PREFACE
1. The term “opaque proliferation” was coined by Benjamin Frankel in his “Notes on the Nuclear Underworld,” The National Interest, no. 9 (fall 1987): 122–26. In our joint article (Avner Cohen and Benjamin Frankel, “Opaque Nuclear Proliferation,” in Opaque Nuclear Proliferation: Methodological and Policy Implications, ed. Benjamin Frankel [London: Frank Cass, 1991], 14–44), we further defined and developed the concept.
2. Munya M. Mondor, Rafael (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981).
3. Many of the important political decisions were not properly documented and, for reasons having to do with opacity, many of the decisions were made in discussions among a small number of individuals (Shalheveth Freier [director-general of the IAEC, 1970–76, and Israel’s science liaison in Paris, 1956–60], numerous conversations with author, Rehovot, 1991–1994).
INTRODUCTION
1. See Yuval Ne’eman, “Israel in the Nuclear Weapons Age” (in Hebrew), Nativ 8, no. 5 (September 1995): 38.
2. Hedrick Smith, “U.S. Assumes the Israelis Have A-Bomb or Its Parts,” New York Times, 18 July 1970, 1.
3. Avner Cohen and Benjamin Frankel, “Opaque Nuclear Proliferation,” in Opaque Nuclear Proliferation: Methodological and Policy Implications, ed. Benjamin Frankel (London: Frank Cass, 1991), 14–44.
4. Cohen and Frankel, “Opaque Nuclear Proliferation,” 19.
5. For a comprehensive history, Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1939–1946; Richard G. Hewlett and Frances Duncan, Atomic Shield: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1947–1952, vol. 2; Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission, 1953–1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986). On the British history, see Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945–1952 (London: Macmillan, 1964); Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945–1952, 2 vols. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1974).
6. See Avner Cohen, “Nuclear Weapons, Opacity and Israeli Democracy,” in National Security and Democracy in Israel, ed. Avner Yaniv (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992), 197–225.
7. A state could manufacture a yield-producing first-generation fission bomb even without testing it, as the United States did with its Hiroshima bomb. Testing would be required for more sophisticated weapons, such as a small enhanced radiation weapon or an H-bomb (see Theodore B. Taylor, “Nuclear Tests and Nuclear Weapons,” in Frankel, Opaque Nuclear Proliferation, 175–90).
8. “Eshkol: Israel Knows the Secret of the Production of Atomic Bomb” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 4 October 1968; “Eshkol and Eban Comment on Nuclear Knowledge without Prior Discussion” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 8 October 1968; Reuters, “Israeli Nuclear Deterrent Urged by Jerusalem Paper,” New York Times, 5 October 1968.
9. As Shalheveth Freier noted, “There were things I was the only person to know” (Shalheveth Freier, interview by author, Rehovot).
1. MEN AND ETHOS
1. The idea of a triumvirate making the Israeli nuclear project possible is taken from Israel Dostrovsky, “The Establishment of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission” (in Hebrew), in David Ben Gurion and the Development of Science in Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Israel National Academy of Science, 1989), 44–49.
2. Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 82
3. “There is a saying, ‘the dead will not praise God’.” he wrote in a letter to a noted Israeli scientist, “and if we face the threat of destruction—and unfortunately we do, and Hitler’s Holocaust was only the most extensive and terrible of the attempts to destroy us during our history—to a certain extent this is the most fateful of our existence” (letter, David Ben Gurion to Shmuel Sambursky, 17 March 1963, David Ben Gurion Archive (herafter, DBGA), Letters).
4. David Ben Gurion, War Diaries, 1948–1949 (in Hebrew), vol. 3 (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1982), 852–53.
5. David Ben Gurion Diaries (hereafter, DBGD), 26 April 1949; DBGD, 23 October 1950. For a detailed analysis of Ben Gurion’s view, see Zaki Shalom, David Ben Gurion: The State of Israel and the Arab World 1949–1956 (in Hebrew) (Sdeh Boker: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1995).
6. See, for example, Shmuel Sambursky, “Ben Gurion and the Scientific Council” (in Hebrew), and David Mushin, “Ben Gurion’s Support for Research, Science, and Technology” (in Hebrew), both in David Ben Gurion and the Development of Science in Israel, 12–18, 19–24, respectively.
7. David Ben Gurion, With What We Will Face the Future (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Merkaz Mifleget Poalei Eretz Israel, November 1948), 35–36; also cited in Ephraim Katzir, “The Beginning of Defense Research: Ben Gurion and the HEMED” (in Hebrew), in David Ben Gurion and the Development of Science in Israel, 26–27; and excerpted in David Ben Gurion, When Israel Fights (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1950), 236. The English translation is the author’s.
8. Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: A Memoir (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), 132.
9. See, for example, Ben Gurion’s opening speech at the Conference on Science and Developing Countries, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 15 August 1960 (DBGA, Speeches, 1960); and David Ben Gurion, Vision and Direction (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1956), 305–6. French physicist Bertrand Goldschmidt was taken by Bergmann in the mid-1950s to Sdeh Boker to see Ben Gurion. Goldschmidt recalls that after a long conversation with Ben Gurion about the future of atomic energy, Ben Gurion suddenly turned and asked (his favorite question) how long it would take until nuclear desalinization would make the Negev desert blossom. Goldschmidt, surprised by the question, did not know how to answer, and finally said, “fifteen years.” Ben Gurion responded that if all the Jewish scientists were brought in, it would take less time (Bertrand Goldschmidt, interview by author, Paris, 15 June 1993). There are numerous testimonies to this sentiment. See, for example, his opening speech at the Conference on Science and Developing Countries, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 15 August 1960, DBGA.
10. Ben Gurion, With What We Will Face the Future, 34. Ben Gurion also made it a point to meet with many of the Manhattan Project’s physicists, many of whom were Jewish, when they visited Israel. Among them were Robert J. Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Victor Weisskopf, I. I. Rabi, and others.
11. For expressions of this view, see Ben Gurion’s remarks in the opening ceremony of the Institute for Nuclear Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science on 20 May 1958 (DBGA, Speeches, 1958). See also his opening address to the International Conference on the Nature of the Atom, at the Weizmann Institute (Rehovot, 8 September 1957), quoted in Michael Keren, Ben Gurion and the Intellectuals (in Hebrew) (Sdeh Boker: Ben Gurion Research Center with the Bialick Institute, 1988), 30.
12. Katzir, “The Beginning of Defense Research: Ben Gurion and the Hemed,” 34; Munya M. Mardor, Rafael (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981), 70–73.
13. Mardor, Rafael, 72–73.
14. Shlomo Gur, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 20 July 1992.
15. Letter, David Ben Gurion to Ehud Avriel, 4 March 1948 (quoted in Keren, Ben Gurion and the Intellectuals, 32).
16. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion (in Hebrew), 3 vols. (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1987), vol. 3, 1365.
17. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1380, 1384, 1550–53.
18. Shalom, David Ben Gurion, 72–79; Uri Bialer, Between East and West: Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation, 1948–1956 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 235–75.
19. David Ben Gurion, “The Role of Science in the Building of the State of Israel” (in Hebrew), Hadoar 13, no. 1 (Supplement for Young Readers), 2 November 1956.
20. “If the Arabs would know that Israel cannot be destroyed,” Ben Gurion told the Foreign Policy Committee of MAPAI on 4 March 1958, weeks after the work at the Dimona site had begun, “then, perhaps, there would be some people among them who would begin thinking that this conflict should be over, that maybe the time has come to make peace with Israel. The prospects of peace with the Arabs depends on strengthening Israel’s power and security” (Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1362).
21. Mardor, Rafael, 352–54.
22. Cited in Segev, The Seventh Million, 369.
23. Letter, Ben Gurion to Kennedy, 12 May 1963, ISA/FMRG, 3377/9.
24. Yuval Ne’eman, correspondence with author, May 1997. In 1953–54 Ne’eman was the head of the Planning Division of the IDF.
25. Dostrovsky, “The Establishment of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission,” 49; Ephraim Katzir, “Introductory Remarks,” In Memory of Ernst David Bergmann (Address at the Opening Session of the Ninth Jerusalem Symposium on Metal-Ligand Interactions in Organic Chemistry, Jerusalem, 29 March 1976).
26. Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Deed (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1964), 349–50.
27. On the rift between Weizmann and Bergmann over the involvement of the Sieff Institute in military research, and on Weizmann’s “hatred of these military performances,” see Norman Rose, Chaim Weizmann: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1986), 453–54. On Weizmann’s resentment of the changes in the character of the Sieff Institute, see also Chaim Weizmann, Mivhar Igrot (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1988).
28. Ephraim Katzir, “The Beginning of Defense Research: Ben Gurion and the Hemed” (in Hebrew), in David Ben Gurion and the Development of Science in Israel (Jerusalem: Israel National Academy of Science, 1989), 37.
29. Shimon Peres, From These Men: Seven Founders of the State of Israel (New York: Wyndham, 1979), 185–201; see also Ephraim Katzir, “The Beginning of Defense Research: Ben Gurion and Hemed,” 35–36. References to Bergmann’s role in Israel’s military R&D are in Mardor, Rafael. For a journalistic biography, see James Feron, “Israelis Honor Atom Scientist,” New York Times, 14 May 1966, 3; also Roni Hadar, “Who Forgot the Father of the Israeli Bomb, and Why” (in Hebrew), Tel Aviv, March 1991.
30. “An Israeli Man of Distinction,” comments delivered by Shimon Peres at Ernst David Bergmann’s funeral, Jerusalem, 7 April 1975, and published as a booklet by the Ministry of Defense (courtesy of Hani Bergmann; the English translation is the author’s); cf. Peres, From These Men, 186.
31. Zvi Pelah, interview by author, Savyon, 24 August 1992; Avraham Hermoni, interview by author, Savyon, 2 September 1992; and Shalheveth Freier, interview by author, Rehovot, 16 August 1992
32. Peres, Battling for Peace, 134.
33. Peres, From these Men, 185.
34. Cited in Segev, The Seventh Million, 370.
35. Peres, Battling for Peace, 134.
36. The reports are included in the Foreign Ministry Files on the Atoms for Peace Conference, 2407/2, ISA. Bergmann generated a large number of official documents, memos, letters, reports, and papers. The impression these documents create may not always correspond to reality. This will complicate the work of future historians who have access to his papers.
37. Quoted in Feron, “Israelis Honor Atomic Scientist,” 3.
38. Ha’aretz, 13 July 1964; and 20 November 1964; see also Mardor, Rafael, 389.
39. Dostrovsky, “The Establishment of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission,” 49.
40. Peres, Battling for Peace, 61–84.
41. Yitzhak Greenberg, Defense Budget and Military Power: The Case of Israel, 1957–1967 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1997), 153.
42. See Michael Keren, Professionalism Against Populism: The Peres Government and Democracy (Albany: State University of New York, 1995).
43. Renana Leshem, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 1996.
44. Ephraim Katzir, “The Beginning of Defense Research: Ben Gurion and the Hemed,” 25–42;Mardor, Rafael, 70–72.
46. Shimon Peres, “About Shalheveth” (in Hebrew) (talk given in a memorial evening for Shalheveth Freier, Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, 28 December 1994). A written version of Peres’s comments appears in Shalheveth Freier, 1920–1994 (Tel Aviv: Israel Atomic Energy Commission, 1995), 7–14.
47. Gideon Frank, “Shalheveth’s Nuclear Legacy” (talk given in a memorial evening for Shalheveth Freier, Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, 28 December 1994). A written version of Frank’s comments appears in Shalheveth Freier, 1920–1994, 30–43. Frank is the present director-general of the IAEC.
48. Peres, Battling for Peace, 135–36.
49. Mardor, Rafael, 114–17, 120–21, 171–74, 178–82, 198–201.
2. BEFORE THE BEGINNING
1. According to Zvi Pelah, Bergmann’s student and colleague, as early as 1949 Bergmann defined Israel’s need to become a nuclear state as a high national priority. Zvi Pelah, interview by author, Savyon, 24 August 1992.
2. David Ben Gurion, War Diaries, 1948–1949 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1982), cited in Alex Doron, “Nuclear reactor:What’s the Rush?” (in Hebrew), Ma’ariv, 5 December 1986, 19–20, 32.
3. Sylvia K. Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance: France and Israel from Suez to the Six-Day War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), 114–15.
4. Shlomo Gur (HEMED commander during the War of Independence), interview by author, Tel Aviv, 20 July 1992.
5. Amos de-Shalit, “The Story of One Group” (in Hebrew), Rehovot (special issue) (1962): 3–4. Also, Igal Talmi, interview by author, Rehovot, June 1995; Uri Haber-Schaim, interview by author, Belmont, Massachusetts, 17 July 1995; Gideon Yekutieli, interview by author, Rehovot, September 1995. See also Israel Dostrovsky, “The Establishment of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission,” in Israel Dostrovsky, ed., David Ben Gurion and the Development of Science in Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Israel National Academy of Science, 1989), 46–47; cf. Munya M. Mardor, Rafael (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981), 104–8.
6. Dostrovsky, “The Establishment of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission,” 46–47; cf. Mardor, Rafael, 104–8.
7. Mardor, Rafael, 104–8.
10. Norman Rose, Chaim Weizmann: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1986), 453–54. On Weizmann’s strong resentment of the change of character of the Sieff Institute, see his Selected Letters (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1988); and Mardor, Rafael, 75.
11. Letter, Ernst Bergmann to Chaim Weizmann, 15 June 1951, File 2927, the Weizmann Archives, Rehovot, Israel; Mardor, Rafael, 75.
12. Letter, Meyer Weisgal to Dewey Stone and Harry Levine, 8 July 1951 (dictated on 4 July), the Weizmann Archives, File 2729, Rehovot, Israel.
13. Letter, Chaim Weizmann to Ernst Bergmann, 2 July 1951, the Weizmann Archives, file 2729, Rehovot, Israel, cited in Barnet Litvinoff, ed., The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, vol. 23, series A, August 1947–June 1952, ed. Aaron Klieman (New York: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 304.
15. Haber-Schaim, interview, 17 July 1995, and other occasions.
16. Mardor, Rafael, 53–66, 78–79, 104–6; Shlomo Gur, interview by author, Tel Aviv, June 1993.
17. Letter, Ernst Bergmann to David Ben Gurion, 5 December 1952, cited in Mardor, Rafael, 94–95.
19. Mardor, Rafael, 104–9.
20. DBGD, 13 March 1952, DBGA.
21. Foreign Ministry, Department of International Organization, 11 June 1954, ISA, FMRG, 2407/2.
22. Israel Dostrovsky, J. Gillis, and D. R. Llewellyn, “Separation of Isotopes by Fractional Distillation,” Research Council Israel Publication, no. 1 (1952): 62–94;Israel Dostrovsky et al., “Optimal Flow in Fractionating Columns for Isotopes Separation,” Bulletin Research Council Israel, no. 2 (1952): 68–69; Israel Dostrovsky and F.S. Klein, “On Heavy Water Analysis,” Annals of Chemistry 24 (1952): 414.
23. Ya’akov Sharett, ed., Moshe Sharett Diaries, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Ma’ariv, 1978), 400.
