Former intelligence chief Niël Barnard started top-secret talks with Nelson Mandela in prison in the late 1980s. In his memoir, ‘S e c re t Revolution’, he reveals that one of the subjects he had to raise repeatedly with the ANC leader was the time bomb that was Winnie Mandela. Revolutions, whether violent or peaceful, exact high personal prices. Those paid by Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela were no exception. Their estrangement was an example of the high toll that thousands of South Africans on both sides of the liberation struggle paid.Winnie is and was a very talented person. She was also an attractive woman. Even the old guard of security policemen with whom she had altercations on many occasions over the years often spoke of her beauty, particularly in her younger years.At the NIS [National Intelligence Service] we were looking forward to her being South Africa’s first lady and representing the country with dignity both here and overseas. She had all the potential to outshine the quintessential American first lady, Jackie Kennedy.But this was not to be.Even before the secret talks with Mandela began, we realised that Winnie’s tendency to court controversy and her future role as the “Mother of the Nation ” had to be handled in some way or another. She had to play a key role in the transformation process. Secretly we hoped Mandela would have a restraining influence on her self-willed and untoward behaviour. If this could be used positively and she became an outspoken proponent of negotiation, we would gain an important ally in the peace process. If such a prominent and radical icon of the struggle were, figuratively speaking, to lay down her weapons — of which she had many — the benefits would be enormous, because she was an international figure in her own right.However, to speak to Mandela about such a personal, sensitive and emotional issue was easier said than done. On several occasions when this question was raised I asked the rest of the team to leave the two of us alone, or I broached the matter when we were alone.Needless to say, Mandela was always uneasy during these discussions, but he handled them like a consummate gentleman. He never disparaged Winnie or made humiliating remarks about her. On the contrary, he always protected her and said how sorry he was that she had had to manage without him, that he had relinquished his duty towards her through his political involvement. This remained a very painful issue for him.Winnie ’s revolutionary passion was irrepressible, however, and her pronouncements and behaviour grew more outrageous by the day.Throughout the world people took note of her notorious statement in April 1986 of how South Africa would gain its freedom using matches and necklace murders. The ANC leadership, who especially under the guidance of Thabo Mbeki was doing its utmost to improve the image of the organisation overseas, was shaken to the core by Winnie’s behaviour.During a discussion about Winnie and her role in the horrendous violence in the country, Mandela became visibly embarrassed and, after a long silence, remarked laconically and a little shamefacedly: “You know, a man’s wife is always right.”Often he listened in silence while I informed him about such things. Presumably he trusted me to give him accurate information. He was acutely aware of the ANC’s embarrassment about Winnie and dismayed by her refusal to have anything to do with people who could assist her.During one of Winnie’s visits he told her diplomatically about “positive developments” (without referring specifically to the talks with the government team), that these were extremely sensitive and that anything that she said or did might lead to “them” asking: “Can we trust this man if his wife is doing these things?” Later he added: “If there is any mistake, it must be made by them, not by us.”Furthermore, Winnie was busy building a luxury home in Soweto, for which she did not have the money, while it was Mandela’s wish that when released he would return to the house in Orlando West where he and Winnie had lived for the first few months after their wedding on June 14 1958.We observed these events with concern and thought a great deal about how we should act.General Willie Willemse, who was later promoted to commissioner of correctional services, came up with an excellent suggestion: that Winnie be allowed to move in with her husband at the Victor Verster house. That would keep her out of the limelight — and away from many temptations — and give us a measure of control over her.Mandela listened to the suggestion with a twinkle in his eye; Winnie refused point-blank.Her excuse was that she and her husband could not indulge in such privileges while Mandela’s Rivonia comrades were still in jail. She suggested that they should, in the interim, be content with day visits. She got her way. It was easy to read between the lines that she was not prepared to forgo her unfettered lifestyle.That was merely the beginning. In December 1988 a 14year-old activist, Stompie Seipei, was kidnapped and killed by members of Winnie’s team of bodyguards, who were known as the Mandela United Football Club. Jerry Richardson was found guilty of murder and Winnie of kidnapping and complicity in assault.In February 1989 Mandela and I had a wide-ranging discussion about this new bomb that had exploded around Winnie. It was a difficult and uncomfortable discussion.Mandela acknowledged that Winnie’s behaviour was a major problem and said he was doing what he could about it. He admitted that there were issues between them and that he had talked to her many times already, warning her about her unacceptable public pronouncements and actions. At the same time, he expressed his gratitude that we had discussed this delicate matter