Israel and the Bomb

In the early and mid-1960s many were concerned that Israel’s nuclear weapons program would lead to a dangerous regional nuclear arms race. They argued that Egypt (then in a federation with Syria called the United Arab Republic, or UAR), under President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s pan-Arabist ideology, would not tolerate it. The Israeli nuclear project could thus undermine Israel’s security: instead of creating a stable Israeli deterrent leading to an Arab-Israeli peace, it might destabilize the region and make Israel more vulnerable. Some predicted that Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would cause the Soviet Union to become involved in nuclear escalation in the region, either by providing Egypt with nuclear weapons or by including it under the Soviet nuclear umbrella. Others feared that Nasser would launch a preemptive war if he were convinced that Israel was on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons. It was thus assumed that, one way or another, Egypt would have to react to Israel’s nuclear progress.

These predictions did not materialize. Arab governments, lacking information about the project, played down the nuclear issue in Middle Eastern politics as long as Israel and the rest of the world did not talk about it. This was most apparent in the case of Egypt, which was expected to lead the Arab response to Israel’s nuclear challenge. Only on two occasions during 1960–67 did Israel’s nuclear weapons development become a major issue in Egyptian-Israeli relations, with references to the possibility that it might lead to an Arab-Israeli war. On both occasions the impetus came from outside, as if imposed on Nasser.

The Egyptian reaction to Dimona contributed significantly, if inadvertently, to the creation of the politics of nuclear opacity. Egypt’s reaction was not the product of a well-thought-out strategy. Rather, it grew and evolved in response to political, technological, and financial realities. The Israeli nuclear project and the Egyptian reaction to it fed on each other. Israel’s policy of ambiguity was designed to allow Nasser to ignore the nuclear issue, and the Arab muted reaction reinforced this ambiguity. The United States, through the American scientists’ visits to the Dimona reactor and the reports given to Egypt, contributed to this symbiotic relationship.

Egyptian scientists had suspected as early as 1959 that Israel had started a nuclear program that would enable Israel to produce nuclear weapons.¹ These suspicions notwithstanding, Egypt was surprised to learn, in December 1960, “that Israel was secretly attempting to develop a capability to produce atomic weapons.”² Mohammed Heikal, editor of Al-Aharam, Cairo’s largest newspaper, and one of Nasser’s confidants, recognized the centrality of the nuclear issue for the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the first editorial on the subject, he suggested that Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons was a matter of life and death for the Arabs because such weapons would change the military balance between Israel and its neighbors. If Israel acquired nuclear weapons, the Arabs must get them too, at any price.³

On 23 December 1960 President Nasser said as much in a speech, suggesting that Israel’s development of nuclear weapons would prompt the Arab states to launch a preventive war.⁴ If the UAR discovered that Israel was developing nuclear weapons, it would not wait but would invade Israel first, “to destroy the base of aggression before that base is used against us.” Nasser also said that the UAR would arm itself with nuclear weapons of its own. His rhetoric was tantamount to a warning that the development of an atomic bomb by Israel would be an Arab casus belli. The United States took these warnings seriously. That Dimona might provoke an Egyptian military attack was a recurrent theme in discussions among American officials since the early 1960s, and on several occasions such concerns were raised with Israeli diplomats.⁵

Another theme emerged in Nasser’s speech: the marginalization of the significance of nuclear weapons. Nasser, referring to the British ultimatum to Egypt in 1956, which Egypt defied, noted that even those who had nuclear weapons could not readily use them against nonnuclear nations. Nuclear weapons were thus irrelevant to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Arabs should not feel threatened by them. The Dimona project, then, might be an Israeli bluff, designed to scare and paralyze the Arabs.⁶ This line of argument was repeated in Arab rhetoric for many years.

