Vorster was appointed as State President on 10 October, but resigned in May 1979 when the results of the Erasmus Commission of Inquiry into the Information Scandal were released in that year.
[2] With the rise of P. W. Botha to prime minister, so the SADF's[clarification needed] power increased in cabinet and with that the Directorate Military Intelligence (DMI), which would strive to dominate security issues in the new government and decide its policy and implementation.
[3]: Chp8 Botha had decided to split the intelligence gathering ability of South Africa amongst four agencies: the DMI, BOSS/DONS, Security Branch and Foreign Affairs, hoping to reduce the political dominance by one over the others, but the rivalry would continue.
[3]: Chp4 He viewed Foreign Affairs as too overt and tainted by the Information Scandal and therefore saw a need to organise BOSS into a new agency based around research and analysis; he removed its old covert operational function and transferred that to the Security Branch of the police.
[1]: 161 Barnard would take over the South African Department of National Security (DONS) after the retirement of the existing head Alec van Wyk.
[3]: Chp8 These accords resulted in the ANC losing access to its bases in that country and South Africa's Directorate Military Intelligence undertaking to end its support to RENAMO, which however it did not.
[3]: Chp8 With P. W. Botha's permission, Neil Barnard, Mike Louw, Kobie Coetzee and Fanie van der Merwe (Director General of the Prisons Department) began more secret but formal meetings with Nelson Mandela, while in the background white Afrikaner academics, politicians, businessmen, journalists and churchmen held both secret and open talks with the ANC overseas.
[5]: Chp31 He made use of Willie Esterhuyse as an intermediary to help set up a communication line with Thabo Mbeki in Dar es Salaam so as to arrange a meeting between the NIS and the ANC in Switzerland.
[5]: Chp31 On 12 September 1989 in Lucerne, Switzerland, Mike Louw, (Deputy-Director NIS) and Maritz Spaarwater (Chief of Operations NIS) met Thabo Mbeki (ANC National Executive Council member) and Jacob Zuma (Deputy Head of the Department of Intelligence and Security – ANC) at a hotel room in the Palace Hotel.
[5]: Chp31 The outcome of the meeting was that the ANC was prepared to enter into further discussions with the South African government while the NIS would report back to F. W. de Klerk.
[3]: Chp8 De Klerk set about dismantling the power of the Directorate Military Intelligence (DMI), returning the management of the country from the State Security Council (eventually abolished) to the Cabinet.
[12] The TEC would essentially run the country until the election and was made up of seven sub-committees, composed of members of the negotiating political parties, with one of those committees responsible for intelligence.
[3]: Chp9 These two new organisations would consist of a total of 4,000 people with 2,130 from the NIS, 910 from DIS (ANC), 304 from Bophutatswana, 233 from Transkei, 76 Venda and rest from the PASS (PAC).