Total Onslaught by De Wet Potgieter

Total Onslaught (Zebra Press First Edition Exposé of Apartheid Covert Operations)

An Investigative Journalist's Account of the Apartheid Security Forces' Covert and Illegal Operations

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Total Onslaught: Apartheid's Dirty Tricks Exposed
• Author: De Wet Potgieter
• Editor: Ronel Richter-Herbert
• Publisher: Zebra Press (an imprint of Struik Publishers), Cape Town
• Publication Date: 2007
• ISBN-13: 9781770073289
• Edition Details: First published 2007, Zebra Press softcover release.
• Binding: Publisher's illustrated card wrappers, cover art wrapping onto the spine, printed spine bearing the Zebra logo.
• Physical Format: Large softcover (trade paperback) format, 344 pages. Includes photographs within the text.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Good (G)
• Exterior / Wraps: The illustrated card wrappers are intact, with the cover art wrapping onto the spine. The front cover is clean and bright. The back cover, printed in a brown file-folder design, shows light creasing and handling marks. The spine is intact with no visible cracking. The fore-edge of the page block is toned.
• Interior: The text block is tight, with no loose pages. The pages are toned throughout, with darker spotting and toning to the fore-edge. There are rust-coloured foxing spots near the fore-edge of the title page, a small yellow-brown stain to the lower half-title page, and a faint brownish tide mark to the right margin of page 145. No inscriptions, stamps or bookplates.
• The Dust Jacket: Not Applicable (As Issued)

Synopsis & Historical Value

Total Onslaught: Apartheid's Dirty Tricks Exposed, published by Zebra Press in Cape Town in 2007, is De Wet Potgieter's investigation into the covert and illegal operations carried out by the National Party government's security forces. It examines the government's Total Strategy, devised in response to the Total Onslaught it believed was directed against South Africa, and the unorthodox methods used to counter it, from propaganda campaigns to local death squads.

The book draws on documents and recorded interviews, and ranges from PW Botha's final cabinet meeting to the assassination of Olof Palme. Among its most striking passages are transcribed exchanges from a hearing involving PW Botha and Niel Barnard concerning a destroyed tape of a conversation with Nelson Mandela.

For students of the apartheid era and the workings of the security establishment, it remains a useful, journalist-driven reference. This is a used collectible copy of the first Zebra Press paperback, with honest signs of age and toning.

Author Profile: De Wet Potgieter

De Wet Potgieter is a South African investigative journalist who began his career in 1974 as a court reporter in Pretoria. In 1988 he was appointed an investigative journalist at the Sunday Times, a post he held for seven years, and he later wrote front-page stories for Rapport. He has worked in both English and Afrikaans, in print and television.

His other books include Contraband: South Africa and the Illegal Trade in Ivory and Rhino Horn (1995), The Eleventh Hour and Black Widow White Widow, on alleged Al-Qaeda activity in South Africa. His papers are held by the South African History Archive.

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