24. On France’s nuclear history see Lawrence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965). For a participant’s testimony on the French nuclear program in the 1950s, see Bertrand Goldschmidt, “The French Atomic Energy Program,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 18, no. 7 (September 1962): 39–42; Bertrand Goldschmidt, “The French Atomic Energy Program,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 18, no. 8 (October 1962): 46–48. On Norway see Astrid Forland, “Norway’s Nuclear Odyssey: From Optimistic Proponent to Nonproliferation,” Nonproliferation Review 4, no. 2 (winter 1997): 1–16.
25. There is disagreement on the date, with Mardor (Rafael, 108) citing 1954. Pierre Péan (Les deux bombes [Paris: Fayard, 1981], 65–66) also cites 1953 as the year of that agreement. Péan relies on interviews with Bertrand Goldschmidt.
26. Bertrand Goldschmidt, interview by author, Paris, 15 June 1993; Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance, 116. Later that year the French ambassador to the United Nations, Jules Moch, surprised the Israelis by making the French-Israeli agreement public in a speech at the General Assembly, following the announcement of Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace plan. He described with enthusiasm his country’s intention to use the Israeli method of production of heavy water. This revelation led the Israeli UN ambassador Abba Eban to express pride in the Israeli invention.
27. Sharett, Moshe Sharett Diaries, vol. 2, 565.
28. Zvi Lipkin, correspondence with author.
29. Randers, who was involved in defense-related activities in Britain during the war, was, in 1946, appointed director of the Physics Division of the newly established Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. As in Israel under Bergmann, Norway’s nuclear activities began in the late 1940s under the auspices of the defense establishment, with interest in both military applications and power. In early 1946 Randers published a book entitled Atomic Energy: The World’s Hope or its Demise (in Norwegian) (Oslo: J. W. Cappelns Forlag), in which he advocated nuclear energy as the path of the future (cited in Forland, “Norway Nuclear Odyssey,” 3).
30. The decision to spend money on this defense project was criticized by a number of Norwegian academic physicists (Forland, “Norway’s Nuclear Odyssey,” 3).
31. Letter, Ernst Bergmann to Gunnar Randers, 10 May 1954, courtesy of Odd Karsten Tveit.
32. Goldschmidt, interview; Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance, 116.
33. Letter, Randers to Bergmann, 9 July 1954, courtesy of Odd Karsten Tveit.
34. Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance, 116–17; cf. The State of Israel, Israel Government Yearbook, 1955 (Jerusalem: State of Israel, 1956), 190.
35. See Sharett, Moshe Sharett Diaries, vol. 2, 534.
36. See Sharett, Moshe Sharett Diaries, 18 June 1954, vol. 2, 548. There were also questions raised about the direction and management of Israel’s nuclear program. See “The Complete and Uncensored Diaries of Moshe Sharett,” 17 November 1954, courtesy of Ya’acov Sharett.
37. Sharett, Moshe Sharett Diaries, vol. 3, 606.
38. Letter, Amos de Shalit and others to Bergmann, 27 March 1951, courtesy of Uri Haber-Schaim.
39. Memorandum (handwritten draft), Uri Haber-Schaim, 9 December 1952, 1–3;Zvi Lipkin, correspondence with author, January–April 1996; Igal Talmi and Gideon Yekutieli, interviews, Rehovot, June 1995; Uri Haber-Schaim, conversations with author, 1995–97.
40. Memorandum, Haber-Schaim, 1–3.
42. See Uri Haber-Schaim, Yehuda Yeivin, and Gideon Yekutieli, “On the Production of K Mesons,” Physical Review 94, no. 1 (April 1954): 184–85. The “Cosmic Ray Section” was Bergmann’s invention.
43. Haber-Schaim summarized his frustrations in his four-page memorandum.
44. Talmi and Yekutieli, interviews; Haber-Schaim, conversations.
45. In early 1953 Bergmann asked Haber-Schaim to go on a visit to the French nuclear research center at Saclay for a few months. When he was not given a clear answer as to the purpose of the mission, and when his request to have his wife accompany him was denied, Haber-Schaim told his superiors that he would not go. Bergmann fired him, and threatened that no Israeli science institution would employ him. Haber-Schaim could not find employment, and was told by Dori and Sambursky that, without Bergmann’s clearance, he would not find a job in Israel. Haber-Scheim, conversations with author, 1995–97.
46. Zvi Lipkin, correspondence, Weizmann Institute, 24 January 1996.
47. Letter, Amos de Shalit to Uri Haber-Schaim, 12 December 1952, courtesy of Uri Haber-Schaim.
48. De Shalit, “The Story of One Group,” 4.
49. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 953–90.
50. That year—1954—is remembered for the Lavon affair: in July 1954 an ill-prepared and ill-executed Israeli intelligence team launched a series of sabotage activities against British and American cultural institutions in Egypt. They were hoping to create the impression that these Western cultural institutions were destroyed by Egyptian nationalists, leading to Britain’s cancellation of its plans to withdraw its forces from the Suez Canal zone. The members of the cell were caught, and its leaders executed. It also led to the fall of Pinhas Lavon, Moshe Sharett, and, a decade later, Ben Gurion. See Shabtai Teveth, Shearing Time (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ish Dor, 1992); Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1018–65.
51. Shabtai Teveth writes: “There has never been, either before or since Lavon, a cabinet minister so reckless, so unmindful of and indifferent to international law, the UN, and foreign public opinion. Some of his initiatives—all fortunately aborted by Chiefs of Staffs [Mordechai] Maklef and [Moshe] Dayan—are heavily censored to this day. Had they been carried out, Israel’s membership in the family of nations would have been brought into serious question” (Shabtai Teveth, Ben Gurion’s Spy: The Story of the Political Scandal That Shaped Modern Israel [New York: Columbia University Press, 1996], 271).
52. Letter, Amos de Shalit to Uri Haber-Schaim, 2 March 1954, courtesy of Uri Haber-Schaim; Zvi Lipkin, correspondence.
54. A oblique account of this affair, from this perspective, appears in Mardor, Rafael, 113–17.
56. Shalheveth Freier, interview by author, Rehovot, June 1992. This is also the recollection of Yuval Ne’eman, then a military liaison at the IAEC (Yuval Ne’eman, interview by author, Austin, Texas, 4 March 1994).
58. Zvi Lipkin, correspondence with author, 21 January 1996, citing his unpublished paper, “Early History of Physics at Weizmann.”
59. In handwritten notes written on 9 December 1952, Haber-Schaim ridiculed Bergmann’s idea to build Israel’s nuclear infrastructure: “It is equivalent to saying: First you build a skyscraper, after that you will train engineers, then, if you have some free time left, you may advance your knowledge in statics, and all that at a time when even cement and steel were unavailable” (3).
60. Shalheveth Freier, numerous conversations with author, 1992–94.
3. THE BEGINNING
1. DBGD, 6 March 1954, 120–21, DBGA, Sdeh Boker, Israel; Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion (in Hebrew), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1987), 1022–23.
2. “Minutes of Meetings,” Speech in Ohalo, 16 December 1954, DBGA.
4. Ya’acov Sharett, ed., Moshe Sharett Diaries (in Hebrew), vol. 4, 958 (this phrase, however, was deleted from the published edition. I am grateful to Yaakov Sharett for making available to me the original manuscript in which this phrase appears).
5. Munya M. Mardor, Rafael (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981), 120–21.
7. Dror Sadeh, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 29 July 1992; cf. Mardor, Rafael, 114; Bertrand Goldschmidt, “The French Atomic Energy Program,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 18 (1962): 46.
8. Sadeh, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 29 July 1992. Sadeh recalled that in 1954, during his last undergraduate year at Hebrew University, he was secretly invited to EMET offices, where he met Ratner for the first time. At this meeting Ratner told him that the State of Israel had selected him to join its most secret project—the atomic program. Sadeh was not certain whether Ratner used the word “bomb” or “device,” but he was confident that one of those words was used.
9. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 1953: Dwight D. Eisenhower (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), 822. On the origins of the Atoms for Peace program, see Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 209–70; McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), 287–95.
10. Moshe Sharett, Moshe Sharett Diaries, 18 May 1955, vol. 4, 1003.
11. Agreement for Cooperation Between the Government of the United States and the Government of Israel Concerning Civil Uses of Atomic Energy, signed 12 July 1955 and entered into force 12 July 1955 (State of Israel, Israel Government Yearbook 1961 [Jerusalem: State of Israel], 38–390). For the text of the agreement see Atomic Energy: Cooperation for Civil Use, Agreement Between the United States of America and Israel (Treaties and Other International Acts Series 3311) (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, Publication 5963, n.d.).
12. A Report, “The Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy (8–20 August 1955),” signed by A. D. Bergmann, ISA, FMRG, 2407/2 (the top-secret version).
15. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, 18 August 1955, RG 59, State Lot files, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
16. This was not completely accurate. The Shippingport reactor, the first American power reactor, did use enriched uranium, but light, not heavy, water was used as the moderator/coolant, and there was no natural uranium blanket.
17. “The Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy (8–20 August 1955).”
20. Letter, Amos de Shalit to Munya M. Mardor, 28 August 1955, ISA, FMRG 2407/2.
21. Gabriel Sheffer, Moshe Sharett: Biography of a Political Moderate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 808–859.
22. See Ya’acov Bar-Siman-Tov, “Ben Gurion and Sharett: Conflict Management and Great Power Constraints in Israeli Foreign Policy,” Middle Eastern Studies 24, no. 3 (July 1988): 330–56; Avi Shlaim, “Conflicting Approaches to Israel’s Relations with the Arabs: Ben Gurion and Sharett, 1953–1956,” Middle East Journal 37, no. 2 (spring 1983): 180–201; Zaki Shalom, David Ben Gurion: The State of Israel and the Arab World, 1949–1956 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1995), esp. 131–46, 225–44.
23. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 2, 972, 1032.
24. See Shalom, David Ben Gurion, 74–79.
25. In its scope and size, the Czech-Egyptian arms deal was unprecedented for that era. The Egyptian air force received 120 Mig 15 jet fighters, 50 IL-28 bombers, 20 IL-14 transports; and its ground forces were given 200 T-34 medium tanks, 500 pieces of artillery, 200 armored vehicles, and more (Yitzhak Greenberg, Defense Budget and Military Power: The Case of Israel 1957-1967 [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1997], 31).
27. Ibid.; cf. Mordechai Bar-On, Challenge and Quarrel: The Road to Sinai–1956 (in Hebrew) (Sdeh Boker: Ben Gurion Research Center, 1991), 55; Mordechai Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza: Israel’s Road to Suez and Back, 1955–1957 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992).
28. Aluf Benn, “The Project That Preceded the Nuclear Option” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 2 March 1995. Benn hints that it was a crash project to develop a chemical option, in response to Ben Gurion’s concerns about the use of chemical weapons by the Egyptians. According to Mardor (Rafael, 128), Ben Gurion followed the progress of this project, asking detailed questions, “evidently concerned that we would meet the deadline he set, worrying that the enemy would have such capability and we would have nothing to deter or retaliate.”
29. According to Bar-On, as early as 1952 the Ministry of Defense had decided to gamble on a French alliance. Before France had even completed the development of its new aircraft (Ouragan, Mystére II) and its new light tanks (AMX 13), Peres had pushed for a defense relationship with France. Peres also acted according to economic considerations, not unrelated to Bergmann’s interest in France. The French arms industry, especially its aircraft industry, needed clients outside France to fund its development costs. Among Western countries, France was least dependent on the United States and could fashion its own armaments sale policy. In addition, there was also sympathy toward Israel’s struggle within the French military and industrialist circles (Bar-On, Etgar Vetigrah, 118–22).
30. Peres, Battling for Peace: A Memoir (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), 117. During Lavon’s tenure as minister of defense, only one deal was concluded with France. Lavon was not enthusiastic about military research and development, or about Peres. See Mardor, Rafael, 113–19; Matti Golan, Peres (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1982), 35–39.
31. See Bar-On, Etgar Vetigrah, 118–88.
32. Peres, Battling for Peace, 120. Through various arms deals with France in 1955–56, Israel received the following military equipment: 30 Ouragans, 60 Mystères IV, 170 Sherman tanks, 175 AMX-13 light tanks, 400 armored vehicles, and more. In the spring and summer of 1956 France also supplied Israel, for free, with 120 Sherman tanks and 200 armored vehicles (figures are cited in Greenberg, Defense Budget and Military Power, 170).
33. The relationship between the rebellion in Algeria and the pro-Israeli sentiment in the defense establishment is complex. As Crosbie points out, several issues regarding France’s colonial wars created a tense relationship between the military establishment and the Quai d’Orsay, contributing to French sympathy for an activist Israel. Sylvia K. Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance: France and Israel from Suez to the Six-Day War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), 47–50.
34. Golan, Peres, 40–53, 71–75.
35. Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance, 47.
36. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Israeli Atomic Energy Program,” 11 April 1956, RG 59, State Lot files, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
37. Peres, From These Men, 195–96.
38. Traces of the debate can be found in Peres’s essay, “Ernst David Bergmann: Creating a Future out of Naught,” in From These Men, 185–212; and in the personal diaries of Ben Gurion (DBGD), though much of it was presumably deleted; also see Mardor, Rafael, 195–96.
39. Lipkin, correspondence, January–May 1996. According to Lipkin, the three Weizmann Institute physicists who were knowledgeable about reactors—de Shalit, Pelah, and himself—considered Bergmann grossly uninformed on matters of nuclear reactors and nuclear energy and were concerned that Bergmann could compromise the credibility of Israel on scientific and political grounds. “The situation reached a point where Shalheveth [Freier] intervened by telling us we should stop fighting with Bergmann. He had done great things and all he needed was ‘kavod’ [respect, in Hebrew]. If we give him the kavod Shalheveth would see to it that Bergmann did no harm. He read all the letters that Bergmann wrote and quietly stopped all the nonsense letters from getting out” (Lipkin, correspondence with author, 29 December 1997).
40. Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Presentation of Draft Israeli Power Bilateral,” 14 September 1956, RG 59, State Lot files, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
41. Memorandum, Farley to the Acting Secretary of State, 16 August 1956, RG 59, State Lot files, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
42. In April 1956 Canada signed a nuclear agreement with India, after two years of negotiations, after which it sold a heavy-water reactor (CANDU type) to India. A month earlier the United States had sold India twenty-one tons of heavy water for the Canadian-Indian reactor, which was named CIRUS.
45. Yuval Ne’eman, then the deputy chief of AMAN, recalls that when he briefed Ben Gurion, with Peres in attendance, in mid-July 1956 on the intelligence contacts with France, Ben Gurion told him straightforwardly that the underlying Israeli interest in the effort was to receive assistance in the nuclear project. “I want a nuclear option,” Ben Gurion told Ne’eman (Yuval Ne’eman, interview by author, Austin, Texas, March 1994).
46. Mordechai Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza: Israel’s Defense and Foreign Policy, 1955–1957 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1992), 212–39; Peres, Battling for Peace, 121–31.
