My wife is South African. Years ago I was visiting in-laws in South Africa. During the visit, my brother-in-law and I took a road trip via a back road to Pretoria from Johannesburg. On that back road, my brother-in-law showed me off in the distance this research facility where he claimed the South Africans were developing their nuclear weapon's technology (it looked a bit like Lawrence Livermore National Labs). The story I was told was the South Africans were working in close cooperation with the Israelis to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. I was told that nuclear weapons had been tested once or twice(?) out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This is all idle gossip of course. The supposed reason for this at the time was to provide South Africa under the old Apartheid government with a defense against united military attack from surrounding countries armed with Soviet weapons. This sort of military threat never happened and the nuclear weapons were never needed. The unused weapons have supposably been dismantled and hopefully (me talking) dumped down an old mine shaft.

Gary