THE DAISY SPY RING, how South African intelligence agents infiltrated and disrupted the SA Communist Party

636pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Naledi, Gansbaai, 2025

ISBN: 9781067234645

An account of Operation Daisy and other espionage operations of South Africa's intelligence services in the 1970s and 1980s.

As part of a top-secret, joint operation between the South African Police Security Branch and the Bureau for State Security (and its successor, the National Intelligence Service), police spy and National Union of South African Students executive member, Craig Williamson succeeded in infiltrating the International University Exchange Fund, gathering both tactical and strategic information. Funds were also re-directed, some of which were then used to fund intelligence operations against the South African Communist Party and to buy Daisy Farm for the secret training of Daisy Spy Ring members. Williamson was unmasked as a spy in 1980 and the existence of Operation Daisy exposed.

Intelligence historian Henning van Aswegen served as a commissioned officer in the South African Defence Force and South Africa’s civilian intelligence services and taught at South Africa’s National Intelligence Academy. As a student at Potchefstroom University, he worked as a stringer for South African Associated Newspapers, before joining the Perskor Group as a political correspondent. His books include Spioenmeesters, The Spymasters of South Africa, Die Buro, Training Intelligence Officers and Russian Espionage in South Africa.

Historian Peter Swanepoel is currently researching and writing on the history of cycling in South Africa.