Chapter 5 engages with the brief period of decision-making in which the nuclear rollback decision was initiated by newly elected President F. W. de Klerk. Set against the winding down of the Cold War in the region and the final stages of the Border War in Angola, I discuss the end of the nuclear weapons programme, showing how the South African strategy on NPT accession changed to incorporate the region in an attempt to ultimately broker a NWFZ in southern Africa. I detail how the apartheid regime, and in particular the DFA officials, revised their strategy to enable de Klerk and his advisors to be able to present signature to the Treaty to domestic opponents as a step worthy of pursuance. I also highlight how President F. W. de Klerk’s newly elected government had to consider and balance international opinion and pressure in the form of sanctions and embargoes. Moreover, I illuminate the need for the government to come to terms with a domestic situation of rising unrest and increased right-wing pressure threatening the reforms initiated by the NP, and how Pretoria finally acceded to the NPT.

Chapter 4 traces how South Africa’s position on the NPT evolved during the transition from P. W. Botha to F. W. de Klerk. My concentrated attention here lies on the role played by the South African DFA because the department’s officials were intimately involved in setting up these multilateral talks and, more crucially, were at the forefront of advocating the South African strategy on the NPT internationally. The ensuing discussion reconstructs events chronologically, bringing together the views of the South African, British, American and Soviet officials who dealt with the issue.