Who Set It Off?

Still a nuclear mystery

On Sept. 22, 1979, a U.S. intelligence satellite, passing over a remote expanse of ocean between South Africa and Antarctica, detected an intense double burst of light in the atmosphere lasting less than a second. After a month of preliminary study, the U.S. announced that it had "an indication" that a "low-yield nuclear explosion" had taken place. The big question: Who had set off whatever went off?

The most plausible culprit was initially thought to be South Africa. Pretoria denied the charge, as well as a subsequent rumor that the South Africans had been testing a tactical weapon for their fleet of Israeli-designed missile boats. Last week CBS News reported another possibility: the light burst had been caused by an Israeli nuclear test conducted with the "help and cooperation" of South Africa. The report, which was based on an unpublished book by two Israeli former journalists, was immediately dismissed by Jerusalem as "complete nonsense" and by Pretoria as "ridiculous." Washington said it had no evidence either way--and had not ruled out the possibility that the light burst had been caused by some kind of natural phenomenon.

Israel and South Africa do cooperate on certain military matters, perhaps including nuclear ones. But in this case, the denials from Jerusalem made sense. For one thing, Israel is capable of conducting its own nuclear tests in the Negev desert without South African help. For another, Israel's primary nuclear need would be for relatively small, "clean" weapons that could be tested underground within Israel's borders--and, indeed, probably have been.

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