Bureau of State Security

The Bureau for State Security (Afrikaans: Buro vir Staatsveiligheid; also known as the Bureau of State Security (BOSS)) was the main South African state intelligence agency from 1969 to 1980. A high-budget and secretive institution, it reported directly to the Prime Minister on its broad national security mandate. Under this mandate, it was at the centre of the Apartheid state's domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence activities, including counterinsurgency efforts both inside South Africa and in neighbouring countries. Like other appendages of the Apartheid security forces, it has been implicated in human rights violations, political repression, and extra-judicial killings.^[1]

For most of its existence, BOSS was headed by General Hendrik van den Bergh, who, while special Security Adviser to Prime Minister John Vorster, was instrumental in its establishment. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission saw the creation of BOSS as an example of the growing National Party politicisation of South African law enforcement, intelligence and security services, which over time was able to dominate both the South African Government and culture, while in turn being dominated by Prime Minister Vorster's office.^[1] Even as BOSS cooperated closely with other parts of the intelligence and security services – especially the South African Defence Force, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Security Branch of the South African Police – they were frequently locked in an extremely hostile competition over funding, power, and resources.^[1][2]

Part of a series on
Apartheid
Events 1948 general election Coloured vote constitutional crisis 1956 Treason Trial Sharpeville massacre Rivonia Trial Soweto uprising Church Street, Pretoria bombing Vaal uprising Trojan Horse Incident Khotso House bombing Cape Town peace march CODESA Assassination of Chris Hani Saint James Church massacre 1994 Bophuthatswana crisis Shell House massacre
Organisations ANC APLA IFP AWB BBB Black Sash CCB Conservative Party DP ECC FOSATU PP RP PFP HNP MK PAC UDF Broederbond National Party COSATU Security Branch SACC SADF SAIC SAMA SAP SACP State Security Council
People Vernon Berrangé P. W. Botha Steve Biko Mangosuthu Buthelezi F. W. de Klerk Ruth First Bram Fischer Arthur Goldreich Chris Hani Bantu Holomisa Joel Joffe Ahmed Kathrada Albert Luthuli Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Mac Maharaj D. F. Malan Nelson Mandela Govan Mbeki Thabo Mbeki Raymond Mhlaba Benjamin Moloise Albertina Sisulu Walter Sisulu J. G. Strijdom Joe Slovo Robert Sobukwe Helen Suzman Adelaide Tambo Oliver Tambo Eugène Terre'Blanche Desmond Tutu H. F. Verwoerd B. J. Vorster Jacob Zuma
Places Bantustan District Six Robben Island Sophiatown South-West Africa Soweto Sun City Vlakplaas
Related topics Afrikaner nationalism Apartheid in popular culture Apartheid legislation Cape Qualified Franchise Disinvestment campaign Freedom Charter Internal resistance to apartheid Kairos Document Music in the movement against apartheid Nostalgia for apartheid Project Coast Sullivan Principles
Category
v t e

General van den Bergh resigned as Director-General in 1978 in the wake of the Muldergate scandal, and BOSS was renamed the Department of National Security. In the same year, Vorster was replaced as Prime Minister by Defence Minister, P. W. Botha, whose government pursued a protracted restructuring of the intelligence services, culminating in the replacement of the Department with the National Intelligence Service in 1980.