Denis Worrall: Secrets of the top Apartheid-era diplomat

For three years during the watershed period of apartheid, Dr Denis Worrall was the hardline Nationalist leader PW Botha's top diplomat serving as South Africa's ambassador in London. Now 83, Worrall has produced an autobiography called The Independent Factor. The book takes a while to get going, but once into its stride exposes many apartheid era secrets, including the role played by businessmen Harry Oppenheimer and Anton Rupert through to PW's accurate call that London finance kingpin Sir Evelyn Rothschild was the ony person who could get SA out of a self-inflicted financial quagmire. In this podcast, drawn from Worrall's talk at the book's launch inside his old stomping ground of South Africa House on Trafalgar Square, Worrall shares the back story of the final attempt by Margaret Thatcher to force through a settlement via the Commonwealth's Eminent Person's Group - only for its work to be destroyed at the 11th hour by the SA Defence Force bombing ANC sites in neighbouring countries. Unique insights of the most troubled of times for the now young democracy. And a tale any student of South Africa will find fascinating.