47. Peres, Battling for Peace, 122.
48. This is Peres’s version of the events. According to Golan (Peres, 53), Peres was aware that he had no authority to commit Israel to military action, but he responded as he did, knowing the Israeli government could always withdraw, because of his desire to secure the nuclear reactor deal. Golan writes: “From now on, the small nuclear reactor became an integral part of the process that led [Israel] to the Sinai campaign, perhaps it even became its catalyst. The fact is that the fate of the Sinai campaign was entangled with the fate of the reactor” (Golan, Peres, 53–54).
49. Shalheveth Freier, interview by author, Rehovot, 16 August 1992.
50. Pierre Péan, Les deux bombes (Paris: Fayard, 1981), 82. According to Peres, the agreement was signed on 21 September. Ben Gurion’s cabled response to Peres’s news was brief: “Good job. I appreciate very much the agreement on that subject” (Golan, Peres, 54). Another unclear issue has to do with the power of the “small” reactor. Peres’s biographer refers to a small reactor of 1MW of power, but Goldschmidt recalls a reactor of about 10MW of power (Bertrand Goldschmidt, interview by author, Paris, 15 June 1993).
51. They added that “the day the Americans see that we are going toward independence in the field of nuclear energy, they will probably give us the guarantees of existence that they have never agreed to give us until now” (Goldschmidt, interview by author, Paris, 15 June 1993).
52. Goldschmidt, interview; Andre Finkelstein (a former senior official at the CEA), interviews by author, Paris, 17 June 1993, and Marburg, 3 July 1997.
53. Peres, Battling for Peace, 130.
54. See Peres’s interview with Yossi Melman in “Royal Gift” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 11 October 1991.
56. Mordechai Bar-On, who attended the Sèvres conference as Dayan’s military aide, and Ne’eman believe that the nuclear issue was marginal among the factors that led Ben Gurion to the Sinai campaign. For Ben Gurion, the most important issue was to destroy Nasser’s military power (Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, 288–93). Bar-On points out that the nuclear aspect of the French-Israeli alliance was so highly classified at that time that even the chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, hardly knew about it. The nuclear dimension of the Israeli-French alliance is hardly mentioned in Bar-On’s extensive work on the Suez campaign. The book he wrote in 1958, based on the official records of the Chief of Staff’s Office (which Bar-On had directed) makes no reference to the nuclear issue. That book was reissued in 1991, with slight changes, but still with no reference to that issue. Even his later work (Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza), written more than thirty years later, makes no reference at all to the nuclear factor.
57. The reference to the Rishon Le-Zion site of the small reactor appears in Péan, Les deux bombes, 82. Peres’s biographer refers to the fact that construction of the small reactor had already started (Golan, Peres, 71).
58. Péan, Les deux bombes, 83.
59. “Soviet Protests Canal Blockade,” New York Times, 5 November 1956.
60. Shimon Peres, David’s Sling (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), 211; cf. Peres, Battling for Peace, 131.
61. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1271–73.
62. Ibid., 1273–74; cf. Peres, Battling for Peace, 131. The American intelligence estimate on likely Soviet actions, especially SNIE 11–9–56 (6 November 1956) concluded it was unlikely that the USSR would employ guided missiles with nuclear warheads in the conflict.
63. Péan, Les deux bombes, 83–84.
4. THE ROAD TO DIMONA
1. This was the view of many French leaders, including Guy Mollet, after the Suez crisis. See Bertrand Goldschmidt, The Atomic Complex, 136–37; Lawrence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), 171–74; Wilfrid Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), 35–37.
2. Goldschmidt, The Atomic Complex, 136–37.
3. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France, 136–41.
4. Details of the EL-3 reactor can be found in International Atomic Energy Agency, Directory of Nuclear Reactors, vol 2: Research, Test, and Experimental Reactors (IAEA: Vienna, 1959), 295–300.
5. Pierre Péan, Les deux bombes (Paris: Fayard, 1981), 96. According to Péan, when members of the French team charged with the building of the extraction plant read the reactor designs, they were surprised that the cooling ducts were three times larger than those needed for a 24-MW reactor.
6. Ibid., 96–97. For a more detailed hypothetical calculation see David Albright, Frans Berkout, and William Walker, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities, and Policies (Stockholm: SIPRI/Oxford University Press, 1997), 258–59.
8. Ibid., 115. The G-1 reactor in Marcoul is graphite moderated; Dimona was moderated by heavy waters.
9. Matti Golan, Peres (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1982), 71–72. Ambassador Zur’s six-page report about Meir’s visit to Paris contains no reference to this discussion. Zur noted, however, that there was a discussion concerning EURATOM and that the foreign minister would report its contents orally to the prime minister (Memo, “Visit and Discussions of the Foreign Minister in Paris,” 15 July 1957, ISA, FMRG 3120/23).
10. Bertrand Goldschmidt recalls that, because of Perrin’s temporizing, he—Goldschmidt—had to stop him in the parking lot of the Commissariat and, holding the documents in his hand, told him: “Listen, you sign or you don’t sign.” Perrin said “OK,” and signed, but “he always pretended that I had forced him” (Goldschmidt, interview by author, Paris, 15 June 1993).
13. Ibid., 72–74; a slightly different version appears in Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: Memoirs (London: Weidefeld and Nicolson, 1995), 141–42.
14. Péan, Les deux bombes, 128.
17. Ibid., 72–74; French sources, interviewed by author, Paris, June 1993.
18. Péan, Les deux bombes, 110. Shalheveth Freier confirmed this in numerous conversations with the author.
19. Péan writes: “When the team in charge of building the plutonium extraction plant read the file on the reactor, it was surprised by its capacity. It appeared to them to be twice to three times more powerful than what had been indicated in the agreement between France and Israel. The cooling ducts, for instance, were three times bigger than needed for a 24 megawatt reactor” (ibid., 95–96). The power of the Dimona reactor is still a mystery. When Ben Gurion told the Knesset about the reactor in December 1960, he stated its power as 24 MW. This number appeared in all early Israeli official publications, though later official publications referred to 26MW. According to Remi Carle, the chief liaison to the project on behalf of the CEA, Dimona was built with a power of 40MW capacity, with an option to increase it in the future. Remi Carle, interview by author, Paris, 17 June 1993. In his conversation with Gunnar Renders of Norway Bergmann indicated that the reactor power was 40MW (see next section).
20. Ibid., 97; Remi Carle, interview by author, Paris, 17 June 1993.
21. Péan, Les deux bombes, 113–21.
22.” The Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy (August 8–20, 1955),” signed by A. D. Bergmann, ISA, FMRG, Box 2407, file 2.
23. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Israeli Atomic Energy Program,” 11 April 1956, RG 59, State Lot files, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
24. Memorandum of Conversation, Subject: “Presentation of Draft Israeli Power Bilateral,” 14 September 1956, RG 59: State Lot files, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
25. AEC, Memorandum of Conversation, “Implementation of Atomic Energy Program with Israel,” 25 January 1957, RG 59, State Lot files, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
26. Letter, Randers to Bergmann, 8 December 1956 (courtesy of Odd Karsten Tveit). Odd Karsten Tveit, Alt for Israel: Oslo-Jerusalem, 1948-1978 (Oslo: J. W. Cappelens Forlag, 1996), 256–62.
27. Letter, Randers to Moller, 9 August 1957 (Courtesy of Odd Karsten Tveit).
28. Randers probably was told in vague and nonexplicit terms about the purpose of the Dimona project, but given his technological background it is inconceivable (to this writer, at least) that he failed to intuit Dimona’s true purpose, that is, being the infrastructure of a plutonium-based nuclear weapons program. No other justification of the Dimona 40-MW “production reactor”—e.g., to train personnel for a future power program, to produce plutonium for a civilian power reactor, and so on—makes any economic, technological, or political sense. Furthermore, the fact that in 1958 Israel was involved in initiating two parallel national nuclear projects—one public and cheap, the other super secret and costly—eliminates the possibility that Randers was somewhat deceived by the Israelis. The Dimona project was very different from the multi-MW, heavy-water, power reactors Randers supported in the mid-1960s: in Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan, and Yugoslavia. Randers must have understood the Dimona project and wanted NORATOM to benefit from it.
29. Letter, Bergmann to Randers, 4 July 1958 (courtesy of Odd Karsten Tveit).
30. Randers made a discrete inquiry with the Americans. Without referring to the sale of Norwegian heavy water, he did inquire of Philip Farley, the special assistant to the secretary of state on nuclear energy, whether the United States would consider the prospect that Israel was building a 40-MW reactor “ominous.” Farley had not replied directly, only suggesting that a supply to Israel might present an opportunity for imposing IAEA safeguards. Tveit, Alt for Israel, 261–62.
31. Ibid., 262–63; Forland, “Norway’s Nuclear Odyssey,” 10.
32. Letter, Randers to Bergmann, 12 December 1958 (courtesy of Odd Karsten Tveit).
33. Letter, Yachil to Lange, 25 February 1959, Country File, Norway, Box 2169, USNA.
34. Memorandum of Conversation, 5 June 1959, Olaf Solli (Norwegian Foreign Ministry) and William Fullerton (AEC), USNA (courtesy of Odd Karsten Tveit).
35. Memorandum of Conversation, 6 August 1959, at the Atomic Energy Institute, Kjeller, Norway, Gunnar Randers, director of the Atomic Energy Institute, and Richard J. Kerry, first secretary of the American Embassy in Oslo. RG 59, State Department Central Files, Country File: Norway, 1957–61, Box 2169, USNA.
36. Yuval Ne’eman, interview by author, Austin, Texas, March 1994. According to Peres, in January 1957 a distinguished Israeli physicist cautioned him against being too ambitious, stating that “in our present circumstances it is not within our power to carry this out” (Shimon Peres, From These Men: Seven Founders of the State of Israel [New York: Wyndham, 1979], 194). Peres does not name the physicist, but it must be either Racah or, more likely, de Shalit.
37. Peres made brief and cryptic references to this issue in various writings and oral comments. Also, author’s interviews with several individuals in a position to know.
38. Zvi Lipkin, correspondence with author. Lipkin was involved with de Shalit in some of those consultations. Cf. Peres, From These Men, 193–254.
39. From the sanitized passages in Ben Gurion’s diary it is evident that the discussions were about building a small reactor in the Negev desert (DBGD, 11 May 1957; 11 July 1957). Ben Gurion also discussed with two Americans the question of how to set up a national nuclear energy program. These were Philip Sporn, the president of the American Gas and Electric Service Company, and the physicist I. I. Rabi of Columbia University.
40. At least two other IDF senior officers, in addition to Dayan, were involved in discussions with Ben Gurion on the nuclear project: commander of the air force, Dan Tolkovsky, and chief of Central Command, Zvi Zur. Both generals expressed to Ben Gurion an interest in being involved in the nuclear project after their retirement from the military. Both have continued to associate with the project to this day.
41. Ne’eman, interview by author, 11 June 1995. Ne’eman attended the meeting. On Dayan’s hesitations concerning the big projects, see Munya M. Mardor, Rafael (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981), 149–50.
43. Peres, Battling for Peace, 111–13.
44. Freier, officially the science attaché but in reality Peres’s nuclear liaison in Paris, arrived at the embassy with instructions not to discuss his activities with anyone there, including Ambassador Ya’acov Zur. His office operated independently of the diplomatic mission (Shalheveth Freier, correspondence with author).
46. Letter, Ben Gurion to Peres, 27 September 1957, in “Letters,” DBGA.
48. Ben Gurion accepted Peres’s judgment that “he [Bergmann] is totally committed to the project and I know of no man capable of taking his place as the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission” (Peres, From These Men, 1979), 197.
49. On 17 December 1956, only weeks after the defeat of the Egyptian army in the Sinai, Ben Gurion spoke with his senior commanders of his long-term fears: “It may be that in the next war we shall not be the ones to take the initiative but will face the initiative taken by others; it is extremely likely that we shall be attacked not by one army but by several” (Peres, From These Men, 67). In late 1959 Ben Gurion initiated comprehensive discussions in the General Staff on the strategic balance of the conflict, considering the position of the IDF as “too optimistic” (DBGD, 31 December 1959). He proposed an emergency plan for military purchases and armament production (DBGD, 13 January 1960); see also Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1366.
50. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1316–17.
51. For Ben Gurion the scenarios were not simply hypothetical, worst-case scenarios; these were literally his nightmares. He once said to his aide, Yitzhak Navon, “I could not sleep all night. I had one terror in my heart: a combined attack of all Arab armies” (ibid., 1365, 1368).
52. Ibid., 1379–80, 1384.
53. The quote is from a conversation on 2 April 1963 between Ben Gurion and Barbour, and was reported in a “confidential” State Department cable (Telegram [no 724, pt. 1], Ambassador Barbour to Secretary of State Rusk, 3 April 1963, Box 119, NSF, John F. Kennedy Library [JFKL]).
54. See Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1364–88.
55. DBGD, 28 July 1958; Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1321–32.
56. On the importance of the search for outside security guarantees for Israel’s territorial integrity, see Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1316–21. See chaps. 6, 7, in this volume.
57. DBGD, 31 May 1958; cf. Yitzhak Greenberg, Defense Budgets and Military Power: The Case of Israel 1957–1967 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1997), 188 (Table 15); 194 (Table 21).
59. Greenberg, Defense Budgets and Military Power, 177–79 (Tables 9, 10)
61. DBGD, 31 May 1958, DBGA.
62. “Summary of Additional Recent Information on Israeli Atomic Energy Program,” 17 January 1961, NSA; see chapter 6.
63. In 1960 the entire procurement budget was U.S.$26.7 million (in 1961 it was U.S.$27.7) (Greenberg, Defense Budgets and Military Power, 184–85 [Table 13]).
64. Peres, Battling for Peace, 136–37.
65. This was the figure Eliezer Livneh used in 1962 when he started his anti-Dimona campaign.
66. Because of the unorthodox methods of raising money for the project it is difficult to know whether Ben Gurion was fully informed of the real figures or whether he even wanted to know those figures. According to one story, Peres “missed” one zero in the cost figure given to Ben Gurion, quoting the Dimona project as costing IL30 million (about U.S.$17.5 million in the early 1960s), instead of IL300 million (about U.S.$175 million). When Amos de Shalit, who participated in that meeting, was about to correct Peres’s figures, Peres silenced him by kicking him under the table (Arnon Dar, interview by author, Haifa, 9 September 1992; Dar was a student of de Shalit).
67. Peres, Battling for Peace, 135–36.
69. Zvi Lipkin, correspondence with author, 15 April 1996.
70. Péan, Les deux bombes, 103.
74. Ibid., 173. Also, Yedidyah Shamir and Avraham Hermoni, interviews by author, June–July 1992. Shamir and Hermoni were technical directors at that time.
78. Peres, Battling for Peace, 134.
79. This information is based on many interviews and conversations with former senior officials of the various agencies and administrations within the project.
80. Peres, Battling for Peace, 136–37.
82. DBGD, 31 October 1958. According to Seymour Hersh, Abe Feinberg was one of the most important figures in Dimona fund-raising operations. “Feinberg accepted the fact that the expanding and expensive operations at Dimona had to financed outside of the normal Israeli budget process; there were too many critics of the nuclear program inside and outside Israel to raise money any other way” (Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option, 93).
