Lucas Daniel "Niel" Barnard (14 June 1949-13 January 2025) was the head of South Africa's National Intelligence Service from 1979 to 1992.
Biography[]
Lukas Daniel Barnard was born in Otjiwarongo, South West Africa in 1949. He became a captain in the South African Army's commandos during the 1960s and went on to become a political science lecturer at the University of the Orange Free State in 1973 and a professor in 1978. P.W. Botha appointed Barnard head of South Africa's new National Intelligence Service in 1979 despite his lack of an intelligence background. In that position, he met with an imprisoned Nelson Mandela and informed him about outside affairs while advising him on how to negotiate with Botha. He later provided Mandela a suit of clothes befitting a future leader and continued to facilitate discussions between Mandela and F.W. de Klerk. He left the NIS in 1992, and he died in 2025.