The finance ministers' communique next day was swept off the front pages and out of the breakfast shows in the United States by two far more newsworthy items. The first was the story about the children from Sierra Leone. This was accepted as the latest episode in the bio-medical war now being waged against Britain by the Black Hand, which claimed that it had sent the infected children to show the effects of cutting off the inoculation program against childhood diseases. "An Act of Barbarism" was the heading to The Guardian editorial, and that was among the mildest of comments. 488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjd9i1gj3wn
The 2nd story consisted of lengthy interpretations of a 2-line communique issued simultaneously in Washington and Moscow announcing that the US and Soviet task forces assigned to Africa had been ordered to a first state of readiness.
All the commentators agreed that this was further pressure on South Africa; many attributed the move to black threats of retribution if South Africa was not forced by the US to end apartheid. None commented on the danger of exerting such pressure on a desperate nuclear power.
Though most European governments had little sympathy for the South African government, there was a shudder of apprehension at this joint superpower diktat. In South Africa itself the disintegration of the civil state had been proceeding fast. The men of violence had taken over: "Peace never" signs were struck on the walls by the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and day by day the lines at the shipping and airline offices grew longer while the difficulty of getting an exit permit grew greater.
On the morning of Tuesday, December 29, 1985, when the announcement about the Soviet-American task forces was made, the AWB placed signs on South Africa's beaches warning that any white people attempting to make an unauthorized departure would be shot.
Among the first to see the signs was Basil, the concierge of the Jan Smuts Hotel and the source of most foreign correspondent's man-in-the-street quotes. It was, he told each journalist in turn, too incredible: not eighty years before, the British had fired on the Boers to keep them from making South Africa theirs; now whites of both kinds (Boers and British) were going to shoot their fellow whites in the back to stop them from leaving.
As the tension mounted the feeling grew in South Africa that one of two things was needed to keep the country from slipping into full-scale civil war: a miracle, or a calamity on such a scale that confronting it would demand the united resources ands strengths of the whole nation. Devout Christians prayed for a miracle; but they got a calamity instead.
The first visible sign of its approach came on December 30, 1985. An innocent looking cloud, the size of a man's hand, appeared above the horizon some 50 miles south of Cape Town. Within the hour, however, it lost its innocence and became a menacing storm cloud, swelling each moment with steam and radioactive gas. Koeberg---South Africa's first nuclear reactor---had gone into meltdown.
The first indication of possible trouble was noticed, according to the computerized record, at 5:59 a.m. as the South African technicians on duty were changing shifts. A pump in the cooling system, according to its printout, seemed to have malfunctioned during the night, but it had self-corrected and was functioning perfectly at inspection time. The incident was reported and logged in the central control computer, but nobody in the control room was unduly worried. Every safety device was duplicated. There was a one-in-a-thousand chance of one pump failing; but the odds against a 2nd breakdown were one in a million.
At 10:00 PM Botha was informed that South Africa had a nuclear disaster on her hands. HIs first question to the head of South African Nuclear Energy (SANE) established that the airflow was from the south-southwest, which meant that the most likely fallout path was a line running approximately north-northeast all through Cape Town all the way to the landlocked country of Lesotho.
In response to Botha's second question, the head of SANE had said that objectively speaking the major problem they faced was an emotional one--panic. If people stayed in their homes they would not get burned. There were, however, certain inevitable consequences. Water, milk and food supplies in and from the fallout areas would be contaminated; and the soil would remain polluted for many months. As to the longer term medical effects----"cancer for example"---it would be at least 10 years before they knew the whole truth.
PM Botha's 3rd question had been about time. How much had they got? The head of SANE's best guess was that if all factors stayed constant, there could be fallout on Cape Town within three to four hours.
At 10:14 a.m. South Africa went public with the news, as dictated by SANE, that there had been an "accidental leakage" from the Koeberg reactor.
By 10:25 a.m., an untested but well-conceived Nuclear Disaster Limitation Plan was put into operation. All communication networks went over to a running commentary that mixed news and advice. At PM Botha's insistence the people of South Africa were to be kept informed constantly. In his own short statement he urged them to stay calm and to follow to the letter the advice they would receive.
At 10:35 a.m., after a telephone conversation with PM Botha, the Prime Minister of Lesotho, Leabua Jonathan, agreed that a small team of South African experts should fly without delay to Maseru to advise on nuclear disaster limitation procedures for Lesotho. (There was a chance, depending on the airflow, that Maseru would find itself in the fallout path.)
By 11:00, scientists, journalists, and politicians around the world were speculating about what really had happened in South Africa. Was South Africa telling the truth? Was it not more likely that ANC guerillas or SWAPO insurgents had succeeded in detonating a small nuclear device in South Africa? Had South Africa been hit by a nuclear missile---and if so, who had fired it? Had the Soviets supplied Zimbabwe with nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them? Had South Africa been experimenting with a new nuclear weapon? Still another theory, which had its supporters in Washington and the capitals of Western Europe, was that the South Africans had detonated a little nuclear device of their own in order to blame the blacks and thus give themselves a pretext for an eventual nuclear strike.