Two weeks after the 30 May 1961 meeting between Kennedy and Ben Gurion in New York, in which Ben Gurion had agreed to share the results of the American scientists’ visits to Dimona with other countries, Secretary of State Dean Rusk told Mahmoud Fawzi, Egypt’s foreign minister, about the Dimona visit and its findings. Egypt was not impressed by the American assurances. It took the Egyptian foreign minister three months to acknowledge Rusk’s letter, noting that Israel’s nuclear activity “has been the subject of careful consideration, as well as of consultations with Arab colleagues.” Given the Arabs’ lack of confidence in Israel, he viewed the Israeli nuclear program “with the utmost concern,” regardless of American assurances.⁷ This kind of exchange also became a pattern in U.S-Egyptian relations in the early to mid-1960s.

The first surge of Arab public response to the Israeli nuclear project was short-lived. Within weeks the issue dropped from the headlines. The Dimona project was discussed in an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Baghdad in February 1961, where the participants demanded IAEA visits to the reactor, but no action followed. By mid-1961 the issue was no longer addressed in the Arab press.⁸ A seven-page State Department memorandum, dated 30 October 1961 and entitled “The Outlook for Nasser,” indicated that the Israeli nuclear weapons program was not an issue in Egypt. It did not even mention the topic. With regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict, a war was not expected anytime in the near future.⁹

During 1962–65 Dimona and the idea of preventive war were not publicly discussed in Egypt (or elsewhere in the Arab world).¹⁰ The nuclear weapons issue was hardly raised by the Egyptian foreign ministry in its normal diplomatic dealings with the United States.¹¹ This did not mean, however, that Nasser forgot about Dimona, since the topic was dealt with through presidential correspondence and American emissaries visiting Nasser. On the few occasions when Egypt did raise the issue, it was in response to American queries.

One such exchange occurred in April 1963, while Kennedy was trying to curb the nuclear and ballistic missile arms race in the region (see chapter 7). The discussion took place in Cairo between Robert Komer and President Nasser. During the meeting Komer mentioned Kennedy’s “great concern” with the risks of escalating the arms race in the Middle East, stressing that the president had become concerned before the debacle over the German scientists in Egypt. Nasser responded by noting that Egypt’s military buildup was essential to its security vis-à-vis Israel, stating that “on matters vitally affecting UAR security” his country could not rely on American assurances. Nasser went on to describe Egypt’s buildup as a response to Israeli moves, pointing out that “Israel started down the path of nuclear development, therefore we had to follow.” He also told Komer that the Israelis had conducted the first missile test in the region (the Shavit II missile in 1961) and that the Egyptian missile program was a response to that. Nasser also claimed to have evidence that the Israelis “were planning to use radioactive products in warheads” and that “the UAR knew about the Israeli nuclear installation.” Nasser implied, “without saying so directly, that the UAR was moving into military applications of nuclear energy because it was convinced that the Israelis were doing so.”¹²

Later in the conversation, after Nasser stated that the UAR and other Arab nations lived in fear of Israeli aggression, the Egyptian president returned to the nuclear issue. Israel’s development of nuclear weapons might cause the UAR to go to war: “If it appeared that the Israelis were acquiring a nuclear capability he [Nasser] thought the UAR might have [to] prevent this development in its own self-defense.” Nasser told Komer and Ambassador John Badeau that in this case the UAR may be forced to occupy the Negev desert.¹³ Nasser stressed that it would be hard for any leader “to trust the vital interest of his nation to others.” Nasser then provided another justification for Egypt’s missile project: the United States had given surface-to-air HAWK missiles to Israel, which would erode the capability of his bombers, so that the UAR “must go to surface to surface missiles in order to have a deterrent capability against Israel.”¹⁴

In May–June 1963, while corresponding with Ben Gurion, Kennedy also exchanged letters with Nasser. The letters were related to the situation in the Middle East at the time and the shaping of the American arms limitation initiative that grew out of NSAM 231 (see chapter 7). As part of the initiative, John McCloy was sent to the region to discuss arms control ideas with Nasser and Ben Gurion. McCloy began his mission in Cairo.