with him confidentially and directly and had not misused it to score any points against him.To defuse the growing crisis, the ANC formed the Mandela Crisis Committee (MCC). The telephone lines between South Africa and Lusaka hummed with activity. The MCC called on Oliver Tambo to intervene and said disparagingly of Winnie’s behaviour: “She shows utter contempt for both the crisis committee and the community.” Tambo was told in no uncertain terms that it was crucial for him to take action against this “ghastly situation” that was “developing before our very eyes”.Initially, Mandela was extremely tactful to Winnie when she visited him. He helped to find excuses for her involvement in some of the unfortunate things that had happened. However, he rejected her retort that the MCC was hand in glove with the security police and that the entire hullabaloo was a plot against her personally; he barely hid his impatience with this lame excuse. She bristled at his advice that she should keep out of the public eye for six months.In time it became patently obvious that a serious estrangement had developed between the two.In October 1989, when Winnie turned up at Victor Verster without an appointment, Mandela refused to see her. She was obliged to write a message to him instead. In the note she tried to curry favour and said that the Mandela Reception Committee was making progress with the arrangements for when he was released.Everyone was carrying out his instructions carefully, wrote Winnie.Mandela reacted officiously, disconcerted by the behaviour of the two women in his life — Winnie and their daughter Zindzi — who avoided him because they did not want to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. To a confidant who visited him, Mandela said he had been struggling for over two years to get Winnie to give him a statement of her banking trans-actions. He also lamented the way in which she agreed with him when he tackled her on her misdemeanours, but then calmly carried on regardless once she had driven out of the Victor Verster gates.In the run-up to Mandela’s as yet unannounced release, relationships in the Mandela family apparently improved. By December 1989, Mandela and Winnie were speaking to one another regularly.She and some of their children spent Christmas Day with him in the house outside Paarl.In the previous months, when Winnie, the children and other family members had visited him, Mandela had been the understanding husband, caring father, proud grandfather and the involved family man. For hours on end he inquired about everyone’s ups and downs. He revelled in the family’s stories, asking particularly about the education of the children, and encouraged them all to study hard so that they could take their rightful place in society.On the other hand, he also expressed concern about the family’s morals and had confronted Zindzi about whether it was true that her three children all had different fathers — a disgrace to the family in his eyes. Time and again Mandela emphasised the role of the church in their lives and said that his immediate family and the broader family circle should also accept the community’s moral values.The Christmas Day visit was a convivial family gathering, but in truth it was merely a pleasant interlude in the deteriorating relationship between Nelson and Winnie Mandela.The troublesome question of how to handle Winnie had at least one good outcome: it strengthened the relationship between me and Mandela on a personal level. He could see that it was an embarrassment for me to talk to him about it and that our discussions on this matter were handled with the utmost privacy and confidentiality.This experience brought home to me the realisation that this exceptional man was also just an ordinary, vulnerable person.On an “official” level, we also learnt to understand each other better. Despite everything we had heard and believed about him over the years, he was not a communist at heart. He had certainly had flirtations with communism on an ideological level, but it was like a schoolboy who flirts with all and sundry yet in the end marries only one.I gained great admiration for his nationalism, something that also inspires me. He spoke openly and unashamedly of his Xhosa traditions and was clearly proud of his roots. His love of his heritage and the fact that it was an integral part of his identity were conspicuous.Perhaps most importantly, he was a man of his word. He held certain strong beliefs but, like any politician, could also come up with a trick or two to justify a comrade’s untoward actions, for example. Not everyone can reconcile these two characteristics. Mandela could do it because he was not an opportunistic backbencher in party politics. He was a man of gravitas — this cannot be denied.Hopefully, I made an impression on him as an Afrikaner who was similarly proud of his background and culture; we both hoped that all the things we valued as South Africans would live on in the new dispensation. Hopefully, he also realised that we had an understanding of black people’s political aspirations, because we know what it is like to be trampled politically.I always treated Mandela with the greatest respect and esteem — not only because he was my fellow man but because he was so much older than me. Indeed, it went beyond this: I treated him as the future president of the country because it was clear to everyone with a grain of intelligence that this was what he would soon become.Nevertheless, from the government’s corner, and especially from the viewpoint of minority groups, there were certain things he had to hear —issues I articulated calmly and respectfully. He evidently appreciated this.This is an edited extract from ‘Secret Revolution, Memoirs of a Spy Boss’, Tafelberg R250..