South Africa the only country to have nuclear weapons, then abandon them
The Story Of The Jet That Would Have Delivered South Africa’s Nuclear Bomb, The British-made Buccaneer strike aircraft was adapted to carry apartheid-era South Africa’s guided nuclear bomb. The War Zone, BY THOMAS NEWDICK JANUARY 18, 2021
“………South Africa, an international pariah for much of the Cold War due to its apartheid policy, remains the only country to have developed nuclear weapons and then voluntarily given them up. Before it did so, the main focus of these developments was an air-launched weapon that was intended to be delivered by a Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer strike aircraft. This combination could potentially have struck targets in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as partof South Africa’s long-running campaign against regional rebel groups, or even hostile revolutionary governments.
……..The final death knell for South Africa’s nuclear weapons program was the presidency of F. W. de Klerk, who came to power in 1989, deciding to do away with it. There was apparently no significant opposition from the military, whose experience in years cross-border campaigns had not revealed any requirement for a weapon of this type. Ultimately, the actual utility of a nuclear weapon in the conflict in Angola was always negligible, and its use would represent an unprecedented escalation while further ostracizing the South African regime. Moreover, the end of apartheid now seemed to be in sight, and possession of weapons of mass destruction would do nothing to enhance South Africa’s international position then, or in the future. While a veil of secrecy remained over the program, de Klerk oversaw the removal of enriched uranium from the weapons that had been completed. In 1991, South Africa finally signed the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty and, two years later, de Klerk acknowledged the existence of the nuclear weapons program. Survivors of the SAAF Buccaneer fleet were withdrawn in the same year, by which time only five examples were reportedly still airworthy. …
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