On 15 June 1963, the day Kennedy sent a strongly worded letter to Ben Gurion, he also sent a letter to Nasser. In both letters Kennedy said that “in considering the spectrum of the problems that we both face, I am persuaded that none is more important than that of the continuing arms race in the Middle East.” In his letter to Nasser, Kennedy warned of the nuclear danger: “Unless checked, even nuclear weapons may be a possibility in the not too distant future.” Kennedy did not inform Nasser that Israel was developing nuclear weapons, but he warned him that without an agreement to limit the arms race, this was a possibility. Kennedy ended his message by saying that in accordance with his earlier readiness to discuss the matter through a presidential envoy, he named John McCloy to speak on his behalf because of his “unmatched experience in the arms control sphere.”¹⁵

McCloy met Nasser in Cairo on 27 June 1963. He conveyed Kennedy’s view to Nasser that a nuclear and missile arms race in the Middle East would be contrary to the interests of the United States and the region’s countries, since these weapons were “fantastically expensive” and their continued development would drain the economic resources of both Egypt and Israel. Such an arms race would generate instability “and [would] increase … tensions with the constant menace of a nuclear catastrophe.” This could destroy all that Nasser had sought to accomplish “with consequences no one could accurately appraise.”¹⁶

It was not easy to introduce the subject of nuclear weapons to Nasser, because until then the United States had reassured Egypt that the Dimona reactor was built for peaceful purposes. Now McCloy had to make the point that the reactor had a weapons potential as well. He reminded Nasser that Dimona was a “sizable reactor, which when completed could be used for the purpose of manufacturing material for use in weapons, though we had no information that the reactor was presently being used for such a purpose” (610).

McCloy’s statement was inaccurate since the reactor had not yet become critical, which the United States knew. McCloy suggested to Nasser that the United States could offer its services to assist in the inspection and observation of critical sites such as Dimona, so as “to give assurances to both sides that no breach of the commitments was being committed” (610).

McCloy now linked Israel’s nuclear program and Egypt’s ballistic missile program. He reminded Nasser of the “vigorous reaction” in Israel to the reports of Egypt’s employment of German scientists, noting that “if further efforts were made in this direction it could bring about a condition in Israel where the temptation to manufacture material for nuclear weapons would be very great” (610–11). McCloy thus pointed to the Egyptian missile program as the trigger that could change the nature of the Israeli nuclear program. If Nasser was interested in controlling Israel’s nuclear program, he had to give up his own missile program.

McCloy noted that he did not come to discuss specific modalities, but to raise important issues and observe the Egyptian reactions to them. McCloy suggested that Nasser meet with him and his aide, Hermann F. Eilts, in two days for further talks. He made it clear that those ideas had not yet been discussed with the Israelis and that the United States would consider an “independent approach along the same lines if the circumstances warranted it.” He ended his presentation by stressing that while the matters could not be concluded immediately, they carry a measure of urgency; there were global and regional conditions that require “timely consideration of the problem” (611).

Nasser said that a reply to the American initiative would require careful consideration and consultations that would take more than two days. In the meantime, however, he passed on his immediate reactions. Nasser neither rejected nor endorsed the American initiative. Instead, he raised many questions about it. He was curious as to the timing of the initiative: why did Kennedy choose to deal with this issue now? Nasser’s comments during the conversation highlighted his suspicion that the McCloy mission was related to the “Israeli propaganda campaign” about Egypt’s missile program. McCloy, in response, cited Kennedy’s commitment to arms control, and his own timetable. McCloy did not refer to NSAM 231 or to America’s concern that, without action, Israel might soon begin to produce weapon-related materials as the Dimona reactor became active.

Nasser raised a number of “difficulties.” He asked why the UAR should be “singled out” from among all the nonnuclear states in the region to make such a commitment. Also, there was the issue of inspection—the UAR had traditionally opposed outside inspection for reasons of national sovereignty. This would put Egypt in a position of a “protectorate” or “satellite state.” McCloy pointed out that Israel would be expected to make similar commitments, to which Nasser replied that even if the United States served as an intermediary, it would still appear to be an Israel-UAR arrangement, creating difficulties for Nasser. Nasser suggested that perhaps an exchange of presidential letters between Kennedy and himself would be a better arrangement. In a response to a “written inquiry” from President Kennedy regarding his intentions, Nasser wrote that “(1) he had no intention whatsoever of engaging in nuclear weapons, and (2) he had no intention of attacking Israel” (613). Nasser noted that he might not oppose the publication of such an exchange, stressing that the UAR strategy was “purely defensive” rather than the “attack strategy” he attributed to Israel.

