P. W. Botha

"I never have the nagging doubt of wondering whether perhaps I am wrong."

"The white people who came here lived at a very much higher standard than the indigenous peoples, and with a very rich tradition which they brought with them from Europe."

"President P.W. Botha’s notorious “Rubicon” speech on 15 August 1985 at the National Party Congress in Durban was probably one of the most significant speeches in the history of South Africa. It was supposed to break the political and military deadlock between the apartheid government and the banned liberation movements, notably the ANC. Botha was widely expected to announce new policies that could possibly have ended the political conflict in the country. However, that did not happen. Instead the speech was a total fiasco. ...the South African government and P.W. Botha were not ready for such policy breakthrough announcements and had never planned to make them."

"Uri Friedman: Why did the South African government, in the mid-1970s, decide to embark on a nuclear-weapons program?"

"[From as early as 1979, P. W. Botha], in his capacity as president of apartheid South Africa, was the real architect of the secret talks that ultimately led to De Klerk’s historic announcement in February 1990. ... Nelson Mandela started the process of persuading [[w:Kobie_Coetzee|[Kobie] Coetsee]] that the time was ripe for the government to talk to the ANC, and that he was prepared to lead the initiative in prison even before consulting Lusaka. ... Botha’s response was to ... commence secret talks with the ANC to explore possible negotiations with the enemy. ... The South African conflict had reached a stalemate [with] no possibility of victory for either side. ... It was in this toxic environment that Mandela and Botha rose to the occasion, both without a mandate. Mandela defied the ANC and engaged the enemy without a mandate because he knew that the hawks in the ANC would have stopped his initiative. Botha [authorised secret talks] without informing his Cabinet because it was too risky to do so. ... White voters still viewed the ANC as terrorists controlled by Moscow in the context of the Cold War. Reports of Botha talking to the ANC would have sunk him as leader of the National Party and president of South Africa."