The End of Apartheid

An insider's blow-by-blow account of the release of Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of apartheid. As British ambassador to South Africa, Robin Renwick was in the midst of these seismic events in world history. Appointed to South Africa as Margaret Thatcher's envoy, Renwick became a personal friend of Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, acting as a trusted intermediary between the three parties. He describes meetings with P.W. Botha, warning him against military attacks on the neighbouring countries and arguing for the lives of the Sharpeville Six as 'like visiting Hitler in his bunker'. Renwick personally persuaded Margaret Thatcher to descend on Windhoek in support of the Namibia agreement. His close relationship with F.W. de Klerk helped him to garner international support for his reforms. On the eve of his epoch-making speech to Parliament of 2 February 1990, de Klerk told him: 'You can tell your Prime Minister she will not be disappointed'. This extraordinary account, based on the author's diaries of the time, contains information from the hitherto unpublished Foreign Office and 10 Downing Street records at the time.