83. The seven signatories of that letter were Franz Ollendorff of the Technion; Israel Dostrovsky, Zvi Lipkin, and Igal Talmi of the Weizmann Institute; and Yoel (Giulio) Racah, Shmuel Sambursky, and Solly Cohen of Hebrew University. De Shalit had resigned from the IAEC earlier (Shlomo Aronson with Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, [1960–1991] [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 310 n. 7).
84. The letter was never officially made public, but is quoted in Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, 310. We should not, however, read too much into this little-known episode. There is uncertainty about whether all the people mentioned as signatories in fact signed it. Lipkin, one of those said to have signed the letter, wrote to this author on 20 February 1996 that he had no recollection of that episode: “I not only do not recall anything about this resignation story, I also am certain that I had nothing to do with it and that parts of the story if not all of it is completely false.” When I checked the matter with another signatory, Igal Talmi, he had a vague recollection of the episode, noting that if he did sign it he probably did so under a sense of obligation and respect to his old teacher, Racah. It appears that the letter was drafted by three commissioners—Ollendorff, Racah, and Sambursky—aimed primarily against Bergmann who kept them out of the loop. Other members of the commission, to the extent that they actually signed the letter, added their names to a vote of nonconfidence against Bergmann. The resignation had nothing to do with the issue of whether Israel should launch a nuclear weapon project. Nor did the signatories have a collective view on that question, which most of them considered premature and inappropriate for discussion. This point was made by the late Shalheveth Freier in many conversations with the author over the years.
85. DBGD, 15 April 1958, 6 May 1958, DBGA.
86. The major argument was that “the extensive work on defense R&D, and the hiring of massive scientific human power into exciting fields of study in labs with new equipment, could deprive the academic institutions of teaching and research personnel” (Mardor, Rafael, 196).
89. Peres, Battling for Peace: Memoirs, 137–39.
91. Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 266.
92. Péan, Les deux bombes, 126.
94. Péan takes up the question of how nuclear cooperation continued for that long. The explanations he proposes do not provide a clear answer. One explanation is a “conspiracy of silence” on the part of French officials who were involved in the project. Another is the secrecy surrounding the project itself. Guillaumat responded to Péan’s questions by saying, “The Dimona operation was so secret that nobody knew the entire truth”; yet other sources claim that de Gaulle learned about the Israeli project in mid-1958, at the same time that he learned about the secret Italian-German and French agreement. While he immediately put a halt to the latter, the former continued. Thus, as long as Jacques Soustelle was the minister of energy, the project suffered no interruption (Péan, Les deux bombes, 126–28).
98. Golan, Peres, 100; cf. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1373.
101. Telegram, Walter Eitan, Israel’s ambassador to France, to Chaim Yachil, Director-General of Foreign Ministry, 8 June 1960, ISA, FMRG, Box 2350/1.
102. “Minutes of the First Meeting of the Prime Minister with de-Gaulle, June 14, 1960,” DBGA.
103. ISA, FMRG, Box 2350/1.
104. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1383–84. According to Golan’s account (Peres, 102), de Gaulle leaned toward Ben Gurion intimately and asked him why Israel needed such a nuclear reactor, to which Ben Gurion responded by pledging (as Peres had pledged to Pineau in 1957) that Israel would not build a bomb. The secrecy of the matter is shown by the fact that the nuclear issue does not appear at all in Eitan’s top-secret cable (ISA, FMRG, Box 2350/1).
105. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1379–80, 1384.
107. Peres, Battling for Peace, 142
109. Ibid.; Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1388–89.
110. Péan, Les deux bombes, 116–17; also Remi Carle, interview.
111. Péan, Les deux bombes, 117.
114. Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 357–93.
115. Margaret Gowing (assisted by Lorna Arnold), Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945–52, 2 vols. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1974).
116. McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival (New York: Vintage, 1958), 476.
117. Mardor, Rafael, 120.
118. Shimon Peres, “About Shalheveth,” in Shalheveth Freier, 1920–1994 (Tel Aviv: IAEC, 1995).
5. DIMONA REVEALED
1. George Bunn, Arms Control by Committee: Managing Negotiations with the Russians (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 64–65.
4. As early as 1953 American tactical nuclear weapons were stationed in Europe for use by NATO ground troops. The United States maintained physical custodianship over its nuclear weapons, and their means of delivery—artillery, aircraft, and missiles—were owned and manned by the NATO allies. This created a “two-key” system of control that required some level of sharing of nuclear defense information with its allies.
5. Department of State, Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1960), 11–86.
6. Ibid., 1520–26; Bunn, Arms Control by Committee, 65.
7. Bunn, Arms Control by Committee, 64–65.
8. On this issue, see Dean Rusk’s remarks on proliferation before the Gilpatric Committee in January 1965 (Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, “Secretary Meeting with the Gilpatric Committee,” 7 January 1965, NSF Committee File, Box 8a, LBJL).
9. Lawrence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), 129–65.
10. It is not clear what triggered the addition of Israel to the list, but it was probably related to the nuclear agreement Israel signed with the United States in 1955. American interest in Israel’s nuclear activities was probably also prompted during the Geneva Conference in August 1955, when the Israeli delegation raised the possibility, with AEC Chairman Louis Strauss, that the small experimental reactor which the United States had agreed to supply to Israel would be upgraded to a bigger research reactor that could produce small quantities of plutonium. Strauss’s response was negative (Ernst David Bergmann, “Report on the 1955 Geneva Conference, 8–20 August 1955,” ISA, FMRG 2407/2).
11. “Post-Mortem on SNIE [Special National Intelligence Estimate] 100–8–60: Implications of the Acquisition by Israel of a Nuclear Weapons Capability,” Draft, 31 January 1961, Department of State Lot files, Lot No 57D688, USNA.
12. Memorandum of Conversation, Carl Jones, AEC, and Dr. Ephraim Lahav, Israeli science attaché in Washington, 19 March 1958, Lot 57D688, Box 417, USNA.
13. “Post-Mortem on SNIE 100-8-60,” 8–9.
16. In 1958 the CIA issued a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE 10-2-58), titled “Development of Nuclear Capabilities by Fourth Countries.” Post-Mortem, 6–7.
17. The U-2 reconnaissance program started its flights over the Soviet Union in July 1956 from Wiesbaden airfield in West Germany. The focus of the program was on the Soviet Union, but flights over the Middle East began soon after it became operational. The first mission over the Middle East was in late August 1956, when the United States found French-supplied Mystères and Vautours at Israeli air bases. It was reported that Eisenhower was shocked when shown the photos, and “felt that he was betrayed by the Israelis.” In a memorandum dated 15 October 1956, Eisenhower added the following note: “Our high-flying reconnaissance planes have shown that Israel had obtained some 60 of the French Mystère pursuit planes, when there had been reported the transfer of only 24.” He ordered that the program’s activities be stepped up at the time when the U2s were staged out of Adana, Turkey (Dino A. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis [New York: Random House, 1991], 32–34).
18. On the history of the CIA U-2 program, see Richard M. Bissell Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo, Reflections of a Cold War Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 92–140.
19. Dino A Brugioni, interviews by author, 12 March 1996, 9 April 1997, 11 and 25 July 1997. Brugioni recalls that he and others used the adjective “probable” to describe their suspicions that the Beer-Sheba site was nuclear related. See also “Post-Mortem on SNIE 100–8–60,” 1–2.
20. Over time Brugioni and Lundahl surmised that Eisenhower might already have known something about Dimona from other intelligence sources, either through American Jews who briefed the administration on that or through intelligence sources inside Israel itself. Brugioni recalls that at one time, probably in the summer or fall of 1958, when he discussed the “Beer-Sheba site” in a conversation with CIA Director Allen Dulles, the latter asked, “Have you seen the Israeli reports?” When Brugioni requested to see those reports, he was informed by the office of Robert Amory, the deputy director for Intelligence, that he could not see those reports. His assumption was that the reports included very sensitive human intelligence material on Israel’s nuclear program (Burgioni, interviews).
23. Brugioni, interviews; cf., Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), 52–58.
24. “Post-Mortem on SNIE 100–8–60,” 9. Bergmann’s omissions, half-truths, and contradictory statements added to U.S. confusion. As the postmortem report notes: “[A]t that time, it was assumed wrongly by intelligence that the experimental reactor referred to was the small U.S.-supplied swimming pool research reactor [Soreq]. It was understood that Israel’s next project was the nuclear power reactor that Bergmann so often talked about (ibid., 8–9).
25. Ibid., 1–2. This version of the report had a low classification status—“Secret NOFORN”—which explains why it lacked specific references to the U-2 program. The reference to the March–April 1958 intelligence information is likely a reference to the U2 program (Brugioni, interview, 25 July 1997; Donald Steury [CIA Historian Office], interview by author, Washington, D.C., 24 July 1997).
26. “Post-Mortem on SNIE 100–8–60”; also, “Memorandum for the President: Dimona Reactor in Israel,” (an attachment: “History of United States Interest in Israel’s Atomic Activities,” hereafter cited as “Chronology”), 30 March 1963, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Decimal files, 250/03/27/04, Box 1297, 611.84a45/3-3061, USNA.
28. “Post-Mortem on SNIE 100–8–60,” 12–13.
30. Ibid.; “Chronology,” 1; Telegram (2612), Amory Houghton to Secretary of State, 26 November 1960, Nonproliferation Collection, NSA.
31. Telegram (2162), Houton to Secretary of State, 26 November 1960; Department of State Despatch (311), Memorandum of Conversation, “Research and Training Program in Field of Atomic Energy,” 30 November 1960, Nonproliferation Collection, NSA.
32. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Israeli Atomic Energy Program,” 1 December 1960, Nonproliferation Collection, NSA; “Post-Mortem on SNIE 110–8–60,” 15; “Chronology,” 1–2.
33. Department of State, “Subject: Israeli Atomic Energy Program,” 1 December 1960.
36. Department of State Despatch (Tel Aviv, 311), Memorandum of Conversation, 30 November 1960, Nonproliferation Collection, NSA.
37. Telegram (486), Ogden Reid to Christian Herter, 3 December 1960, Records of White House Staff Secretary, International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL.
38. “Post-Mortem on SNIE 100–8–60,” 8.
42. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 469th Meeting of the National Security Council, 8 December 1960,” in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960 (hereafter referred to as FRUS, 1958–60), vol. 13, Arab-Israeli Dispute; United Arab Republic; North Africa (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1992), 391–92.
43. FRUS, 1958–60, vol. 13, 393–94.
45. Telephone log of Secretary of State Christian Herter, 9 December 1960, Records of White House Staff Secretary, International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL.
46. Chapman Pincher, “Israel May Be Making an A-Bomb,” Daily Express, 16 December 1960, 2.
47. John W. Finney, “U.S. Hears Israel Moves Toward A-Bomb Potential,” New York Times, 19 December 1960, 1.
48. Ibid. For how McCone helped Finney, see Hersh, Samson Option, 71–81.
49. Department of State document, 19 December 1960, International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL.
50. “Memorandum of Conference with the President, 19 December 1960,” 12 January 1961, International File, Box 8, Israel, DDEL.
52. John W. Finney, “U.S. Misled at First on Israeli Reactor,” New York Times, 20 December 1960, 1, 15.
53. Mr. Farley asked whether it meant 24 megawatts thermal or 24 megawatts electrical, “pointing out that in the latter case the size would be in the range of the U.S. estimate.” He inquired also whether the reactor would include any “power generating facilities to draw off useful electric power on an experimental basis.” Harman did not know the answers to these questions and he would have to inquire (FRUS, 1958–60, vol. 13, 398).
54. FRUS, 1958–60, vol. 13, 396–99; “Chronology”; cf. Dana Adams Schmidt, “Israel Assured U.S. on Reactor,” New York Times, 22 December 1960, 5.
55. “Israel Denies Reports,” New York Times, 19 December 1960, 8.
56. “Defense Ministry Silent,” ibid., 20 December 1960, 15.
57. “Peaceful Aims Affirmed,” ibid., 15.
58. An English translation of Ben Gurion’s statement appeared in the Jerusalem Post, 22 December 1960, cited in Department of State compilation of “Political Statements Concerning the Israeli Reactor,” 17 January 1961, 3207, NSA. For a summary, see “Ben Gurion Explains Project,” New York Times, 22 December 1960.
59. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion (in Hebrew), vol. 3 (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1987), 1391.
60. Alvin Shuster, “Israel Satisfies U.S. on Use of Reactor,” New York Times, 23 December 1960, 6. See also the Department of State Statement of 22 December 1960, USNA.
61. There is evidence, however, that the U.S. media took Ben Gurion’s statement to mean more than it actually stated. See, for example, the opening statement in William L. Laurence’s column (“Israel’s Reactor,” New York Times, 25 December 1960, 8E): “United States officials were reported last week to be concerned over evidence that Israel was developing the capacity to produce atomic weapons. This officially denied by the Israeli government.” This is not accurate. Ben Gurion did deny that Israel was manufacturing nuclear weapons, but he said nothing about the capacity to produce such weapons.
62. Arthur Krock, “In the Nation,” New York Times, 23 December 1960, 18.
63. Telegram (470), Herter to Embassy Tel Aviv, 21 December 1960, International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL.
64. Embtel 577 (Tel Aviv), Reid to Herter, 24 December 1960 (section I), International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL.
65. Ogden Reid, telephone interview by Mike Moore (for the author), New York, 15 December 1994; Embtel 577 (Tel Aviv), Reid to Herter, 24 December 1960 (section I).
66. Embtel 577 (Tel Aviv), Reid to Herter, 24 December 1960 (section II), International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL.
67. Telegram, Department of State to Amembassy Tel Aviv, 31 December 1960 (Section I), International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL. The telegram was declassified only in part, and the U.S. complaints about Ben Gurion’s replies remain classified.
68. Telegram (502), Acting Secretary Livingstron T. Merchant to Reid, 31 December 1960, International File, Box 8: Israel, DDEL. The telegram also appears in FRUS, 1958–60, vol. 13, 399–400. The five questions also appear in Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1391. According to Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion provided the questions in a press briefing he held on 8 January 1961.
69. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1391.
71. Ibid., 1392. According to another version, Ben Gurion did not pledge not to produce nuclear weapons, but referred to his statement in the Knesset, claiming that his commitment to “peaceful purposes” of the reactor was sufficient. Cf. David Shaham, Israel: 40 Years (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1991), 189.
73. Memorandum of Conversation, “Israel Atomic Energy Program,” 11 January 1961, General Records of the Department of State, Box 2057, USNA; Amos Elon, “The Contact with the U.S. on Israel’s Nuclear Program Will Continue” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 13 January 1961; H. Yustus, “Harman and Herter Discussed the Reactor for Four Hours” (in Hebrew), Ma’ariv, 12 January 1961.
75. The report, dated 17 January 1961 and entitled “Summary of Additional Recent Information on Israeli Atomic Energy Program,” was enclosed in a letter dated 19 January 1961, from Assistant Secretary of State William B. Macomber to James T. Ramey, the executive director of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (the Nonproliferation Collection, NSA).