Nasser then elaborated on Egypt’s missile program. He said that the missiles were designed for carrying high explosives, noting that he had sought, unsuccessfully, to “find something more powerful than TNT but he could not find anything between TNT and a nuclear warhead.” The Egyptian missiles could carry between one and two tons of TNT, but he acknowledged that their guidance system was “a very simple one.” As to nuclear facilities, Nasser told McCloy that the Soviet Union had given Egypt a small experimental research reactor, but stressed that Egypt had no nuclear reactors that could produce weapon-grade nuclear materials; therefore there was nothing to inspect in Egypt. McCloy noted that in return for Nasser’s renunciation of modern offensive weapons, the United States could assist the UAR in developing peaceful uses of atomic energy, possibly even including space flight experiments. Nasser told McCloy that he did not expect any major changes in his position, but he welcomed the opportunity to continue the discussion with McCloy and Eilts two days later (612–14).¹⁷

McCloy met Nasser again on 30 June, accompanied by Ambassador Badeau and Eilts. The conversation was largely a rehash of the issues discussed in their earlier meeting, but Nasser’s tone appeared to be considerably more negative than before. Nasser told McCloy that while he appreciated the president’s concern, “he could not enter into agreement with the U.S. to renounce those weapons.” To do so, Nasser explained, would be tantamount to placing limitations on Egyptian sovereignty. Nasser added that this position would not change if a similar agreement was made between Israel and the United States. Nasser also stressed that “as far as nuclear matters are concerned, there was nothing to inspect.”¹⁸ Nasser’s negative tone may have resulted because this time, more so than in the earlier meeting, he saw the timing of McCloy’s mission as related to Israeli propaganda about the Egyptian missiles. Eilts recalls that Nasser made the point that, in any event, the significance of the project was more for building up national morale and prestige than for military purposes, and thus it would be even more difficult for Nasser to make concessions on the missiles.

Nasser was more negative about the American initiative, but he did not close the door on further discussions, indicating an interest in conducting some kind of inspection of the Dimona reactor. When Badeau asked what he would do if he learned that Israel was using the reactor for the manufacture of weapon-grade nuclear material, Nasser replied, “protective war. We would have no other choice.” To this day Eilts recalls this reply as being the most significant and chilling part of that exchange.¹⁹

When he left Egypt, Eilts recalls, McCloy was no longer interested in going to Israel, and neither was President Kennedy. Nasser had given McCloy too little to justify a trip to Israel. On 3 July Komer wrote a memo to Kennedy on McCloy’s mission. Komer was disappointed with McCloy’s performance, criticizing him for failing to stress two points: that the American initiative was not a result of Israeli pressure, but an American initiative to restrain Israel in the nuclear field, and that the initiative entailed “real advantages” for the UAR “because of the simple fact that Israel was way ahead in the nuclear field.”²⁰

There was no point in going to the Israelis, Komer concluded, before the United States received further clarifications from Nasser. The White House, however, lost faith in McCloy and his mission.

On 5 July 1963 Kennedy sent his toughest letter on the matter of Dimona to Israel’s new prime minister, Levi Eshkol. McCloy was not informed of the letter. Two days later the State Department cabled Ambassador Badeau, asking him to see Nasser for clarifications of the points on which McCloy had failed to elaborate, that is, the American concern over Dimona. Badeau was asked to tell Nasser that the “Dimona reactor is now in an advanced stage of construction and, while intended for peaceful uses, it does have potential capability of producing fuel for nuclear weapons.” He was told to stress to Nasser that it was the American estimate “that Israelis are not and have not decided to start developing such weapons. However, Israelis are approaching [the] stage where their combination of technical skills and physical plant, though developed for peaceful uses, also could give them the capacity for producing a nuclear weapon within a few years if the arms race should expand into highly sophisticated fields.”²¹

The cable again linked the UAR missile project and Israel’s nuclear development: the Egyptian work on advanced missile development allowed the Israelis to justify “their moving into the nuclear weapons field if they should decide to do so.”²² This was the reason for the U.S. initiative. The cable also criticized the Egyptians for their opposition to inspection and international safeguards for reasons of national sovereignty, even though Egypt had no significant nuclear facilities. This objection-in-principle to inspection only served the Israelis, who already had nuclear facilities at the time, by allowing them to reject international inspections of facilities on similar grounds and argue that Egypt was secretly developing nuclear weapons. It would be in Egypt’s interests to accept the external safeguards and allow the United States to press Israel on this matter.

