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Pik Botha: The Death of a Showman

Pik Botha: The Death of a Showman
South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha visits the pyramids of Giza during a diplomatic visit in Egypt on May 25, 1993. MANOOCHER DEGHATI/AFP/Getty Images
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Roelof Botha died in October, at the age of 86.
“Pik,” as he was known, had the honor of being the longest-serving foreign minister in South Africa, and possibly the world. “Pik” was his childhood pet name because as a little boy, when dressed in a black suit and white shirt he looked like a pikkewyn—a penguin in his mother tongue, Afrikaans.