79. Apparently for this reason, Ben Gurion postponed his resignation for two months. In December 1960 he had been in the midst of a domestic crisis over the Lavon affair, and he was determined not to resign from the government under these circumstances.
6. KENNEDY AND THE ISRAELI PROJECT
1. The characterization of Kennedy as the nonproliferation president repeated itself in all the interviews I conducted with Kennedy’s principal advisers: McGeorge Bundy, Carl Kaysen, Myer (Mike) Feldman, and Robert Komer.
2. Glenn T. Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 30–37.
3. Glenn T. Seaborg with Benjamin S. Loeb, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1987), 249.
4. Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban, 48.
5. One example is the introduction of modern gas centrifuges for producing enriched uranium. In the late 1950s research on gas centrifuges had been declassified under pressure from the industry, but in 1960, when the proliferation risks involved were understood, security restrictions and classifications were imposed once again (Seaborg with Loeb, Stemming the Tide, 261–66).
6. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Memorandum for the President, “Subject: The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons with and without a Test Ban Agreement,” Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1 July 1962, NSA.
11. Feldman recalls that, on the morning after the election, Kennedy told him that he would expect Feldman to do for him the same work he performed before the elections. “I would like you to read all the cables about the Middle East, and be familiar with the CIA information, and to act as my personal representative in these matters,” Kennedy told Feldman. Feldman responded: “I am not sure that’s a wise choice. I think it ought to be somebody else. As President, it’s a lot different than being in the campaign…. You just can’t take a position that may be opposed by everybody in the administration, and in my case, what you will get is biased advice. I have an emotional attachment to Israel and I will give you advice based on that. I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do.” Kennedy replied, “That’s exactly why I want you to do it” (Myer Feldman, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 10 June 1992). State Department documents do not emphasize Feldman’s role in shaping Kennedy’s (and later Johnson’s) dealings with Israel’s nuclear program. This was confirmed by McGeorge Bundy (McGeorge Bundy, interviews by author, New York, 1993; Robert Komer, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 11 June 1992, and other conversations; and Carl Kaysen, numerous conversations with author, Cambridge, Mass., 1993–96).
13. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 32–33.
14. Memorandum, Secretary of State Dean Rusk to President John F. Kennedy, “Subject: Israel’s Atomic Nuclear Activities,” 30 January 1961 CFSD (Central Files State Department), 884A.1901/1 Box 3061, USNA (also in NSF Box 118, JFKL). The document also appears in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–63: Near East, 1962–63 (hereafter referred to as FRUS, 1961–63), vol. 17 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), 9–10.
18. The contents of the conversation between Ambassador Reid and President Kennedy appears in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 17, 10–11. An unsigned dictation note, entitled “Conversation with Ogden Reid,” in the Israeli file at the JFKL (NSF, Box 118), dated 31 January 1961, reads as follows: “He stated that we had an agreement with the Israelis to send an American scientist through their atomic plant within the next month, in order to make sure that it is for peaceful purposes. He believes that it is.”
19. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1393.
20. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 17, 13–14.
25. David Ben Gurion Diaries (DBGD), 29 March 1961, DBGA.
26. Memorandum of Conversation, 10 April 1961, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 17, 79–80. On 12 April Harman also informed Secretary of State Dean Rusk on the matter (Memorandum, Assistant Secretary Lewis Jones to Secretary Rusk, “Your Appointment with Israeli Ambassador Harman,” RG 59, NEA/NE, Records of Dimona Reactor, 1960–63, Box 453–7, USNA).
27. Memorandum of Conversation, 10 April 1961, 79 n. 1.
28. Memorandum, Philip Farley (State Department) to John Hall (AEC), “Visit to Israel,” 5 May 1961, RG 59, NEA/NE, Records of Dimona Reactor, 1960–63, Box 453-7, USNA.
29. DBGD, 29 March 1961, and 21, 22, and 24 April 1961, DBGA; Feldman, interview, 10 June 1992; Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1993.
30. The only people on site were the security guards and the eight senior Dimona officials led by the site director, Manes Pratt. Professor Efraim Katzir-Katchalsky was also present “at the request of the Prime Minister” (“Notes on Visit to Israel, U.M. Staebler–J. W. Croach Jr.,” DRAFT 5/23/61 [including attachments], RG 59, NEA/NE, Records of Dimona Reactor, 1960–63, Box 453-7, USNA). The official inspection report has not been found, see FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 17, 126 n. 1.
31. “Memorandum of Discussions with Mr. Pratt and Staff,” attached to “Notes on Visit to Israel, U.M. Staebler–J. W. Croach Jr.,” DRAFT 5/23/61.
33. Ibid., 3–4. This might explain how Israel became involved in the construction of two research reactors, one smaller and the other larger, at the same time. Otherwise, it made no sense for Israel to construct the two research reactors.
35. The American inspectors considered this date to be “unduly late” given the state of the construction. However, they were told that because of difficulties in welding, some components were not expected to be delivered for about a year (ibid.).
36. “Highlights on Other Technical Facilities,” attached to “Notes on Visit to Israel, U.M. Staebler–J. W. Croach Jr.,” DRAFT 5/23/61.
37. Memorandum, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State Lucius Battle to National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, “U.S. Scientists’ Visit to Israel’s Dimona Reactor,” 26 May 1961, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 17, 125–27.
40. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1393.
41. Ibid. Before Ben Gurion’s departure he wrote a personal letter to President de Gaulle, outlining the explanations that he would present the U.S. president. De Gaulle responded in a friendly letter in which he gave his consent.
42. “Meeting of President Kennedy and Prime Minister Ben Gurion, Tuesday, May 30th, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Suite 284, 4:45–6:16pm,” ISA, FMRG, 3294/7 (referred to hereafter as Harman’s notes); Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Conversation between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Ben Gurion,” 30 May 1961, 033.84a11/ 5–3061 (referred to hereafter as Feldman’s notes).
45. Harman’s notes, the Atomic Reactor, 1.
50. “Franco-Israeli Nuclear Collaboration,” n.d., NSF, Country File: Israel, Box 119, JFKL.
51. With Ben Gurion’s consent, the United States passed the findings of the visit to Arab governments, including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. These governments were advised that “the observations of U.S. scientists tended [to] support public and private [Israeli] assurances regarding the peaceful intent [of the] Dimona project” (Airgram [CA-4726], Department of State, “Israel’s Dimona Activity,” 24 October 1962, NSF, Country File: Israel, Box 119, JFKL).
52. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1393.
53. This was evident, for example, in the discussions Peres had during his visit in Washington in late May 1962. In his meetings with Walt Rostow, Paul Nitze, William Bundy, McGeorge Bundy, and Myer Feldman, the focus was on the political and military situation in the Middle East, and Israel’s request for defensive weapons systems (in particular the HAWK missiles). The nuclear issue was mentioned in passing on two brief occasions, once in response to William Bundy’s question of what Israel thought about the introduction of nuclear weapons to the region, to which Peres obliquely responded that “for the next four years surely one cannot talk about nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and in general Israel would not want to see nuclear weapons in the region at all” (Colonel Yehuda Prihar [Israeli military attaché in Washington], “Report on the Visit of Deputy Minister of Defense in Washington,” 24 May 1962, Appendix V, ISA, FMRG, 4317/1).
54. Letter, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion to President John F. Kennedy, 24 June 1962, NSF, Box 118 (also Box 119a), JFKL.
55. The conversation between Ben Gurion and Feldman is recorded in an outgoing Foreign Ministry cable to the embassy in Washington, dated 20 August 1962 (ISA, FMRG, 3377/7). Also, Myer Feldman, interview by author, 10 June 1992, 14 October 1994 and 14 July 1997.
56. This claim appears in many American and Israeli sources. See McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty years (New York: Random House, 1988), 510.
57. Zaki Shalom, “From ‘Low Profile’ to ‘Smashing Strategy’: The Kennedy Administration and Its Response to Israel’s Nuclear Activity, 1962–1963” (in Hebrew), Iyunim Be’Tkumat Israel 4 (1995): 126–64.
58. Telegram (721), Walworth Barbour, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 3 April 1963, RG 59, Box 3727, USNA.
59. Yuval Ne’eman, interview by author, Austin, Texas, 27 February 1994.
60. Airgram (CA-4726), Department of State, “Israel’s Dimona Activity,” 24 October 1962; Ne’eman, interview. Ne’eman was then the director of the Nachal Soreq facility and arranged the U.S. visit at Dimona. A reference to this visit appears in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 17, 197, ff.3
61. “Subject: The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons with and Without a Test Ban Agreement,” (2d cite in chapter—n.6).
63. U.S. Department of State, “Memorandum of Conversation: Conversation with Israel’s Foreign Minister,” 27 December 1962, NSF Box 118, JFKL.
7. THE BATTLE OF DIMONA
1. Glenn T. Seaborg with Benjamin S. Loeb, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 171.
2. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), 280.
3. Memorandum to the President, “The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons with and without a Test Ban Agreement,” 12 February 1963, Nonproliferation Collection, NSA.
5. On the Shavit II episode, see Munya M. Mardor, Rafael (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981), 319–47; former senior RAFAEL official, numerous conversations with author, April–May 1995.
6. On the hidden debate in Israel, see chapter 8; cf. Airgram (A-232), Walworth Barbour, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, to Department of State, “Israel’s Security: The Concept of Preventive War and Definitive Victory,” 5 October 1962, NSF, Box 119, JFKL.
7. Only in 1996 was Dassault allowed to tell the story of the Jericho project (Claude Carlier and Luc Berger, Dassault: 50 ans d’aventure aeronatique [Paris: Editions du Chene, 1996]). The Israeli specifications refer to a two-stage missile, capable of delivering a 750-kg warhead a distance of 235–500 km within a circular error probable of less than 1 km. Israel requested an all-weather missile, “launchable at a firing rate of 4 to 8 missiles per hour, from fixed or mobile bases, within a maximum preparatory time of two hours.” A reference to the Jericho chapter appeared in Pierre Landereux, “Dassault Lifts Veil over Jericho Missile. The Ground-to-Ground Tactical Missile Was the Base of Israel’s Ballistic Armament” (in French), Air and Cosmos/Aviation International, 6 December 1996, English translation provided in “FRANCE: Dassault Publication Reveals Secret Israeli Missile Program,” FBIS Report, FBIS-EST-97–008.
8. On 8 May 1963 the CIA issued SNIE (30–2–63), entitled “The Advanced Weapons Programs of the UAR and Israel,” in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 517–18.
9. The publication of an editorial in the London weekly Jewish Observer and Middle East Review (a publication known to have close connections with Israel’s defense establishment) of 28 December 1962, entitled “An Independent Deterrent for Israel,” intensified those concerns. While using veiled language, the editorial hinted that Israel might already have made fateful decisions toward an “independent deterrent.” The editorial was circulated in the NSC, and a reference to it appeared in a memorandum by Komer to President Kennedy (“Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Kennedy,” 22 March 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 432.
10. CIA, Office of National Estimate, Memorandum for the Director, Sherman Kent, “Consequences of Israeli Acquisition of Nuclear Capability,” 6 March 1963, 1, NSF Box 118, JFKL. The memo says:
For the purposes of this Memorandum, Israeli “acquisition of a nuclear capability” may mean either (a) Israeli detonation of a nuclear device, with or without possession of actual nuclear weapons, or (b) an announcement by Israel that it possessed nuclear weapons even though it had not detonated a nuclear device. (It is conceivable that Israel might manufacture a weapon according to acquired designs, without testing, through its access to nuclear technology in the international scientific community and possibly its special relationship with the French.)
13. “Briefing for Gilpatric Committee on Nuclear Non-Proliferation,” 1 December 1964, NSF, Box 4, LBJL.
14. On the idea of MLF during the Kennedy era, see Glenn T. Seaborg, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987), 83–93.
16. Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban, 172–232.
17. In a note attached to Kennedy’s reading material for the weekend of 23 March, Deputy National Security Adviser Carl Kaysen wrote that these documents amount to “what we know at this moment on nuclear and missile capabilities in the UAR and Israel. It is clearly not enough and we are pushing ahead on arranging for another inspection of the Israeli activities” (Memorandum, Carl Kaysen to President Kennedy, 23 March 1963, NSF, Box 318, JFKL).
18. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 432–33, 435.
19. Ibid., 435; also in NSF, Box 340, JFKL.
20. Telegram (721), Barbour to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 3 April 1963, Box 3727, USNA. The Dimona issue was handled with such sensitivity that Ambassador Barbour made no reference to it in his regular State Department report on the meeting with Ben Gurion. It was classified “Confidential” and sent to all U.S. posts in the Middle East (Telegram [774], Barbour to Rusk, 3 April 1963 [2 sections], NSF, Box 119a, JFKL).
21. “Protocol of Conversation with President Kennedy on 2 April 1963,” ISA, FMRG 4326/16. It turned out that Peres’s reply to Kennedy would become Israel’s declaratory line on nuclear weapons. Treasury Minister Levi Eshkol, who criticized Peres on his return to Israel for telling Kennedy too much, incorporated his words into Israel’s official stance. Peres has said that this formula was the result of an improvisation: “I did not want to lie to the president, but I could not answer his question straight either. So I came up with what became Israel’s policy for years to come” (Shimon Peres, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 31 March 1991). For the American record of the meeting, taken by Myer Feldman, see FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 450–51; cf. Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), 258; Matti Golan, Peres (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1982), 125; Avner Cohen, “Peres: Peacemaker, Nuclear Pioneer,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 52, no. 3 (May–June 1996): 16–17.
22. Cable, Avraham Harman, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, to Foreign Ministry, 4 April 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/11.
23. “The anxiety the Cairo Tripartite proclamation triggered in Ben Gurion exceeded even situations in which Ben Gurion had faced much more real and serious dangers” (Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion [in Hebrew], vol. 3 [Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1987], 1550).
24. For a detailed account of Ben Gurion’s letters, see Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1550–52. Bar-Zohar quotes Meir as saying: “We knew about Ben Gurion’s appeals. We treated Ben Gurion with respect. We said nothing, but we were amazed.” Bar-Zohar makes the point that Ben Gurion “lost his sense of proportion” and acted under extreme anxiety.
25. The text of the letter appears in a telegram (172), Shimshon Arad, Alternate Israeli Representative to the UN, to Harman, 25 April 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/9. Also, the intent of the letter appears in a diplomatic telegram (751), State Department to Amembassy Tel Aviv (NSF, Box 119a, JFKL), which includes the essential elements of the prime minister’s message to the president. See also Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1551–52.
28. Shimshon Arad (then head of the U.S. Department at the Foreign Ministry), and Gideon Rafael (then deputy director of the Foreign Ministry), interviews by author, Jerusalem, summer 1994.
29. Ambassador Harman expressed his growing frustration and criticism over the way Ben Gurion handled the dialogue with Kennedy in a number of telegrams to Jerusalem (mostly addressed to Director-General Yahil): Telegram (183), Harman to Foreign Ministry, 25 April 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/9; Telegram (145), Harman to Yahil, 30 April 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/6; Telegram (146), Harman to Yahil, 7 May 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/9.
