work on the most lethal bacteria and germs was conducted. It was behind steel gates, a double row of electrified fencing, and specially bred guard dogs that the scientists achieved their terrifying breakthrough.

Daan Goosen: To get to this That stage took about 7, 8, 9 years.

Mike Ordendal: It's so small, you have to look at it under a microscope. And you have to look at it at least at 1,000 times magnification. Then you will see a small little speck.

Daan Goosen: This is like splitting the atom, exactly the same thing. But we were awed by the possibilities, should this be applied. In a war situation, yes.

Mike Ordendal: And it's— it looks very much like a brick, a small brick-like organism.

Daan Goosen: So, it's unbelievable, when you see it, to think that this can potentially kill a million or 2 people. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 22: Project Coast was born in the early '80s out of the total onslaught paranoia of former state president P.W. Botha. About a billion rand and staff of nearly 200 were allocated to Project Coast. The project carried on into the early '90s and was only disbanded shortly before F.W. de Klerk handed power to Nelson Mandela. At the time, the chief of the South African Defence Force was General Constant Viljoen.

Constant Viljoen: So in the Angolan situation, we came across certain indications According to intelligence reports, of the possibility of chemical warfare.

Speaker 4: We all received training in counterchemical warfare.

Speaker 22: We were equipped with basic protective clothing.

Constant Viljoen: We were dead sure that the possibility of this kind of warfare was a real danger to UNITA and to South Africa.

Speaker 4: Those weapons never showed anywhere in Angola. I don't think there ever was chemical weapons in Angola.

Constant Viljoen: But there is a report of one case where there were certain explosions by bombs that caused a type of gas which reminded of the old type of mustard gas situation.

Speaker 22: The report referred to by General Viljoen was drawn up by a Belgian toxicologist, Professor Aubin Heinrichs. The report claimed that the MPLA and the Cubans poisoned UNITA soldiers with chemical weapons. This video shows Heinrichs dressed in protective clothing and a gas mask collecting samples of a so-called chemical nylon bomb in Angola. Throughout the '80s, the reports of Professor Heinrichs were submitted to the generals to motivate for more money for Project Coast.

Daan Goosen: Israel was in establishing a legitimate reason for the South African government And the taxpayer, the army, to get involved in— up to this scale in a chemical biological program.

Speaker 22: There was another reason for establishing Project Coast. By 1983, the townships were burning. The ANC had embarked on a campaign to make the country ungovernable. The war was coming to the townships.

Constant Viljoen: So I then said, let us develop a type of gas that would calm people down, that, that would take away aggression from people.

Speaker 22: And so Project Coast was born. Wouter Basson, a doctor and commandant in the defense force, was handpicked to develop a chemical and biological capacity for his apartheid masters. 15 years later, Basson is now standing trial on 67 charges, ranging from fraud to drug dealing to murder.

Constant Viljoen: We regarded him a very trustworthy man, and a man of high integrity, and I thought that this would be the man to do this.

Daan Goosen: Basson and I had long discussions over a period of months on this issue. And it was quite clear that he conveyed it to me that the— we are going into a total war situation. And I felt very positively towards Basson. He visited me at home. He was a soft-spoken gentleman, and he was quite nice to my family. And this was, to me, a— I had a very positive feeling towards him then.

Speaker 22: Soon afterwards, Basson started recruiting scientists for Project Coast. Dan Koersen was one of his most trusted allies and was appointed as the managing director of Ruudaplaat Research Laboratories.

Daan Goosen: We could have employed whoever we wish. We could have gone headhunting, recruited the top scientists in the country. We could have put up the best facilities, and we could really I was asked by Dr.

Mike Ordendal: Dan Husain to join the company as head of the microbiology department.

Daan Goosen: Guidelines were clear from the beginning. It should be products which are preferably not detectable and not traceable.

Mike Ordendal: Oh, I was promised good equipment, good facilities, and the best people that we could find.

Daan Goosen: We had, in the end, over 600 organisms in the culture bank. Not all of them were suitable for biological weapons, but I would say about 20, 30 of those organisms was very— and the classical type of biological weapons.

Speaker 22: At the Ruhrplaat Research Laboratories, Daan Hoersen and his scientists got working. All the program's microbiological work and experiments were performed at Ruhr de Plat. Project Coast was divided into a chemical and biological section. The chemical laboratory was called Delta G Scientific and was rigged with state-of-the-art equipment. In 1986, a Rand Afrikaans University academic and organic chemist, Professor Johan Kokomo. was approached by Basson.

