the rollback of south africa's biological warfare program

Lyman was able to prevail and focus on proliferation concerns, even though
CBW use was part of the demarche. 164
According to the former South African Surgeon General, Dr. Neil
Knobel, de Klerk and the South Africans cooperated with the Americans and
British. 165 However, Knobel and other South African officials believed that the
Americans and British were acting on the basis of questionable and
uncorroborated evidence, some of which came from press reports. On 21 April
1994, South Africa responded to the demarche and asserted that Project Coast
records were a “national asset” and that the CD-ROMs would not be
destroyed. According to Knobel, he and Basson were given responsibility for
briefing the U.S. and British experts and Mandela.
After the demarche and the inauguration of President Mandela in May
1994, American and British delegations arrived for the first of several visits to
South Africa. Knobel, Basson and others extensively briefed the delegations
over a three-day period and took them on a tour of Roodeplaat Research
Laboratories, which had been converted to commercial production. The SADF
compiled a large file on Project Coast and gave it to the Americans and British.
South Africa reassured the British and Americans that the three keys to gain
access to Project Coast secrets on CD-ROM were in the hands of the President,
Surgeon-General, and National Intelligence Agency head. The South Africans
transferred information, which they had obtained from the Russian and Iraqi
programs (including flesh-eating bacteria). Knobel claimed that Basson was
offered a job and money by the U.S. and Britain but declined. Three teams
(one from the United Nations, one Anglo-American, and one Confidence
Building Measure team from the Geneva Conventions) investigated the
January 1992 alleged CBW incident in Mozambique. In 1994 and 1995,
American and British teams made more visits to South Africa to facilitate the
rollback of the South African CBW program.
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