State Security Council

The State Security Council (SSC) was formed in South Africa in 1972 to advise the government on the country's national policy and strategy concerning security, its implementation and determining security priorities. Its role changed through the prime ministership's of John Vorster and PW Botha (later State President), being little used during the formers and during the latter’s, controlling all aspects of South African public's lives by becoming the Cabinet. During those years he would implement a Total National Strategy, Total Counter-revolutionary Strategy and finally in the mid-eighties, established the National Security Management System (NSMS). After FW de Klerk's rise to the role of State President, the Cabinet would eventually regain control of the management of the country. After the 1994 elections a committee called National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee was formed to advise the South African president on security and intelligence as well as its implementation.

On 5 September 1969, Prime Minister John Vorster formed a commission led by Justice H.J. Potgieter to establish the guidelines and mission for intelligence gathering by the Military Intelligence (later DMI) and the Bureau for State Security (BOSS). The Commission to Inquire into Certain Intelligence Aspects of State Security, known better as the Potgieter Commission would investigate the clashes between the two organisations over who had primary responsibility for intelligence gathering in South Africa. As the BOSS head Hendrik van den Bergh was a close ally of the Prime Minister, it was seen by Military Intelligence as a foregone conclusion that BOSS would achieve favour. The Potgieter Commission reported back on the 2 February 1972 and the results were subsequently used to enact the Security Intelligence and State Security Council Act 64 of 1972 on 24 May 1972. Part of this act established the formation of the State Security Council under the control of the cabinet and established it as the government's national centre for operational security. Due to the domination of BOSS, the State Security Council under Vorster would meet infrequently and would be purely advisory.

In October 1974, Vorster initiated a foreign policy of "Détente" seeking support for a constellation of Southern African states who would be a united front against a common enemy, communism. The use of white buffers states began to fail in 1974 with a coup in Portugal, known as the Carnation Revolution, and by 1975 black liberation groups were in control of its colonies of Angola and Mozambique. BOSS was instrumental in organizing the search for influential allies in the region and arranging the meetings. This policy was soon destroyed by the South African invasion of Angola in 1975 and in June 1976 with the Soweto riots.

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