By Lucky Gold, CNN

Editor's Note: F.W. de Klerk, the last leader of white South Africa, who joined with Nelson Mandela to bring an end to apartheid and shared a Nobel Peace Prize for their achievement, was recently interviewed at a summit of Nobel Laureates in Chicago and appeared on Thursday’s Amanpour.

So I’m a Convert

It was noted that Mandela had once called de Klerk “a man of integrity” but had taken it back, regretting that de Klerk had never renounced the principle of apartheid.

De Klerk responded:  “Well, let me first say I’m not aware that Mr. Mandela says I’ve never renounced apartheid.”  He then said, “I have made the most profound apology in front of the Truth Commission and on other occasions about the injustices which were wrought by apartheid.”

But then he added:  “What I haven’t apologized for is the original concept of seeking to bring justice to all South Africans through the concept of nation states (essentially creating two separate states, one black and one white).”

“But in South Africa it failed,” he said. “And by the end of the ‘70’s, we had to realize, and accept and admit to ourselves that it had failed.  And that is when fundamental reform started.”

He was then asked if apartheid failed because it was unworkable, or because it was simply morally repugnant.

“There are three reasons it (apartheid) failed,” he said.  “It failed because the whites wanted to keep too much land for themselves.  It failed because we (whites and blacks) became economically integrated, and it failed because the majority of blacks said that is not how we want our rights.”

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