On the missiles, the cable stressed that it was the perception of the utility of the missiles as a means to deliver nuclear weapons that mattered most. Egypt must understand that even if it had no nuclear program, ballistic missiles were viewed as related to nuclear weapons. The United States had reason to be concerned “that Israel is accelerating her own missile effort in response to the UAR’s missile developments. We do not know where this would lead.” The cable clarified that the United States did not expect “any public abandonment of missile effort,” but was looking for ways to “exercise restraints.” The cable instructed Badeau to reiterate to Nasser “that [the] U.S. and UAR share a common interest in ensuring that technological development in [the] Near East does not take … a disastrous turn.” The cable even referred to Nasser’s threat of “protective war,” stating: “Protective War is not a solution but a last resort and one that would be much more costly to the UAR and far less likely to succeed than [the] approach we are suggesting.”²³

The cable was a plea to Nasser to assist the United States in helping Egypt stop Israel’s rush to obtain nuclear weapons. Nasser, however, did not understand the urgency: he did not trust the American effort and was not overly concerned with Israel’s nuclear effort. When Ambassador Badeau met him on 11 July to give him the details of the cable, Nasser was still not supportive. He told Badeau that he had consulted with his colleagues, who agreed that inspection would be difficult for the UAR to accept since it would reintroduce “Western control.”

The Egyptian response made it clear that Nasser was not willing to cooperate. The American plan for arms control in the Middle East now appeared to be dead. There was no point in sending McCloy to Israel. Secretary Rusk and Ambassador Barbour recommended indefinite postponement of McCloy’s mission to Israel, which Kennedy endorsed on 23 July. The first and most serious American effort to curb the introduction into the Middle East of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery came to naught.

The American initiative faded after McCloy’s failure, but Nasser’s threat of a preemptive war over Dimona did not. In January 1964, three months before leaving his post, Ambassador Badeau wrote a nine-page memo on the Egyptian situation to President Johnson. The retiring ambassador saw no danger of war between Israel and Egypt in the next several years, with one exception—Dimona. The only trigger that could bring about another Egyptian-Israeli war, Badeau wrote, was “an Egyptian conviction that Israel had started the production of nuclear weapons.” If Nasser had proof of this, he might well “attempt a preemptive strike against Israel in the hope of knocking out atomic production centers.”²⁴

A more detailed assessment is found in another memo, entitled “Various Aspects of U.S.-UAR Relations,” which Badeau prepared for the State Department in April, before he had left Cairo. After defining U.S. interest in Arab-Israeli peace as no more than “an interest in preventing large scale hostilities,” the memo states the following:

Nasser’s warnings thus shaped the American concern over Dimona in the mid-1960s.²⁶ If Israel were to be seen as acquiring nuclear weapons, another war could result. The most dangerous time would be the transition period, when the Egyptians were convinced that Israel was about to acquire nuclear weapons but before Israel had produced them to deter an Egyptian attack.

Despite the failure of the first McCloy mission, the Johnson administration, with Komer as the main instigator, did not abandon the effort to curb the unconventional arms race between Egypt and Israel. Once again, the primary issue was Dimona: if there were a chance that Johnson could convince Israel to accept IAEA safeguards on Dimona, the United States must push Egypt to halt its missile project and subject its own nuclear activities to IAEA safeguards.²⁷ To achieve this, Johnson wrote Nasser in late May 1964, days before Eshkol’s arrival in Washington. The text of the letter is unavailable, but it is clear that it stated that Egypt should accept IAEA safeguards if it wanted Dimona to be under such safeguards. The United States recognized that Nasser was reluctant to discuss such issues directly with Israel, but it was still thinking that “there was ample scope for an arms control arrangement that would avoid points the UAR finds objectionable.” The message to Nasser should express the U.S. view that “now is the time to work out something,” and its hope that the UAR “will not let slip opportunity to prevent further worsening of situation.”²⁸ The American embassy in Cairo was specifically asked to convey the following to Nasser:

