[4]: 162  Barnard was in his teens at the time of the Rivonia Trial of 1963, in which Nelson Mandela and several other African National Congress leaders were convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison.

Botha, after he had written a Ph.D. thesis at the University of the Orange Free State, although Barnard would claim in a 1992 newspaper interview that he was unsure as to why he was chosen, not having an intelligence background.

[4]: 162  In the wake of the Info scandal in which the Bureau of State Security (BOSS) had become mired, Botha appointed Barnard in November 1979 to form a new intelligence service.

In essence, this implied constitutional reform to implement a universal franchise, thereby laying the foundation for the negotiated transition to democracy that took place in CODESA, an event envisaged by NIS.

[7] Central to this new vision was the core belief that the only way to find lasting security was to develop a nation, and that meant renegotiating the constitution to include all South Africans irrespective of race.

As the head of South Africa's National Intelligence Service (NIS), he recognized that his country would have to find a political settlement to eliminate apartheid and that Nelson Mandela would have to play a fundamental role in the process.

When P. W. Botha's health forced him to resign in late 1989, Barnard continued to facilitate discussions between Mandela and the new State President of South Africa, F. W. de Klerk.