30. In a telegram ([806], 27 April 1963, NSF, Box 119, JFKL) from Ambassador Barbour to the State Department, he noted that Ben Gurion was “not disposed [to] get hysterical,” and, therefore, his use of the phrase “gravity without parallel” should be taken seriously. The ambassador questioned the desirability of a joint declaration, noting that it would be “particularly untimely at [the] moment.” He also questioned the possibility of arranging a meeting with the president “without publicity.”
31. On 2 May Komer provided Kennedy with a memo on the Arab-Israeli military balance. The cover letter to the memo states its conclusion (NSF, Box 119a, JFKL).
32. Memorandum, State Department to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, “The Implications for Israel of the Arab Unity Proclamation of 17 April,” 9 May 1963, NSF, Box 119a, JFKL.
33. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1550–54; Yoel Ben Porat, interview by author, Glilot, August 1992.
34. Letter, Kennedy to Ben Gurion, in State Department Deptel 780 (Tel Aviv), 4 May 1963, NSF, Box 119a, JFKL. The text can also be found in an outgoing telegram (50) to the Israeli Embassy in Washington (5 May 1963, ISA, FMRG, Box 3379/9).
35. State Department Deptel 780, 3.
38. The conversation between Ben Gurion and Barbour is recorded in an outgoing Foreign Ministry cable to the embassy in Washington, dated 5 May 1963 (ISA, FMRG, 3377/9). It is also recorded in a sanitized form in Barbour’s Deptel (833) to Secretary of State Rusk, dated 5 May 1963 (NSF Box 119a, JFKL).
39. Message from Ben Gurion to Feldman, 7 May 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/6. The text is also included in a telegram (75) from Yahil to Harman (7 May 1963, ISA, FMRG, Box 3377/9).
40. “Consultation Regarding the Letter of the Prime Minister to President Kennedy on 8 May,” ISA, FMRG 3377/9.
41. Letter, Ben Gurion to Kennedy, 12 May 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/9.
43. W. Granger Blair, “Ben Gurion Sees War Peril in U.S. Curb on Arms,” New York Times, 14 May 1963.
44. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation between Governor Averell Harriman and Jewish Leaders, “Subject: U.S. Security Guarantee to Israel,” 8 May 1963, NSF, Box 119a, JFKL.
45. His biographer hints that the explanation might have to do with the mind of an aging man, not with the changing circumstances of international politics (Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1552).
46. In January 1949, when victory was within reach in the Sinai, Israel was forced to withdraw under American threat. In 1956 Eisenhower’s threats forced Israel again to leave the Sinai without a political settlement.
47. “SNIE 30–2–63,” in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 517. Israel signed the contract with Marcel Dassault in Tel Aviv on 24 April 1963; the estimate was prepared before the signing but hinted that it was likely.
48. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 528.
49. Telegram (800), Department of State to Barbour, 10 May 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 525.
50. Department of State, Memorandum, “Arms Limitations in the Middle East,” 14 May 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 529–35.
52. Robert Komer, interview by author, Washington, D.C., June 1994.
53. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 531.
57. Memorandum, Secretary of State to President Kennedy, “Israel Security Assurances: Near East Arms Limitations,” 16 May 1963, NSF, Box 119. JFKL.
58. The working group proposed that the most appropriate way to put Nasser on notice on the new American initiative, including the gravity of the Israeli nuclear program, was through a presidential letter from Kennedy to Nasser. A proposal for such a letter, drafted by the State Department, was submitted to the White House for the 17 May meeting. The draft letter deals with three main issues: the escalating arms race, the Arab unity proclamation, and the situation in Jordan. On the matter of the arms race, it elaborates on the Egyptian missile program as a cause for Israel’s missiles and nuclear weapons program. It tells Nasser that “Israel is extremely nervous over your rocket program.” As to the Israeli nuclear weapons program, it states that, “while Israel has not yet undertaken development of nuclear weapons, and we will continue to counsel against such a policy, Israel could have the capability to do so in the next several years if it were to divert its efforts in that direction.” It also informs Nasser that Kennedy was studying ways “by which Israel’s nervousness can be reduced, the Arab can be reassured against Israeli expansionism, and the escalation of weaponry in the Near East can be halted” (Draft letter to President Nasser, n.d., POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL).
59. “Possible U.S.-Israel Security Assurances,” POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL.
60. Memorandum, Robert Komer to President Kennedy, 16 May 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 540–41.
61. Deptel 835 (Tel Aviv), Rusk to Barbour, 18 May 1963, POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL; cf. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 543–44.
63. These four lines are still “classified” on the American side and they do not appear in the FRUS, 1961–63 version of the letter. The letter can be found in full at ISA 7233/5/A.
64. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 544.
65. Yuval Ne’eman, interview by author, Austin, Texas, 27 February 1994. Ne’eman was the director of the Research Nuclear Center at Soreq that was involved in Ben Gurion’s consultations on the nuclear issue in 1963.
66. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1554.
67. Draft letter, Ben Gurion to President Kennedy (unsigned), 22 May 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/11.
68. The text as found in Foreign Ministry outgoing telegram to Harman, 27 May 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/9.
69. In ISA there is at least one draft of this letter, which is substantially different from this version on at least three points (ISA, FMRG, 3377/14).
70. The first draft of the letter expressed this point in even stronger terms: “I said to you then [in 1961] that for the time being our only purpose was for peace but that we shall have to follow developments in the Middle East” (ibid.).
71. On this issue the text in the first draft was more ambiguous. It reads as follows: “You will appreciate, Mr. President, that this arrangement with France does not allow me to accept a permanent system of United States control at Dimona since the United States has not participated in the establishment or construction of this reactor, as she has in the case of Nachal Soreq. On the other hand I have considered the proposal for periodic visits to the Dimona reactor by your representatives, such as have already taken place. I now reiterate our agreement to such future visits as well” (ibid.)
72. Foreign Ministry minutes, “A Discussion on Israeli-U.S. Relationship,” 13 June 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/6 (translation by author).
73. In a meeting between Komer and Gazit on 15 May, the idea of a diplomatic dialogue between the two countries to discuss the Ben Gurion-Kennedy correspondence was raised by Komer as a “private idea,” and endorsed by Gazit. In Komer’s memorandum of that conversation he said nothing about a presidential emissary to discuss the American initiative for arms control in the region (Memorandum for the Record, Robert Komer, 15 May 1963, POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL). In Gazit’s report of his conversation “with a credible source who knows all the players on our matters,” however, there is a reference to the possibility of a special presidential emissary (outside the regular channels of the State Department) to discuss questions related to Ben Gurion’s requests (Telegram, Mordechai Gazit to Foreign Ministry, 15 May 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/9).
74. Memorandum, Komer to Bundy, 28 May 1963, POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL.
75. Memorandum, Rusk to President Kennedy, “Meeting with Mr. McCloy on His Near East Mission,” n.d., POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL; “Memorandum for Presidential Emissary,” n.d., and “Scenario with Ben Gurion,” 29 May 1963, POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL.
76. Memorandum, Department of State to Bundy, 12 June 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 575–76.
80. Deptel 938 (Tel Aviv), 15 June 1963, POF, Israel, Box 119a, JFKL.
81. Embtel 1043 (Tel Aviv), 16 June 1963, NSF, Box 119, JFKL. Barbour told Israeli diplomats that he received the cable with Kennedy’s letter on Sunday morning. He had planned to play golf in Cesarea, so he arranged to deliver the presidential message to the prime minister’s office in the afternoon. When he reached his residence after returning from the golf course, he learned of Ben Gurion’s resignation. He called the Department of State and asked to postpone the letter’s delivery until a successor was sworn in. His suggestion was accepted, and the letter was sent back (ISA, FMRG, 3377/6, 3377/11).
82. DBGD, 16 June 1963, DBGA.
83. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1546–48, 1550–55, 1557.
84. Yitzhak Navon, interview by author, Jerusalem, 19 August 1992. Navon acknowledged that he had almost no access to the Dimona consultations.
85. Moshe A. Gilboa, Six Days, Six Years (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1968), 33.
86. Arnan Azaryahu, interview by author, Kibbutz Yiron, 2 September 1993.
87. Yuval Ne’eman, many conversations with author, 1994–96; cf. Yuval Ne’eman, “Israel in the Nuclear Age” (in Hebrew), Nativ, September 1995, 38.
88. Embtel 1043 (Tel Aviv), 16 June 1963, NSF, Box 119, JFKL.
8. DEBATE AT HOME
1. One of the senior ministers who questioned the financial cost of the project, Minister of Finance Eshkol, asked Ben Gurion in January 1960 to discuss the nuclear project before the party leadership rather than the cabinet, but Ben Gurion refused. Instead, he proposed to discuss it in a forum of four party leaders—David Ben Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Shimon Peres (Matti Golan, Peres [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1982], 99).
2. There is a voluminous literature in Hebrew on Ben Gurion and the Lavon Affair. For a recent comprehensive history, see Shabtai Teveth, Shearing Time (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ish Dor, 1992); an abridged version of the book appeared in English (Ben Gurion’s Spy [New York: Columbia University Press, 1996]). See also Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1471–1518.
3. Teveth, Ben Gurion’s Spy, 269–70.
4. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1388–89. Bar-Zohar does not say precisely what they opposed in Peres’s compromise agreement.
5. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1505–6.
6. Ibid., 1506;Tevet, Shearing Time, 452.
7. Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion, vol. 3, 1393, 1506.
8. Golda Meir’s dissent was not made public, but it was known among the people who dealt with the Dimona issue. A hint of Meir’s attitude toward Dimona appears in a Foreign Ministry consultation held on 13 June 1963 (ISA, FMRG, 3377/6). See also, Yuval Ne’eman, interview by author, Austin, Texas, 4 March 1994; and Shimshon Arad, interview by author, Jerusalem, August 1994. Meir had reservations about the U.S. visit to Dimona in 1961. See DBGD, 29 March 1961, DBGA.
10. For example, Uri Bar Joseph, “The Hidden Debate: The Formation of Nuclear Doctrines in the Middle East,” Journal of Strategic Studies 5, no. 2 (June 1982): 205–25; Shlomo Aronson with Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960–1991: An Israeli Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992); Avner Yaniv, Deterrence without the Bomb (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987).
11. There were a few exceptions. Eliezer Livneh, “The Nuclear Reactor Affair” (in Hebrew), PiHa’aton, 31 January 1961.
12. Eliezer Livneh, “Warning in the Last Moment” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 12 January 1962.
13. “Professors Against Nuclear Armament in the Middle East” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 13 March 1962.
14. One such intervention received some publicity. In late March 1962, shortly after the issuance of the Committee’s statement, “senior officials” from the Defense Ministry exerted pressure on the Israeli press association to cancel a briefing by Livneh on “nuclear weapons in the Middle East,” because of considerations of national security. The talk was canceled, but the episode was critically discussed in the press and was brought to the attention of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. See “Unacceptable Intervention” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 27 March 1962; “Peculiar Decision” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 5 April 1962. See also Eliezer Livneh, “Nuclear Interim Review” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 12 October 1962.
15. Interview with Shimon Peres (in Hebrew) published in Davar, 24 August 1962; interview with Shimon Peres in Ma’ariv, 27 July 1962. Among the unofficial spokesmen, see Elkana Gali, “How Israel Would Respond to Nasser’s Missiles” (in Hebrew), Yediot Achronot, 10 August 1962; Poles, “Defense Outlook in the Missile Age” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 28 September 1962.
16. “Stress in Acquisition of Deterrence Weapons” (in Hebrew), Yediot Achronot, 13 August 1962.
17. Airgram (A-232), Barbour to State Department, 9 October 1962, NSF, Box 118, JFKL.
18. Rafael Bashan, “Interview of the Week with Shimon Peres” (in Hebrew), Ma’ariv, 27 July 1962.
19. Interview with Shimon Peres (in Hebrew) in Davar, 24 August 1962; Bashan, “Interview of the Week with Shimon Peres.”
20. “Shimon Peres Criticizes Public Figures and Scientists Who Demanded Denuclearization” (in Hebrew), Kol Ha’am, 17 September 1962; see also Ha’aretz, 16 September 1962; and Davar, 16 September 1962.
21. Bashan, “Interview of the Week with Shimon Peres.”
22. Twenty-five years later, in the wake of the Vanunu Affair, the secretary of the Committee published his memoirs about the group’s activities (Yehuda Ben Moshe, “25 Years Before Vanunu” [in Hebrew], Koteret Rashit, 26 November 1986).
23. “Scientists Call for Regional Denuclearization” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 25 July 1962.
24. Ben Moshe, “25 Years Before Vanunu”; Amos Korchin (Korchin was a member of the Committee), interview by author, Tel Aviv, 18 August 1992; Yoram Nimrod (Nimrod was a member of the Committee), interview by author, Ein Hahoresh, 4 September 1992.
25. The views of the Committee members were published in late 1963, after lengthy bickering with the military censor (Israel-Arab: Nuclearization or Denuclearization (in Hebrew) [Tel Aviv: Amikam Press, 1963]).
26. Korchin, interview; Nimrod, interview.
27. In 1961 the Ministry of Defense asked daily newspapers not to publish Livneh’s articles on the subject for reasons of national security (letter, Gavriel Ziforni [editor of Haboker] to Eliezer Livneh, 5 January 1961, Box 29, Livneh Archive, Efal, Israel).
28. Shlomo Zalman Abramov (former Liberal Party member of Knesset), interview by author, Jerusalem, 26 August 1992; Korchin, interview; Nimrod, interview.
29. “Discussions among the Parties on Nuclear Armament in the Middle East” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 15 March 1962;“Party Heads Discuss Nuclear Armament” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 6 May 1962; “The Liberal Party on the Issue of Denuclearization: Voices in the Party in Favor of Israeli Initiative” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 29 May 1962; “Discussion in MAPAM on Nuclear Free Zone in the Region” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 17 June 1962;“Appeal to MAPAI to Discuss Denuclearization” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 7 July 1962.
30. Abramov, interview; Yossef Tamir (former Liberal Party member of Knesset), interview by author, Tel Aviv, 20 August 1992.
31. “The Liberal Party on the Issue of Denuclearization.”
32. Party Heads Discuss Nuclear Armament” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 6 May 1962.
33. Abramov, interview; Tamir, interview.
34. Zeev Zur (former Achdut Ha’Avodah member of Knesset), interview by author, Ramat Efal, 7 July 1992.
35. “Difficult Discussion on the Nuclear Issues at Subcommittees” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 24 January 1963.
36. Yizhar Smilansky (former MAPAI and RAFI member of Knesset; also a leading Israeli novelist), interview by author, Meishar, 20 August 1992.
37. The appendix to the coalition agreement, entitled “Ministerial Committee,” was signed by Israel Galili for Achdut Ha’Avodah and Levi Eshkol for MAPAI (Galili collection, Box 2, 49–1, Hakibbutz Hameuchad Archive, Yad Tabenkin, Israel).
38. The incident that directly prompted this clause was the launching of the small meteorological rocket, Shavit II, in early July 1961. Ben Gurion authorized the highly publicized event on his own without informing the cabinet. The event looked to the leaders of Achdut Ha’avodah like a campaign gimmick. Their strong protest led to a cabinet decision, made on 16 July 1961, stating that all “tests [of military funded systems] with international ramifications” must be preapproved by the government.