The American diplomat was also requested to inquire about Nasser’s plans regarding missiles, following reports that the UAR was building a force of one thousand missiles by 1965–66, and, in light of Egypt’s use of poisonous gas in Yemen, whether the UAR was planning to install chemical warheads on the missiles. Three days later, on 29 May, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo received more specific instructions, stressing the role of the Egyptian missile program in pushing Israel toward acquiring nuclear weapons. The drafter of the guidelines—most likely Komer³⁰—recognized the “thin line between insuring [that] Nasser understands and appreciates [the] nature of this escalation and on the other hand giving him impressions [that] Israel [is] about to go nuclear with our understanding and tacit support.” The message should make clear that the United States was not “trying to justify Israeli actions to him”; it was “merely explaining them and his responsibility.” Nasser should be convinced that “this [arms race] is a game he cannot win because of Israel’s technological development and access to outside financial sources…. His periodic opening of [the Palestinian] ‘icebox’ door has let out blasts of cold air that put great psychological pressure on Israelis to obtain deterrent.”³¹

Nasser replied to Johnson’s letter on 26 July 1964, addressing Arab concerns and nuclear weapons. Nasser assured Johnson that the UAR “does not think of bringing that terrifying danger (nuclear terror) to the region she [the UAR] lives in,” and pointed to Israel as the real threat to peace in the region.³² The administration, trying to establish a dialogue with Nasser, decided to make another effort to point out the benefits of unconventional arms limitations to Nasser. The specific purpose of the mission was to pursue the possibility of halting or restraining surface-to-surface missile competition between the UAR and Israel.

The emissary was again John McCloy. His objective was “to let Nasser know we believe we can convince Israel to exercise nuclear and missile self-denial if Nasser will limit his acquisition of major offensive missiles either to the number he now has or to a low ceiling.”³³ On 28 September 1964 McCloy met Nasser, who promised to consider the U.S. proposals but did not commit himself to them.³⁴ The talks revealed that much of Nasser’s interest in missiles had to do with Egypt’s prestige in the Arab world and domestically. Nasser implied that even though he knew he could not win a missile race, it would be difficult to halt the current development project. It also appeared that Nasser did not perceive an Egyptian national interest in closing the Dimona reactor, if the price was losing the Egyptian missile program, or he may have had other reasons for ignoring Dimona. Either way, Dimona was not mentioned in a substantial way in the Nasser-McCloy talks.³⁵ The threat of Dimona was not strong enough an incentive for Nasser to favor an arms control agreement.

In mid March 1965 John Finney wrote in the New York Times about recent American scientists’ inspection of Dimona, and two weeks later the Egyptian ambassador in Washington, Mustafa Kamel, on instructions from Cairo, asked the State Department for details of the inspection, “its potential for producing nuclear weapons, and U.S. effort to bring Dimona under IAEA.”³⁶ On 5 April 1965 a State Department officer told Kamel that the department “could not reveal to UARG [UAR government] bilateral U.S.-Israel discussions on so delicate a subject,” but added that the United States “had sought to act as mediator between Cairo and Tel Aviv in behalf of regional nuclear safeguards.”³⁷

Even two weeks later, during a two-and-a-half-hour meeting between Nasser, Assistant Secretary of State Phillips Talbot, and Ambassador Lucius D. Battle, Nasser was alarmed about Dimona. The nuclear issue was raised first by the Americans who commented “about the [inherent] danger … [in] any state in the Middle East moving to nuclear armaments.” Responding to the U.S. emphasis on the importance of IAEA safeguards, Nasser noted that Egypt had just accepted IAEA safeguards. Egypt opposed American inspections as unilateral operations, but it was in favor of an international effort. Nasser noted that while Egypt had a small reactor “which raised no problem,” Israel had a large one: “This in itself was problem of concern in [the] UAR, particularly to the military.”³⁸

