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‘We started it’

It’s nine in the morning on 20 December 1991, in the foyer of the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park. About three hundred representatives of the National Party government and eighteen other political parties have gathered, the eyes of the world fixed upon them, to attempt to launch a peaceful negotiation process in South Africa. Officially, the meeting is called the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa).

The atmosphere is almost electric, prickling with expectation and a measure of uncertainty. As befitting the head of intelligence, I scrutinise my compatriots’ wild exuberance from the proverbial back benches – with great satisfaction.

Nelson Mandela, already on course to become the country’s first democratic president, arrives to a buzz of appreciation and ill-concealed hero worship. As the politicians jostle one another to approach him, the old man notices me beyond the crowd and walks towards me.

He greets me in his sincere, engaging manner: ‘Doctor, the two of us should never forget that we made this historical meeting possible.’1

‘Thank you, sir,’ I reply, adding, under my breath: ‘But please don’t pay me too much attention. The politicians’ egos won’t be able to cope with an official being acknowledged.’2

He smiles knowingly and slowly walks away. Little did we know how explosive things would become that day.

1 This was a reference to the secret discussions which, together with a handful of officials, I held with Mandela in the Victor Verster prison from May 1988 until Mandela’s release in February 1990. These talks, held during my term as head of the National Intelligence Service, are covered extensively in the book Secret Revolution: Memoirs of a Spy Boss (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2015).

2 Mandela understood and spoke Afrikaans to a certain extent and we often conversed in Afrikaans. Note that all quotations by Afrikaans speakers have been translated into English in this publication.