By noon the story that was making headlines in news bulletins in virtually every language was given a dramatic new lead---the Black Hand claimed responsibility for sabotaging South Africa's main nuclear reactor.
On South African radio and TV the Black Hand claim was simply read out without comment and without any supporting material. But those who checked their news with the BBC World Service, as thousands did regularly, learned much more. About 7:00 a.m. GMT the Voice of Africa came in, as it frequently did on one of the European radio satellites, with the claim that the Black Hand and the ANC were responsible for the meltdown in Israel. The BBC monitored this claim at Caversham and used it in their programs, at first in an abbreviated form which simply reported the Black Hand's involvement.
But subsequently in the Radio Newsreel program the BBC gave the whole broadcast from the Voice of Africa. This asserted that the meltdown was specifically intended as punishment of South Africa for having tried to murder the ANC leader and extirpate the blacks, but it should also demonstrate to the USA and the West in general the capacity of Africa "to reach into your innermost sanctums, even your nuclear arsenals, and make them do our bidding."
This could have been written off as bravado, but there followed a specific claim that sounded chillingly exact: "All we had to do was to feed false instructions into the Koeberg computer. Very early this morning we tested its program by causing a malfunction in the cooling system. When the engineers entered this in the computer record we knew for sure that we could go ahead without danger of accidentally causing a devastating explosion....this time."
One person who heard this broadcast in South Africa was the engineer who had reported the malfunction in the cooling system at 6:00 A.M. Coming at the end of the day when he had seen his home and work place radioactivated, conceivably by some error of his, the mingled shock and relief was too much and he fell in a dead faint; later he told his story on the radio in a manner which commanded belief. Another who heard the broadcast was PM Botha (a regular listener to the BBC). His reaction was to become hyperactive. He summoned the SANE director to his office in the Parliament building. As soon as he entered, Botha asked him if he had heard the BBC Radio Newsreel? The director had. "What does it prove to you?"488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqVTLx5Bnds
"What I never doubted---that Koeberg was sabotaged."488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMPGPar2qTP
"Do you still recommend trying to fool the public, by claiming it was an accident?"488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkNIlTtHMxk
"It will be no more difficult to dismiss this broadcast as propaganda, clever propaganda but still untrue. The alternative is to feed the public mood of hysteria and risk and overwhelming demand for nuclear retaliation. But what will the target be? Who is the enemy that has done this thing?"488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc4Zzgw8Ay7
Before Botha could answer a red light flashed urgently on his desk and as he pressed the switch the voice of defense minister Viljoen boomed out: "Mr. Prime Minister, the wind has shifted and the radioactive cloud will miss Cape Town and Johannesburg and make its way to the Kalahari Desert."488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE5EQtxBQxe
There was a note of fierce pride in PM Botha's voice: "God who holds the winds in his hand has spared us so that we may do great things in His Name."488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTC0Bx6daIu
At 6:00 p.m. it was officially announced that the Koeberg meltdown was the result of sabotage "by our enemies," and that the Cabinet was in session at that hour to consider the consequences. The SANE director's fears were justified; within an hour a crowd upwards of 200,00, marshaled by AWB officials in their uniform of blue Levis and black leather jackets, was demonstrating outside the Parliament where the Cabinet was meeting. Their placards (in dozens of languages for the TV cameras) demanded one thing: "Nuclear reprisal against South Africa's enemies."488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCfMuhXdn06
The scene as it appeared on TV around the world gave the impression that the South Africans were united and determined, as was intended; the counter-demonstrators had been herded away, far out of camera range.488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKF85QrMygR
At midnight loudspeakers around the outside of the building crackled into life and the familiar voice of the Government spokesman began very flatly to read the Cabinet communique:488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjQJUKDQb4P
"The Parliament has today met to consider what action to take in response to the sabotaging of the Koeberg reactor. The world knows that the government of South Africa is under great pressure from its people to order a retaliatory nuclear strike. It is the Government's view that such a response would be more than justified. However, and in order to demonstrate its restraint in the face of extreme provocation, the Government has, on this occasion, decided against a retaliatory strike of any kind.488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwNNpYJEakx
"At today's meeting of the Cabinet it was also decided that no responsible Government of South Africa could allow the security requirements of the State to be determined by any foreign power or outside agency. The Government of South Africa therefore announces that it rejects the US-Soviet ultimatum and declares that South Africa will resist with all the force at its command any attempt to impose an end to our apartheid system.488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbT7QIXPfgw
"As of 9:00 this evening South Africa's nuclear missiles are primed and targeted on the capitals of her enemies!"488Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoGc6Rz4YKA