Johan Kokomo: Dr. Wouter Basson made an incredible impression on me. I found him a very highly intelligent person, and also as a doctor, as a specialist in his field, he also created the impression that he was extremely proficient in what he, he was doing and what he could do.

Speaker 22: Delta produced and analyzed poisons and powerful tear gases. Several people were allegedly killed with these toxins.

Johan Kokomo: We were quite a happy bunch of scientists doing quite some interesting work.

Speaker 22: Johan Kokomoer embarked on probably the most bizarre aspect of Project Coast. He was allegedly ordered by Wouter Basson to manufacture a ton of the drug ecstasy.

Johan Kokomo: He believed it would be used in the townships to I had my doubts about the use, use of ecstasy as an incapacitant because I would not like to make any people that I was fighting against happy and contented. I would rather have them disorientated.

Speaker 22: Forensic scientist Dr. David Klatso Finds the suggestion laughable that drugs like ecstasy or Mandrax could be used to subdue angry people.

David Klatso: How do you deliver it? How do you monitor the dose? How do you make sure that the wind doesn't blow the aerosol? You presumably have to administer it in an aerosol form, presumably in a situation where you've got an unruly crowd. How do you make sure that the wind doesn't blow it away?

Johan Kokomo: We probably produced about 900 kilos of ecstasy for the army in pure crystalline form. We officially had an order of a ton of this material.

David Klatso: How do you make sure that it— people get sufficient dose to incapacitate them, as opposed to just make them merry?

Johan Kokomo: That ton of material cost the taxpayer around 3 million rands.

Speaker 22: Dr. Klatso also finds the list of poisons that the chemical scientists produced to be crude and insignificant. Although they were extremely toxic and dangerous, they were relatively easy to obtain.

David Klatso: If this was what we spent 100 million rand on developing, then we're not dealing with scientists, we're dealing with buffoons. If this is the best that they can come up with after the expenditure of 100 million rand, I mean, you're dealing with intellectual Neanderthals.

Speaker 22: Back at Ruhrplaat, Dan Husain and his team of biologists were hatching the world's most lethal biological substance. It's called botulinum.

David Klatso: It certainly is a A substance which is lethal to a large number of people. It, it will kill in fractions of a microgram level per kilogram. Very, very low levels. One of the most toxic substances known.

Speaker 22: The scientists developed a technique to extract the poison from the organism in order to purify it. It was the first time this had been done in South Africa.

Mike Ordendal: Now, what we do is You grow it artificially. You collect the fluid in which the organisms grow, and then you make an extraction of that to get to the purified product.

Daan Goosen: Very inconspicuous, very nonthreatening. It's a little bottle, about 4 or 5 centimeters in height, 2 or 3 centimeters in diameter.

Mike Ordendal: We produced At least 3 to 5 grams of the purified substance of this botulinum toxin.

David Klatso: 5 grams is probably enough to kill about a million people.

Mike Ordendal: It would be as a result of asphyxiation, paralysis of the muscles that assist with the breathing process.

Speaker 4: So is it quite a horrible death?

Mike Ordendal: I would imagine so, yeah.

David Klatso: That's an offensive weapon. You would introduce that into a food supply or into a water supply.

Speaker 22: Then, in the middle '80s, the Ruhrplatz scientists started to develop the ultimate biological weapon: to engineer genetically a botulinum organism. It would make it even deadlier, because it would be undetectable.

Daan Goosen: The most scary part of this Part of our project was this genetic manipulation, manipulation of organisms. It is a very powerful tool.

Mike Ordendal: They produce higher quantities of toxins. You need less of the toxin to maim or to kill people. And that the detection of those toxins would be retarded.

Daan Goosen: So we transferred information from the DNA from one organism Transfer that information to another organism.

Mike Ordendal: You can infect water supplies, and that will take them a bit longer than what is necessary to determine what the actual cause is.

Daan Goosen: A ton or 2 of a chemical weapon will kill about 100,000 or 200,000 people. But these toxins we spoke about here, about 3, 4 grams would kill millions of people.

Mike Ordendal: I don't have firsthand experience on the effect on humans, but In laboratory animals, it is lethal.