39. Moshe A. Gilboa, Six Years, Six Days: Origins and History of the Six Day War (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1968), 29–30; Yigal Allon, Contriving Warfare (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1990), 200, 205, 207, 305; Yair Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 6–7.
40. Gilboa, Six Years, Six Days, 30.
41. Peres never argued publicly in Israel for nuclear weapons; he always used code phrases like “technological edge” or “independent deterrent.” Outside Israel, however, he allowed his views to be echoed by others close to him. See editorial in the Jewish Observer, “An Independent Deterrent to Israel,” 28 December 1962. The editor of the Observer, John Kimche, was known to have close contacts with Peres.
42. Yigal Allon, Curtain of Sand (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1968), esp. 400–402; see also Allon, Contriving Warfare, 195–209.
43. Gilboa, Six Years, Six Days, 29–30.
44. Allon, Contriving Warfare, 305; cf. Gilboa, Six Years, Six Days, 30.
45. Arnan Azaryahu, many conversations with author, Kibbutz Yiron and Tel Aviv. Azaryahu wrote the position paper for Galili for that meeting. The episode also appears in Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, 6–7.
46. Arnan Azaryahu, interview by author, Kibbutz Yiron, 22 August 1992;Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, 17–18.
47. Moshe Zak (former senior editor of Ma’ariv), interview by author, Tel Aviv, June 1996.
48. Shimon Peres, “The Time Dimension” (in Hebrew), Ma’arachot 146 (1962): 3–5.
9. KENNEDY AND ESHKOL STRIKE A DEAL
1. W. Granger Blair, “Israel Looks to a New Leader,” New York Times, 23 June 1963, 1.
2. Letter, President John F. Kennedy to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, 5 July 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/14. The letter, including instructions to Ambassador Walworth Barbour, is contained in Deptel 19 (Tel Aviv), 3 July 1963, POF Box 119a, JFKL.
5. Deptel 19 (Tel Aviv), 3 July 1963.
6. After Barbour handed Kennedy’s letter to Eshkol, he assured Gideon Rafael and Chaim Yahil, the senior members of the Foreign Ministry, that there was no special meaning to the delivery of the letter to Eshkol so soon after he assumed office. The original letter was to be delivered to Ben Gurion on the afternoon of 16 June, but when he heard about Ben Gurion’s resignation that day, he asked the State Department to wait in order to deliver the letter to the new prime minister (Memorandum, Gideon Rafael to Levi Eshkol, 7 July 1963, ISA, FMRG, Box 3377/6).
7. Hermann Eilts, telephone interview by author, 22 June 1997.
8. Memorandum, Robert Komer to President John F. Kennedy, 3 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 623.
9. Memorandum, Secretary of State Dean Rusk to President John F. Kennedy, 23 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 653–55; Hermann Eilts, interviews by author, 19 January 1996 and 29 May 1997.
10. Memorandum, William C. Foster to President Kennedy, “Political Implications of a Nuclear Test Ban,” 12 July 1963, 2, National Security Files (NSF), Box 255–65 (ACDA), JFKL.
11. This point was elaborated in the ACDA guidance prepared for Harriman’s mission in the following way:
One of the principal interests of the United States in a test ban agreement is an interest in it as one of a series of steps designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons throughout the world. It is probable that the U.S.S.R. has a similar interest. It might be advisable to discuss this interest with the Soviet Union with relation to the interests of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in a test ban. In the first instance the U.S. should point out that the signing of a test ban treaty would mean that there would be no additional nuclear powers in our camp. We should point out that we would attempt to obtain adherence by the French and as a result a reduction of the intensity of the French nuclear development program. (“Points to Be Covered in Preparation of Forthcoming July 15 Mission of Governor Harriman to Moscow,” 20 June 1963, unsigned, prepared in ACDA, NSF, Box 255–65, JFKL)
12. “Instructions Proposed for Honorable W. Averell Harriman,” 9 July 1963, prepared for 515th NSC Meeting, NSF, Box 255–65, JFKL.
13. “Summary Record of the National Security Council Meeting, 9 July 1963: Harriman Instructions for Mission to Moscow,” 3, NSF, Box 255–65, JFKL.
14. According to Glenn Seaborg, before Harriman’s mission to Moscow Kennedy considered abandoning the idea of MLF in order to advance the cause of a nonproliferation agreement with the Soviets. Because of opposition from both Rusk and Bundy, however, he gave up the idea (Glenn T. Seaborg, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years [Lexington, Mass.: Lexington, 1987], 92).
15. Cited in Seaborg, Stemming the Tide, 111.
16. There is no way to know whether, and to what extent, the pressure on Israel was discussed between Kennedy and Harriman, or whether Harriman was authorized to say anything on this matter to the Russian leader. Carl Kaysen, Harriman’s deputy on this trip to Moscow, was not informed about the Israeli developments. The Israeli issue was limited to three senior staff members at the White House: McGeorge Bundy, Robert Komer, and Myer Feldman (Carl Kaysen, interviews by author, Cambridge, Mass., 3 August and 6 December 1995).
17. Kaysen, interviews, 3 August and 6 December 1995.
18. In such a case, warned Adrian Fisher, ACDA acting director, the Germans would not remain content with MLF participation, “for under such circumstances there would be strong forces to argue that Germany would remain a second class nation so long as she had less independent nuclear capability than Israel or Sweden or India, however small that capability might be (Memorandum for the Secretary of State, “Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the MLF,” 15 June 1964, Nonproliferation Collection, NSA).
19. Memorandum, Robert Komer to President Kennedy, 23 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 651 (emphasis in original).
20. Memorandum of Conversation, “McCloy’s Near East Arms Limitations Probe; Security Guarantees for Israel,” 23 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 658–61. Apparently four of the ten participants had no idea about the letter, including Badeau, McCloy, Nitze, and Eilts (Eilts interview, 22 June 1997).
21. Miriam Eshkol, interview by author, Jerusalem, 27 May 1995.
22. “Prime Minister: Ten Minutes Compared to Four Years” (in Hebrew), Ha’olam Hazeh, 17 July 1963.
23. “Draft Reply to President Kennedy’s Letter of 5 July 1963,” 7 July 1963, ISA, FMRG, Box 3377/14.
25. Telegram (86), Shimshon Arad to Avraham Harman, 13 August 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
26. Elyahu Salpeter, “Israeli Scientific Development—the Subject of Correspondence between Kennedy and Israel’s Prime Minister: The Background—U.S. President’s Fears about Nuclear Production Proliferation” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 14 July 1963.
27. “Disagreements among Cabinet Members Regarding ‘A Sensitive Political-Security Matter’” (in Hebrew), Kol Ha’am, 9 August 1963.
28. Telegram (45), Arad to Harman, 8 July 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/9; cf. Telegram (77), Arad to Gazit, 14 July 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/9.
29. On 21 July three U.S. unarmed reconnaissance planes were forced to land at Lod Airport while flying over or around Dimona. Though both Israel and the United States made efforts to keep the incident secret, it was interpreted in the Israeli press as an espionage mission conducted by the same U.S. organization that ran the reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union (Ha’aretz, 21 July 1963, as cited in Telegram [123] from the Foreign Ministry to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., 21 July 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3378/1). The flight characteristics (it was conducted not by a lone U-2 but by three slower planes on an allegedly administrative-training mission) led to the thought that it was meant more as an effort to exert pressure on Israel than a genuine intelligence operation.
30. “The Cabinet Announced Israeli Readiness to Join the Moscow Agreement” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 1 August 1963.
31. The secret resolution appears in a memo from the cabinet secretary to the prime minister and the foreign minister, ISA, FMRG, Box 3044/77.
32. Yuval Ne’eman, interview by author, Austin, Texas, March 1994.
34. Mordechai Gazit, interview by author, Jerusalem, 14 June 1995; also, Gazit, correspondence with author, 26 November 1995.
35. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion (in Hebrew), 3 vols. (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1987), vol. 3, 1560.
36. Telegram (79), Israeli Embassy in Washington to Foreign Ministry, 15 August 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
37. The text of Eshkol’s letter appears in Telegram (117), Shimshon Arad to Ambassador Avraham Harman, 19 August 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/10.
39. Telegram (121), Arad to Harman, 19 August 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
41. Deptel 193 (Tel Aviv) (contains text of Kennedy’s letter to Eshkol), 26 August 1963, POF, Box 119a, JFKL. The text of Kennedy’s letter is also cited in full in a telegram (227) from Arad to Harman, 27 August 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/10.
42. Deptel 193 (Tel Aviv), 26 August 1963; Telegram (227), Arad to Harman, 27 August 1963.
44. This point was at the core of the oral message that the U.S. representative was requested to convey to Eshkol on behalf of Kennedy. The first draft of these instructions was the most elaborate on this issue:
President Kennedy is troubled by [the] fact that you (Primin) should wish to place too rigid a restriction on the use to which we might put information attesting the peaceful purpose of Israel’s nuclear program. We would, of course, observe your wishes in this matter, but the President is anxious that you understand our purpose in this matter. It is not to reveal any specific arrangements with you but in a general sense to allay apprehension which could have great dangers both worldwide and particularly in the Near East. The President is convinced that the utility of setting to rest fears which otherwise could lead to a nuclear weapons efforts by others in the area far outweighs the deterrent effect of uncertainty…. If at any time this uncertainty was accidentally accentuated, it would also create the greatest threat of disastrous military adventure. This must be prevented. The President and Mr. Ben Gurion agreed on this in May 1961. So the President asks that the agreement then reached be continued with respect to the future visits to which you have assented. (Draft Deptel 193 [Tel Aviv], 23 August 1963)
45. Telegram (79), Israeli Embassy in Washington to Foreign Ministry, 15 August 1963.
46. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 650–51 (emphasis in original).
47. Ibid. (emphasis in original).
48. Memorandum, Rusk to Kennedy, 23 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 653–55.
49. There was another school of thought at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Ambassador Harman’s deputy, Mordechai Gazit, did not share the pessimistic views of his ambassador and thought that proper verbal commitments would resolve the issue. He saw the issue as a trigger for increasing U.S. involvement in Israel’s security (Mordechai Gazit, interview by author, Jerusalem, 6 June 1995; Minutes, “Meeting of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Mr. Mordechai Gazit,” 30 August 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3379/4).
50. “Consultations on the Matter of the Exchange with the President of the United States,” 6 September 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10, pp. 20–21.
51. Telegram (61), Levi Eshkol to Avraham Harman and Mordechai Gazit, 10 September 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
52. Letter, Kennedy to Eshkol, 3 October 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/10.
53. Telegram (571), Arad to Harman, 4 October 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
54. Telegram (103), Mordechai Gazit to Chaim Yahil, 18 October 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/10.
55. The point was made to Ambassador Harman by Myer Feldman (Memorandum, Avraham Harman to Chaim Yahil, “Conversation with M. Feldman,” 14 October 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3377/10).
56. Komer presented a lengthy argument to Gazit that the IDF should be interested in purchasing attack helicopters, the weapons of the future battlefield, not tanks (Mordechai Gazit, interview by author, Jerusalem, 6 June 1995).
57. Minutes, “Meeting of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Mr. Mordechai Gazit,” 30 August 1963; Mordechai Gazit, President Kennedy’s Policy Towards the Arab States and Israel: Analysis and Documents (Ramat Aviv: Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1983), 44–45.
58. “Consultations on the Matter of the Exchange with the President of the United States,” 6 September 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
59. Telegram (61), Levi Eshkol to Avraham Harman and Mordechai Gazit, 10 September 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10. See also Robert Komer, “Memorandum for Record: Luncheon with Israeli Minister Gazit, 23 September 1963,” 24 September 1963, NSF, Box 119, JFKL.
60. Telegram (10), Harman to Yahil, 2 October 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10;Telegram (18) Harman to Yahil, 2 October 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3379/4; Telegram (34), Harman to Yahil, 3 October 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
61. The text of Eshkol’s letter appears in an outgoing telegram (797), Arad to Harman, 4 November 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/10.
63. Telegram (858), Foreign Ministry to Harman, 11 November 1963, ISA, FMRG 3379/4.
64. Telegram (10), Arad to Harman, 3 November 1963, ISA, FMRG 3379/4.
65. Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) 30–2–63, “The Advanced Weapons Programs of the AR and Israel,” 8 May 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 517–18.
66. “Talking Points for Rabin Session,” 14 November 1963, 002948–94, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Robert Komer, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 17 May 1995.
67. Telegram (63), Harman to Ben Gurion, 13 November 1963, ISA, FMRG, 3379/4.
68. “Talking Points for Rabin Session”; Komer, interview.
69. “Talking Points for Rabin Session”; Komer, interview.
70. Robert Komer, conversations with author, Washington, D.C., 1992–1995.
71. Komer stated this in a Center for National Security Negotiations (CNSN) workshop, “Lessons and Legacies of Nuclear History,” Washington, D.C., 24 May 1995.
72. Mordechai Gazit, interview by author, Jerusalem, 9 June 1995.
10. THE DIMONA VISITS (1964-1967)
1. Letter, President John F. Kennedy to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, 5 July 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/9; cf. “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Israel,” 4 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 18, 624–26.
2. FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 625.
3. Israel’s opposition to placing Dimona under IAEA safeguards was argued differently at different times. An early argument, first made by Ben Gurion and Peres, was that a system of international safeguards must be equally applied to all states, otherwise it would contradict the principles of national sovereignty (what Peres, following the French, called “atomic sovereignty”). Later, when Israel still opposed placing its smaller American reactor under IAEA safeguards, it argued against the Agency’s refusal to include Israel as a Middle Eastern country. After the Eshkol government agreed to accept IAEA safeguards for the Soreq reactor, Israel argued, privately, that even though it had pledged to the United States that it would not develop nuclear weapons, it had no interest in reassuring Nasser on the point, and preferred “letting him guess” (see “Atom Control View Explained in Israel,” New York Times, 20 April 1964, 6; “Israel Will Accept Atom Control Shift,” New York Times, 9 June 1964, 6).
4. The State Department was aware of the differences between the two countries in interpreting the ground rules for the visits, but decided to interpret Eshkol’s letter to mean that he had accepted Kennedy’s rules (“Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State George Ball to President Kennedy,” 23 August 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 685–87.
5. William N. Dale (deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, 1964–68), telephone interview by author, 24 April 1995; Michael Sterner (former State Department official who was involved in the visits), interview by author, Washington, D.C., April 1995.
6. Telegram (568), Secretary of State Dean Rusk to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Walworth Barbour, 5 January 1965, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files (CFPF), 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
7. Ibid. Barbour responded to the terminological issue in this way: “While status of team as ‘guests of Israel’ or ‘inspectors’ not of concern to U.S., it is of major concern to prime minister in light [of] domestic political considerations involved, and I am sure that recognition [of] this fact by team will considerably enhance value and atmosphere [of] visit” (Embtel [771], Barbour to Rusk, 6 January 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA; Culler, numerous letters and telephone conversations with author, May–June 1996.
