Leo "Rusty" Evans, who has died in Pretoria at the age of 73, was the director-general of the Department of Foreign Affairs during the transition from apartheid to democracy.
He won the trust of Nelson Mandela during many hours of informal talks between himself and foreign minister Pik Botha, and Mandela and Thabo Mbeki at Mandela's home in Houghton before the 1994 elections.
Mandela asked Evans to stay on as director-general. But some in the ANC leadership weren't happy about this.
They believed Evans, who was minister at the South African embassy in London in 1982, must have had something to do with the bomb that South African agents exploded in the ANC's London office that year.
When his contract came up for renewal in 1995, they opposed it. Foreign minister Alfred Nzo told him about their suspicions.
Evans explained that he joined the embassy in London after the bombing and had nothing to do with it. Nzo accepted this and renewed his contract.
Tension over Taiwan
One of his earliest differences with ANC colleagues in the department concerned South Africa's relations with China and Taiwan.
Evans was a staunch friend of Taiwan and a believer in the economic benefits of maintaining diplomatic relations, even though Beijing had made it clear that South Africa couldn't have diplomatic relations with both countries.
Evans was at loggerheads with the deputy foreign minister at the time, Aziz Pahad, who wanted immediate recognition of China.
Taiwan had been a close friend of South Africa's under apartheid, and Evans's support for the relationship reinforced the doubts of those who believed he was too much part of the old order.
But he had the backing of Mandela, who believed that South Africa could have diplomatic relations with both China and Taiwan.
After coming under pressure, Mandela suddenly announced on November 27 1996 that South Africa was ending its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favour of relations with China.
He had not informed Evans, who was notably absent from the press conference in which Mandela, flanked by junior officials, made this important announcement.
When Evans heard about it he had to urgently inform a South African government delegation that was in Taiwan at the time, that Mandela was severing South Africa's diplomatic ties with the country as he spoke.
Evans was asked in an interview with the New York Times if Mandela often caught him off guard like that.
According to the Times he "paused" before answering "carefully" that Mandela was "a major actor in foreign policy. I'm never surprised by anything Mr Mandela does."
In 1998, Mbeki replaced Evans with Jackie Selebi.
Evans was born in Durban on December 12 1943. He matriculated at Christian Brothers College in Kimberley at the age of 16 and went to the Roman Catholic seminary in Natal to study for the priesthood.
From religion to diplomacy
As one of the brightest students at the seminary he was allowed to study for a degree in philosophy at Natal University at the same time.
After five years at the seminary he pulled out just before taking his final vows.
He saw a newspaper advert for recruits to the Department of Foreign Affairs and took the train to Pretoria for a job interview.
It was in Afrikaans and he barely understood a word. He was told that there was no place for him in the department without Afrikaans, but a month later received a telegram offering him a job.
After South Africa's ill-fated invasion of Angola in 1975, Evans was involved in its continued support for Jonas Savimbi's Unita movement and made several secret trips to Savimbi's headquarters in the southern Angolan bush.
His first major overseas posting was as minister at the South African embassy in Washington.
From there he was sent to the embassy in London, arriving soon after apartheid spy Craig Williamson detonated a bomb in the ANC office.
He was No2 at the embassy under the ambassadorship first of Marais Steyn and then Denis Worrall.
He was involved in handling the crisis when four South African Armscor employees, the so-called Coventry Four, were arrested in 1984 for trying to circumvent the UN arms embargo against South Africa by smuggling spare parts for military equipment from a firm in Coventry.
The South African government reneged on an undertaking that if they were allowed back to South Africa they would be returned to stand trial in the UK.
The UK government vented its fury on Evans, whose job was to deal with Westminster and politics while Worrall concentrated on business.
He briefed prime minister Margaret Thatcher on developments in South Africa and on sanctions. He was present at her uneasy meeting with PW Botha at Chequers when she made it clear that although she did not support sanctions she could never support apartheid.
Behind the scenes
Evans was head of Africa for the department and nurtured informal, secret relationships with several African countries that in public were sworn enemies of Pretoria. He worked with shady middlemen like Lonrho boss Tiny Rowland to arrange overflight rights for SAA.
He was involved in the negotiations in Cairo and Brazzaville that led to the exit of the Cubans from Angola and of South Africans from Namibia, and to Namibia's independence. These developments helped pave the way for FW de Klerk's unbanning of the ANC and release of Mandela in 1990.
When the writing was on the wall for the apartheid government, Evans, then deputy director-general, wondered during a meeting in the Union Buildings with foreign affairs officials whether the time had arrived to start shredding documents.
When some of them objected the matter was dropped. Later, some documents were quietly destroyed.
Evans was dynamic, bright and charming. But he was also impatient, with an explosive temper. Some senior colleagues doubted he was the right person to succeed the calm, level-headed Neil van Heerden as director-general in 1991.
He had a tendency to take decisions off his own bat, which they resented. But if he messed up, he admitted it. He was brutally frank and told Pik Botha what he didn't necessarily want to hear but needed to hear.
This was partly why he got the top job, but may have contributed to his early retirement at the age of 54.
He is survived by his second wife Gerda and six children...