Rewind: The spy who wanted to bring down apartheid Part 2

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

ANC spy Sue Dobson infiltrated the South African government. Then her cover was blown.

After training, Sue had got a job within the government's propaganda unit, and she was feeding back good intelligence to her ANC handlers. Then she got a phone call. The security services were on to her, and she was a long way from safety.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Deiniol Buxton Sound design: Joel Cox

Transcript

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0:00.0	He tells her that she will be sent to France as a secret agent, and if she's got, she's
0:07.9	going to be shot.
0:09.2	I'm Helen Obalam Carter, and this is history's secret heroes, where I shine a light on
0:14.9	extraordinary stories from World War II.
0:17.6	What they wanted was someone to get themselves arrested and sent to Auschwitz.
0:22.0	Tales of deception, an incredible acts of resistance and courage.
0:26.2	She was a born soldier.
0:27.4	She's a freedom fighter in its widest sense.
0:29.8	The brand new series of History's secret heroes.
0:32.7	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:37.7	We had flown up on a military plane
0:41.2	and this door sprung open.
0:47.7	You walked into this wall of heat and light,
0:51.6	its most incredible glare.
0:55.5	And out of the dust, this man appeared.
1:02.3	And he was this very sort of flamboyant character.
1:06.8	He was a strange sort of roguish mixture really.
1:12.8	I knew that he was not someone to be taken lightly,
1:17.8	that one had to be careful around him,
1:20.0	and I in particular had to be careful around him.
1:26.9	In 1989, on the hot tarmac of an airstrip, Sue Dobson met the Colonel.
1:33.7	He was a South African security officer, working for the brutal apartheid state.
	...

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