Speaker 22: But how advanced was the science really? And how dangerous was a genetically engineered bug? We traveled with Dan Khourssan to the north of England, to the University of Leeds. There, he discussed their biological program with chemical pathologist Dr. Alistair Hay, a leading expert in chemical and biological warfare.

Daan Goosen: What it was is we produced E. coli clones with the ability to produce toxins from 2 organisms. The one is the botulinum toxin. The other one was toxins from the Clostridium perfringens. And that was scary.

Alistair Hay: And it seems that they were using some very common bugs, and they were engineering these bugs to make them more toxic. And they were putting little bits of genetic material into these other bugs, so that if those bugs, in the event, poisoned somebody, the bugs would produce far more serious toxins.

Daan Goosen: The number, not much. A few strains or a few strains of organisms. But that's not the significance. The significance was that we have achieved this technology.

Alistair Hay: So, if you had E. coli, which produced this botulinal toxin, someone would get ill with the bacteria, and the doctor would try and treat the E. coli infection, but might be completely bemused as to why this individual was also paralyzed. This is really cutting-edge, cutting-edge science. It's biological warfare, in quotes, which you would be extremely concerned about. It's the sort of program that you wouldn't want any government or any individual to be involved in.

Speaker 22: The genetically engineered bugs were freeze-dried and stored in Rüdeplaat's safety fridge. According to the generals, all the viruses and bacteria were destroyed in an incinerator when Project Coast was closed down in the early '90s.

Alistair Hay: The destruction of the program seems to have been in the hands of Dr. Besson, the one person that seems to have had most involvement to the program and the one that people are most concerned about.

Daan Goosen: I cannot assure you what happened to it, because I wasn't around at that stage anymore.

Alistair Hay: But supposedly, according to testimony of some scientists, it I don't know whether those agents were destroyed or not, but it does seem that there was very little auditing of the destruction, and that isn't very reassuring.

Mike Ordendal: I don't know what happened to that. I presume, or I hope, everything was destroyed.

Speaker 22: Dan Coerson and Mike Woodendal might have brought South Africa to the brink of a disaster, but they are back in civilian life today. Instead of hatching bugs, they produce animal vaccines. Rodeplaats is now dedicated to plant research. Ghent, the intellectual capital of Belgium. The city is also home to toxicologist Aubin Hendricks, the maverick professor who has become one of the most controversial figures in the shadowy world of chemical and biological warfare. His first report on the presence of chemical weapons in Angola in 1982 helped motivate the launch of South Africa's own chemical and biological warfare program. Subsequent reports by Heinrichs in the '80s instilled further fear into the hearts of the generals. As a result, more and more money was allocated to Project Coast. According to the charge sheet against Wouter Basson, Hendricks sold 12 NATO-embargoed chemical agent detectors to him. In 1988, Basson allegedly paid the Belgian professor nearly 600,000 rand for his services. We found Hendricks only a day after he had returned from Kosovo, once again on the hunt for chemical weapons.

Aubin Heinrichs: Here I show you some samples from intoxicated dead people that we took in the UNITA territory. Gases used by Luanda. This is human hair, also from dead people that we took. Yes, we found sarin, which is a neurotoxic gas. We found phosphine. We found an organic cyanide.

Daan Goosen: Angola, of course, was his big, his big case because it was So he went to Angola, and I think he has been there at least 4 times, and almost every time he came back with a new chemical weapon that he has found.

Aubin Heinrichs: There is 100% proof that chemicals were used by the government of Luanda.

Speaker 22: Dr. Daan Huissen accompanied us to Ghent to study Hendricks's Angolan reports.

Daan Goosen: With these claims, we are familiar since the early '80s, when they was first used to He's one big fraud. He has nothing— I don't think he has done anything solid in his life, apart from misleading people about his own capabilities and about the situations in which he has been running. He's one big fraud. At best, you can't even say it's scientific jargon. There's no scientific basis for what he's saying. for the conclusions made in, in all of these reports.

Speaker 4: This is Jamba General Hospital.

Speaker 22: Hendricks frequently travels to conflict areas. He is paid by rebel movements like UNITA to discover chemicals and publish phony reports which they use in their propaganda wars. He is also a personal friend of the UNITA leader, Dr. Jonas Savimbi. Yet he has no credibility. Heinrichs is a disgraced former professor at the University of Ghent. He was asked to resign after he was convicted of fraud. His reports on chemical warfare have been rejected by credible scientists all over the world. In Angola, for example, no evidence has ever been found that the MPLA, the Russians, or the Cubans used chemical weapons.

