Tall Assassin – 9781415200803

Description

The most feared security policeman in the last three apartheid decades were undoubtedly General “lang” (tall) Hendrik van den Bergh, the head of the Bureau of State Security, or Boss. This title by a former security policeman draws on facts in reconstructing a story of the tall assassin’s reign of terror, a litany of political murders in his zealous quest to combat communism. Van den Bergh, who was responsible for the capture of Nelson Mandela, built a formidable intelligence network with organizations like MI5, the CIA, Mossad, as well as French and German agencies, with whose aid he performed feats that made him an admired figure in the shadowy world of Cold War espionage. In South Africa, according to the title, there are indications of his involvement in notorious incidents like the assassination of Prime Minister HF Verwoerd, the Johannesburg station bomb attack, and the killings of Dr Robert Smit and his wife on whose kitchen wall the mysterious words “RAU TEM” were painted. According to this book he may even have been involved in the death of former State President Nico Diederichs and the killing of Dutch Reformed theologian Professor Johan Heyns.
Most of these murders were never solved. Much of the intrigue centers on the financial scandal that broke out in the Department of Information involving the mercurial Dr Eschel Rhoodie. In page-turning urgency it paints a terrifying picture of ideology driving a regime into a moral free fall.