Hi,

This fell off of the radar before I ever saw it, so this is a bit of a late hit (so to speak).

I assume by 'The Botha years' you mean Pieter Willem, not Gen. Louis (who was of course of the segregation era). If that is the case, one of the better works on those political figures is historian Hermann Giliomee's Die Laaste Afrikanerleiers: 'n Opperste toets van mag (The Last Afrikaner Leaders: A Supreme Test of Power). If you can't read Afrikaans, it is available in English as well, although I think he's more direct and thus powerful in Afrikaans. Hermann is a heritage-minded and relatively conservative historian in terms of transformation, but he is not an apologist or nationalist, and tends to be even-handed in discussing his subjects' feet of clay. He knew / knows most of those people professionally or personally as well, which adds to what he is able to say. The book is 2012 so quite recent.

For their actions in context, and a more inclusive vision of the world around the Securocrats, you may want to look at David Welsh's 2011 The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. I stopped using him in my SA seminars because he gets into the weeds for the later era (especially from the early 1970s onward) but that will be exactly what you want. He also has some personal experience, but he is quite different in his outlook regarding the actions and meaning, and so offers a nice counterpoint. There are many others I could suggest, but if you start from Welsh and Giliomee and look at their notes, you'll find a lot of it.

Again, my apologies for not chiming in earlier. It's so easy to miss things like this!