Daan Goosen: In this video, Heinrichs finds yet again He went to the Kremlin himself, so he went to Moscow to discuss his case about this Russian chemical warfare with the Russian authorities. Then he goes on in the media, our media, he comes back and he says, this is the formula of the new chemical weapon that I've discovered in Angola, and the Russians have admitted this.

Speaker 22: Professor André de Lienhier is the vice rector of the University of Ghent and a former colleague of Adnan Hussain.

André de Lienhier: He has invited me to his laboratory because I was one of the privileged persons, according to him, to whom he should disclose the nature, the chemical structure, the identity of those chemical weapons used by the Cubans.

Daan Goosen: Our people, our military people, they even said that what he describes in here, this intoxication that he describes, it could have been food poisoning, or it could have been a viral infection. There's no proof of a confrontation of these people with a chemical weapon.

André de Lienhier: Now, they did not realize what kind of structure this was, because it had nothing to do with a firebomb or a chemical bomb. It was the structure of an industrial chemical component that is recognized by each second-year chemical student at university as nylon 6.

Daan Goosen: Of course, this evidence that it was nylon 6 is so obvious that you can't deny it. But he went even so far of during months he has been going on that he found a new chemical nylon bomb in Angola.

Aubin Heinrichs: So, if it's only common nylon, I don't worry about it. But—

Speaker 20: The formula that the Russians gave you—

Speaker 5: Yes.

Speaker 20: —is a formula for nylon.

Aubin Heinrichs: Well, OK, that's their problem. It's not my problem.

Speaker 22: Basson and Heinrichs met one another in the early '80s. They were seen together at a chemical and biological warfare conference in Ghent in 1984. Heinrichs said he had spoken to Basson only once or twice then and never again.

Speaker 20: According to the records of the University of Ghent, you made telephone calls to Basson in 1987 and 1988.

Aubin Heinrichs: To Basson, to Basson, I never called him.

Speaker 20: For example, on the 3rd of January, 1988, you tried to phone Dr. Basson on the telephone number Pretoria 467123. You made a telephone call.

Speaker 22: At around the same time, Hendricks bought 13 chemical agent detectors for the toxicology department at the University of Ghent. Then they disappeared. He allegedly sold them to Basson.

Aubin Heinrichs: This was not the case.

Speaker 20: You didn't sell it to him?

Aubin Heinrichs: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Daan Goosen: And it's only in the end, when your people started investigating the Project Coast, that they find the same machines in— somewhere in South Africa. And we had the serial numbers of the machines that he bought, and they're matching with— exactly with the ones that you have down there. There's only 12, so he kept one of them. So, the 12 he sent out to South Africa.

Aubin Heinrichs: This is another problem. Did they make doubles of it? Did they cheat with it? I don't know, because you can buy that equipment all over Europe, as you want it.

Daan Goosen: I do generally believe that he actually is convinced of what he's writing, because it's clear by now that he has never been a good scientist. So he has never worried about scientific conclusions sort of being supported by scientific data.

André de Lienhier: The research is nonexistent. There is no research here. We have no research.

Aubin Heinrichs: I told Helyeh, go, go with Mr. Gatto, go to UNITA territory, and if you come back alive, then you're right. If you come back intoxicated, I am right. But I've never seen them. They just talk.

Speaker 22: Last year, Hendricks was visited by South African justice officials.

Aubin Heinrichs: He denied any knowledge of Basson, Yes, they told me that he was standing trial for drugs and chemical warfare and everything like that. But more details I cannot give, because I don't have many, and I didn't have the possibility of talking to him about that.

Speaker 22: With Wouter Basson in the dock, the men in white coats will again tell their stories When they take the witness stand against their former master, Dan Hussen, Mike Ordendal, and Johan Kukumur will all be there.

Johan Kokomo: At the stage that I made this compound, I still believed quite a lot in the integrity of the people I was dealing with.

Mike Ordendal: Wouter Persoon wanted us to produce certain things, and we did.

Johan Kokomo: But I'm not sure now after. Having read in the newspapers about Dr. Wouter Basson's case and so on.

Daan Goosen: I pity Basson. I feel sorry for him. Whether he's convicted or not, I think he's anyway, to some extent, been exposed, and that will be punishment for him enough.