Talbot replied that the issue of unilateral inspection arose only because Israel did not accept IAEA safeguards. He added that the United States, too, “would be concerned if [the] Israeli reactor [was] used for military purposes.” Talbot reassured Nasser “that in view of [the] importance of [the] issue we have satisfied our own curiosity on this issue.” Answering Nasser’s comment that “Israel has influence in the U.S.,” Talbot commented that “proliferation is a global problem, and Nasser could have confidence [that the] U.S. is dealing with it in terms of global concerns.”³⁹

As to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Nasser asserted that “UAR policy was not to have [a] sudden attack on Israel.”⁴⁰ The message that the UAR was still interested “in putting Israel back in the icebox” was also made in a reply Nasser sent to Johnson on 12 May 1965. The concerns of an Egyptian preventive war aimed at Dimona thus seemed to be remote and theoretical, and appeared to be more of an American concern than an Egyptian military contingency.

Why did Dimona play such a small role in Egyptian policy? There were three primary reasons. First, Egypt was developing its own unconventional weapons, especially missiles.⁴¹ The missiles were central to Egypt’s technological prestige, and in the early 1960s the Egyptians thought they were ahead of Israel. Since the early 1960s Egypt also had tried to expand its nuclear program. It said it was interested in nuclear energy for civilian purposes, but it examined the possibility of creating a nuclear weapons program. Salah Hedayat, a former senior military officer with a background in explosives and close ties to Field Marshal Amer, became, in 1961, the leading official in Egypt’s nuclear program in his capacities as director-general of the Atomic Energy Establishment and minister of science.⁴² To protect these programs, Nasser did not want to draw too much attention to Dimona. Israel followed a similar pattern: to protect its own nuclear program, it did not draw attention to the Egyptian nuclear efforts.

Second, at the time Egypt did not consider Dimona as an immediate military threat. Egypt lacked reliable information about the scope and pace of the project, and about its military potential. Even if the Israeli project were genuine, the Egyptians estimated that Israel was still years away from acquiring and assembling nuclear weapons. To focus on the Israeli nuclear threat then would have lent credibility to the Israeli deterrent. It would also have emphasized Israeli superiority and Egyptian (that is, Arab) inferiority. There was also the view that the United States would not allow Israel to take the final steps to acquire nuclear weapons. In 1961–66 the United States indirectly promoted this view by assuring the Egyptians that American visits to Dimona found no weapon-related activities at the site. This attitude may explain Nasser’s grudging responses to McCloy.

The third reason for the lack of visible Egyptian attention to Dimona was that the Arab-Israeli conflict was only of secondary importance to Nasser. The Egyptian president was more interested in his leadership role in the Arab world and the nonaligned movement. The Arab-Israeli conflict played an important role in shaping inter-Arab and the nonaligned movement’s politics and rhetoric, but it was not the main issue of the time. Indeed, Nasser was not ready for a military confrontation with Israel, nor was he interested in pushing the Palestinian issue beyond its rhetorical use in inter-Arab politics. The Egyptian attitude toward Israel during this period was captured in a phrase used by both Egyptian and American diplomats: the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict “was in the icebox and could remain there.”

By the second half of 1965, however, Egyptian perceptions were changing. The issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons program resurfaced in Egypt and the Arab world. As was the case in December 1960, the subject came to light not as a result of an Arab initiative, but in response to press reports that Israel had made significant progress in its nuclear program and could acquire the atomic bomb by the late 1960s. Reliable U.S. experts and officials also pointed to this possibility.⁴³ Leonard Beaton argued that the most volatile period for the Israeli atomic program was, as mentioned above, the transition period, when the Arabs became convinced that nuclear weapons were under production but had not yet been produced.⁴⁴ Press reports had circulated in early January 1966 that Israel had purchased from France the first of thirty surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, adding another suspicious element to Israel’s nuclear program.⁴⁵

