Giving Up Nuclear Weapons: It's Rare, But It's Happened
President Trump is calling on North Korea to relinquish its nuclear arsenal. History suggests that's unlikely. Only one country has built its own nukes, and then given them up.
South Africa was filled with drama in 1993. Violence raged as the white president, F.W. de Klerk, negotiated with black leader Nelson Mandela to end apartheid.
Amid this uncertainty, de Klerk appeared on TV one night and made a startling announcement: South Africa secretly built six nuclear weapons, but had dismantled them and shut down the program, he said.
"Let us convince the world we are not playing games, that we have broken those bombs down, that we can account for every milli-milli-milligram of material in it — and that is in Washington, recalling his decision two decades earlier.
