The attack on the Koeberg nuclear plant was a chilling demonstration of the vulnerability of an atomic installation to attack as well as a reflection on the incompetence of South African security.
The authorities at Koeberg have since made the extraordinary claim that they not only anticipated the attack, but had pin-pointed the date.
In a recent book on the history of the plant a senior executive, Paul Semark, is quoted as saying: “We knew the ANC would not target Koeberg once nuclear fuel was there and that they would try to attack at a time which would ensure the least loss of life. We even pinpointed December 16 1982, which was a public holiday, as the likely date.”
Their inability to counter the threat is not explained.
The apparent helplessness of the authorities is even more astonishing in the light of bomber Rodney Wilkinson’s background. He joined the work force at the plant twice — on both occasions getting access to the most sensitive sectors of nuclear installation — and yet was never subjected to security vetting.
If his background had been checked they could have discovered that he had a history as a deserter and involvement in the anti-nuclear campaign. Six years before, doing his national service, he had been hospitalised after wrecking an army Unimog while going Awol with 12 colleagues during the South African invasion of Angola. Military police took statements, but apparently because of the illegality of the Angolan invasion, had failed to prosecute him as a deserter.
He was also caught, at one stage, breaching security, but nothing was done about it. Alcohol was banned in the nuclear plant. Testing security by smuggling in a bottle of vodka — roughly the shape of a limpet mine — he was caught in posession of it while wandering, hiccuping, around the “holy of holies”, the main control room.
“I wanted to have a look; you see it in all the films — this great big room with all these banks of computers. But the tension must have been too much for me — I drank the vodka,” he recounted wryly of the incident. Detained in the guard room, he was released after being given a warning by a security officer whom he knew from the local squash club.
Wilkinson’s worst moment, he recalls, was when he was on his way to plant the second mine in the Reactor One containment building and spotted a guard watching him approach with apparent suspicion. “My legs were like jelly and I could feel beads of perspiration on my face.” He detoured and placed the device at an alternative target they had identified, in another concentration of cables under the second control room.
A seemingly impossible obstacle he had to overcome was carrying mines into the “clean” area surrounding the reactors, access to which was gained through an airlock where he had to strip and don protective clothing.
But he discovered that pipe tunnels leading into the clean area had plastic diaphragms to keep the air clean and he was able to simply push the bombs through them, pass through the airlock himself, and collect them on the other side. “When I thought of that I was on cloud nine. I had been having sleepless nights about it.”