As in 1960 these new stories forced the Arab world, especially Egypt, to rethink the nuclear question. By early 1966 a public debate among journalists, military experts, and academics on the Israeli nuclear issue raged in the Arab press. The questions raised in the debate were the following: What were Israel’s intentions regarding nuclear weapons? Could Israel use nuclear weapons in an Arab-Israeli war? What would be the impact of nuclear weapons on the Arab-Israeli conflict? What should the Arabs, specifically Egypt, do? After years of convenient silence, the Israeli nuclear potential imposed itself on the Arab public and leadership.⁴⁶

The most distinct contributor to the new flurry of news and commentary was Mohammed Heikal, who, in August 1965, on his return from discussions in London, concluded that “Israel was about to explode a nuclear device and would be capable of producing an atomic bomb within two or three years.” He noted that Israel was financially and scientifically capable of producing atomic weapons. In fact, Heikal expounded that Israel would “find propaganda excuses to pave the way for the detonation of a nuclear device,” although Israel had acceded to the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The Israeli approach, Heikal asserted, would be to propose an agreement with the UAR to ban the production of atomic weapons with mutual inspections. “Naturally, Egypt will refuse to become a party in any agreement with Israel,” he said, and Israel could use this as a pretext to produce atomic weapons. He repeated the same theme he had expressed five years earlier: “For more than one reason the United Arab Republic may not want to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East, but it must be able at any moment to catch up for one reason, namely, to survive.”⁴⁷

Two months later Heikal returned to the issue, repeating his claim that Israel would attain a nuclear capability within three years and urging the Arab states to work collectively to respond to the Israeli threat: “In confronting the atomic menace the people do not wait until they find themselves facing the critical moment but have to mobilize all resources to be in a position to face it in advance.” Heikal called for the creation of a unified Arab air command and for a new and vigorous Egyptian nuclear effort.⁴⁸

There were other views as well. As was the case during the first Arab debate on nuclear weapons, some doubted the value and relevance of nuclear weapons to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unlike Heikal, who saw the question of nuclear weapons as a matter of life and death to the Arab world, there were those, especially in Syria, who argued that nuclear weapons were not relevant to the “liberation war,” a term the Syrians used to describe the Arab struggle against Israel. In their view, nuclear weapons might give Israel a psychological advantage, but they were ultimately not a credible military instrument and the Arabs should not allow Israel to play the nuclear weapons card (see n.46).

By the first half of 1966 the Israeli nuclear program became not only a matter of media interest in Egypt but also an issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Egypt had to show that it could face the Israeli challenge, and it responded in several ways. Egypt made it known, but later denied, that the Soviet Union was willing to provide Egypt nuclear protection if Israel developed or obtained nuclear weapons. These rumors, thought to be credible by U.S. diplomats, were spread following the visit of Marshall Andrei Grechko, the Soviet first deputy minister of defense. It was reported that Nasser raised the possibility with the Russians that Moscow would let the UAR buy nuclear weapons, but Grechko offered instead a nuclear guarantee.⁴⁹ Egypt also spread the word that it would push its own nuclear research with a view to military applications.⁵⁰ In May 1966 Nasser made it known that the UAR was considering the development of nuclear arms because “Israel is working in this field.”⁵¹

After five years of avoiding the nuclear issue, Nasser issued a series of public statements in the first half of 1966, some of them directed at the foreign audience, warning that if Israel were to proceed with the production of atomic weapons, the “only answer” for the Arab states was to launch a “preventive war.” “In that event,” he continued, the “Arab countries must immediately wipe out all that enables Israel to produce an atomic bomb.”⁵²

How serious were these threats of preventive war? Were they political posturing or intimations of military plans? How concerned was Nasser with the Israeli nuclear program? Did he share Heikal’s view on the gravity of the issue? Were elements in the Egyptian leadership, specifically First Vice President Abdel Hakim Amer and the military, pushing for a preventive war against Israel? These questions may point to a linkage between Nasser’s rhetoric on preventive war and the events that led to the Six-Day War in June 1967. To what extent, then, if any, was the May 1967 crisis the enactment of the scenarios painted by Badeau and Komer? These questions are addressed in the next chapter.