8. Letter, Foreign Ministry Director-General Chaim Yahil to Barbour, 5 December 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/11.
9. Letter, Barbour to Yahil, 7 January 1964, ISA, FMRG 3377/14; Telegram (599), Rusk to Barbour, 6 January 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA; cf. Embtel 706 (Tel Aviv), Rusk to Barbour, 6 January 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, USNA.
10. Telegram (758), Barbour to Rusk, 8 January 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA; Draft Letter, “DRAFT 1,” n.d., ISA, FMRG 3377/14.
11. For the American interpretation of Eshkol’s letter to Kennedy, see “Memorandum, from Acting Secretary of State Ball to President Kennedy,” 23 August 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 685–87.
12. Memorandum, Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs Roger P. Davies, Department of State, to Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Phillips Talbot, “Briefing of Dimona Inspection Team,” 11 January 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
13. “Summary of Findings of Dimona Inspection Team,” 7 February 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
14. Ibid; Telegram (7058), Rusk to London Embassy, 29 April 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
18. Telegram (301), Rusk to Barbour, 14 October 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
19. Embtel (407), Barbour to Rusk, 21 October 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
20. Telegram (660), Barbour to Rusk, 7 December 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
21. “Preliminary Draft Report of Dimona Inspection Team,” n.d. (attached to memo dated 4 February 1965), RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
24. Memorandum, State Department to National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, “Dimona Inspection and Need to Implement Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation in the Near East,” 4 February 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
25. “Preliminary Draft Report of Dimona Inspection Team,” 4.
26. “Dimona Inspection and Need to Implement Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation in the Near East,” 1.
28. John W. Finney, “Israel Permits U.S. to Inspect Atomic Reactor,” New York Times, 14 March 1965, 1, 8.
29. John W. Finney, interview by author, summer 1996.
30. Telegram (922), Rusk to Barbour, 11 March 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
31. Telegram (1691), circular, 14 March 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
32. Telegram (941), Rusk to Barbour, 16 March 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
33. “Background Paper: Dimona Visits,” n.d., RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA; Memorandum of Conversation with Foreign Minister Abba Eban, “Subject: Dimona Visits,” 7 February 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
34. Telegram (652), U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Raymond A. Hare to Barbour, 10 February 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
35. Telegram (698), Rusk to Barbour, 1 March 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
36. Telegram (761), Rusk to Barbour, 19 March 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
37. John W. Finney, “U.S. Again Assured on Negev Reactor,” New York Times, 28 June 1966, 8.
38. In 1994 the IAEC confirmed that, on 14 December 1966, an accident, in which a technician was killed and three others were injured, occurred in one of the labs at the Dimona facility (Alex Doron and Liat Ron, “A Mysterious Accident in the Nuclear Reactor in Dimona” [in Hebrew], Ma’ariv, Special Supplement, 14 September 1994, 4–7).
39. John W. Finney, “Israel Could Make Atom Arms in 3 or 4 Years, U.S. Aides Say,” New York Times, 6 July 1967.
40. Pierre Péan, Les deux bombes (Paris: Fayard, 1981), 111–15, 118–20; interview with Frances Perrin, Sunday Times, 6 October 1986.
41. Péan, Les deux bombes, 111–15, 118–20.
42. Floyd Culler, letter to author, 9 May 1996; Culler, numerous letters and telephone conversations with author, May–June 1996.
43. Ibid. Former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms confirms Culler’s assumption that it was decided that intelligence data not be shared with the Dimona inspection team. Helms suggests that they were not properly briefed by the CIA because the CIA briefers were probably told not to tell them anything. The dominant urge at the time was to contain any firm American acknowledgment of an Israeli nuclear capability (Richard Helms, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 2 October 1997).
44. These details are mentioned in the recently declassified correspondence between Secretary of State Rogers and Ambassador Barbour in 1969.
45. Culler, letters and conversations.
47. Dale, telephone interview; former senior U.S. intelligence officer, interview by author, 17 April 1995; Culler, letters and conversations.
48. Culler, letters and conversations.
50. Ibid.; George B. Pleat, letter to author, 26 July 1996.
51. Culler, letters and conversations.
53. Airgram (A-742), “Current Status of the Dimona Reactor,” 9 April 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
55. Finney, “Israel Permits U.S. to Inspect Atomic Reactor,” 1, 8; Finney, “U.S. Again Assured on Negev Reactor,” 8.
56. Airgram (A-742), “Current Status of the Dimona Reactor,” 9 April 1965.
57. According to the figures Webber presents in his study, the average cost of a scientist at the Weizmann Institute (“with facilities as good as any in the world”) is slightly under $100,000 per scientist; at the Hebrew University the cost is about $80,000; at the Technion that cost is about $69,000; at the Standards Institution of Israel it is about $58,000; while at Soreq nuclear establishment the average cost is about $75,000.
58. Dale, interview. Dale recalls that Barbour’s comment was that the “time has come for the embassy to write such a report.” He added that they could not have sent such a sensitive document without the ambassador’s consent.
59. Robert W. Komer, interviews by author, Washington, D.C., 22 June 1992, and 13 April 1995.
60. Former senior U.S. intelligence officer, interview by author, 26 August 1996.
61. Ibid. Chief of Counter-Intelligence Staff, James Jesus Angleton, a controversial cold warrior who was a close friend of Israel, had overall responsibility for the Israeli desk at the CIA. For more on Angleton, see David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Harper and Row, 1980); and Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior, James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991). Again, it is important to note Helms’s conviction that the CIA briefers were probably instructed not to divulge special intelligence information to the inspection teams (Helms, interview).
62. Culler, letters and conversations.
11. AMBIGUITY BORN
1. Arel Ginai, “What Lyndon Johnson Was Ready to Promise to Levi Eshkol” (in Hebrew), Yediot Achronot, Weekend Supplement, 29 May 1964.
2. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), 126–28.
3. Memorandum, Shimshon Arad to Ambassador Avraham Harman, 25 December 1963, ISA, FMRG 3378/1.
4. Memorandum for the Assistant Secretary of Defense, “Possible Sale of Medium Tanks,” 13 January 1964, NSF-NSAM, Box 3, LBJL; Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, “Arms for Israel,” 18 January 1964, NSF, Box 144–45, LBJL.
5. Memorandum, National Security Council Senior Staffer Robert Komer to President Johnson, 18 February 1964, Office Files of Robert Komer, Box 6, LBJL.
6. Nasser’s threat was made during his conversation with Robert Komer in Cairo on 15 April 1963) (Airgram [A-767], “Memorandum of Conversation with President Nasser,” 18 April 1963), courtesy of Jim Walsh.
7. Memorandum for McGeorge Bundy, “Subject: Need to Reassure President Nasser on the Peaceful Nature of the Dimona Reactor,” n.d., Department of State, Center for Foreign Policy Files, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
8. Telegram (75), Shimshon Arad to Simcha Dinitz (for Foreign Minister Golda Meir), 29 February 1964, ISA, FMRG, 4320/6.
9. Memorandum, Komer to Johnson, 18 February 1964, Office Files of Robert Komer, Box 6, LBJL; Robert Komer, interview by author, Washington, D.C., October 1994.
10. Telegram (904), Ambassador Walworth Barbour to Assistant Secretary of State Philip Talbot, 29 February 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
11. Telegram (766), Arieh Levavi to Ambassador Avraham Harman, 3 March 1964, ISA, FMRG, 4320/6; also Telegram (11), Arieh Levavi to Simcha Dinitz, 3 March 1964, ISA, FMRG, 4320/6; Telegram (916), Barbour to Rusk, 3 March 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
12. There are separate but not discordant Israeli and American versions of these conversations. For the Israeli version, see Telegram (770), Arad to Harman, 3 March 1964, ISA, FMRG 4320/6; Telegram (776), Arad to Harman, 3 March 1964, ISA, FMRG 4320/6. For the American version, see Telegram (916), Barbour to Rusk, 3 March 1964;Telegram (919), Barbour to Rusk (three parts), 4 March 1964, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 3068, USNA.
13. Telegram (75), Arad to Dinitz (for Foreign Minister Meir), 29 February 1964.
14. Memorandum, Bundy to Johnson, 13 March 1964, NSF, NSAM Box 3, LBJL.
15. National Security Action Memorandum No. 290, “Meeting Israel’s Arms Requests,” 19 March 1964, NSF, NSAM Box 3, LBJL.
16. Letter, Johnson to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, 19 March 1964, ISA, FMRG 3377/14.
17. Letter, Eshkol to Johnson, 7 April 1964, ISA, FMRG 3377/14.
19. Memorandum, Deputy Special Counsel Myer Feldman to Johnson, 11 May 1964 (enclosed three-page memo, entitled “Tanks for Israel” dated 14 March 1964), NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL.
20. Telegram (1140), Barbour to Rusk, 15 May 1964, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 139, LBJL.
21. “Atom Control View Explained in Israel,” New York Times, 20 April 1964, 6; “The U.S. Was Not Convinced by Israeli Objections to International Control on Soreq” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 21 April 1964; Elyahu Salpeter, “Israel Wants to Extend the Agreement for Two Years” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 22 April 1964; Ze’ev Schiff, “The Danger in Control over the Atomic Reactor” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 24 April 1964; Yossef Harish, “Israel Demands of the United States to Renew the Nuclear Agreement for Two Additional Years” (in Hebrew), Ma’ariv, 20 April 1964;Eliezer Wiesel, “Despite the American Pressure, Israel Rejects Supervision of Nuclear Research,” Yediot Achronot, 19 April 1964, 1.
22. Telegram (967099), Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to Ambassador in Bonn, 5 May 1964, NSF, NSAM, Box 3, LBJL.
23. Memorandum of Conversation, 18 May 1964, NSF McGeorge Bundy Files, Box 19, LBJL.
24. Memorandum, Komer to Johnson, 28 May 1964, NSF, Country File—Israel, Eshkol Visit, Box 143, LBJL; cf. Memorandum, Acting Secretary of State George Ball to Johnson, n.d., NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 142–43, LBJL. In this State Department briefing memo for the same occasion the U.S. policy is defined in the following way:
We are concerned about the escalation of the Near East arms race and firmly oppose proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile acquisition by either side. We consider acquisition of missiles, even with conventional warhead, a significant step toward the acquisition of nuclear capability. We have discussed restraint in this field with both Israel and the U.A.R. and intend to pursue it further. We are not unhopeful of positive results. (Emphasis added.)
25. Memorandum of Conversation, Johnson, Feldman, Eshkol, Harman, 1 June 1964, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 143, LBJL (hereafter referred to as EJAV); Memorandum of Conversation, Johnson, Feldman, Eshkol, and Harman—First Meeting, 1 June 1964, ISA, FMRG 3504/17 (hereafter referred to as EJIV).
28. Memorandum, Komer to Johnson, 2 June 1964, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 143, LBJL (emphasis in original).
29. “Second Meeting of Prime Minister Eshkol with President Johnson, June 2,” n.d., ISA, FMRG, 3504/17; note for file by Mordechai Gazit, 9 June 1964; Mordechai Gazit, interview by author, Jerusalem, 28 May 1995.
30. Memorandum, Komer to Johnson, 3 June 1964, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 143, LBJL.
31. Memorandum, Gazit to Levavi, 3 June 1964, ISA, FMRG, 3504/17.
32. Telegram (3457), Rusk to Embassy (Bonn), 3 June 1964, NSF, NSAM, Box 3, LBJL; Telegram (3638), Rusk to Embassy (Bonn), 17 June 1964, NSF, NSAM, Box 3, LBJL
33. Memorandum, Bundy to Johnson, 12 June 1964, NSF, Memos to the President File, Box 2, “Bundy, vol. 5,” LBJL.
34. Letter, Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton to Komer, 15 July 1964, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL.
35. Memorandum, Ball (for Rusk) to Johnson, “Near East Arms,” 19 February 1965, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL.
36. Robert W. Komer, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 22 June 1992.
37. Memorandum (and Attachments), Deputy Assistant Secretary Peter Solbert to Bundy, 8 March 1965, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL.
38. Komer, interviews by author, Washington, D.C., 22 June 1992; 13 April 1995.
39. “Memorandum of Conversation Between Shimon Peres and Robert Komer,” 2 October 1964, ISA, FMRG, 3504/17.
40. Yitzhak Rabin, A Service Record (in Hebrew), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Ma’ariv, 1979), 129–30; Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoir (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 65.
41. Komer, interviews, 22 June 1992; 13 April 1995.
42. Memorandum of Understanding, Eshkol, Komer, Barbour, 10 March 1965, ISA, FMRG 3501/17.
43. Letter, Eshkol to Johnson, 12 March 1965, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL.
44. Letter, Johnson to Eshkol, 22 March 1965, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL.
45. Briefing Memorandum, Handle to Averell W. Harriman, “Your Meeting with Israeli Ambassador,” 13 May 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 2356, USNA; State Department, Memorandum of Conversation, 15 June 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964-66, Box 1644, USNA.
46. Memorandum, Secretary of State Dean Rusk to President Lyndon B. Johnson, 7 May 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
47. Telegram (1254), Rusk to Ambassador Walworth Barbour, 5 June 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA; State Department, Memorandum of Conversation, 15 June 1965.
48. Telegram (83), Rusk to Barbour, 27 July 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
49. Telegram, George Ball to Barbour, 12 May 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA; Memorandum of Conversation, “Israeli Arms Procurement Request,” 3 June 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA; Telegram (1254), Rusk to Barbour, 5 June 1965.
50. Memorandum, Handley to Rusk, “The Israeli Aircraft Request: General Weizman’s Visit,” RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
51. Letter, Ambassador Avraham Harman to Phillips Talbot, 10 June 1965, NSF Files, Box 139, LBJL; Telegram, Rusk to Barbour, 11 June 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA. Harman’s letter was sent to National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy with the following note:
As the President knows, this request for Phantoms is completely outside the agreement reached in Israel in March. We have made Israeli officials aware informally of the impossibility of supplying Phantoms and intend to inform the Israeli Government officially of our position. We propose to continue to explore with the Israelis the meeting of their requirements within the context of the Memorandum of Understanding and agreed minutes of March 10, i.e., to ensure Israel an opportunity to purchase a certain number of mutually agreed combat aircraft. (Memorandum, Benjamin Read to Bundy, NSF, Box 139, LBJL)
52. Memorandum, Jeffrey C. Kitchen to Thompson, “Israel-US Discussions on Aircraft Procurement,” n.d., RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
53. Moked was the code name for the IAF plan to obtain aerial superiority by destroying Arab air forces on the ground in the first hours of war. Ezer Weizman was the “father founder” of this concept, and operational plans were continuously updated since 1962 (Eitan Haber, “The Man That Downed 376 Enemy Planes” [in Hebrew], Yediot Ahronot, 5 June 1992, 8).
54. Memorandum, Jeffrey C. Kitchen to Thompson, “Israel-US Discussions on Aircraft Procurement.”
55. Deptel (Paris), Bohlen to Rusk, 29 October 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA; Memorandum, Robert W. Komer to Johnson, 28 October 1965, NSF, Box 139, LBJL; Telegram (416), Rusk to Barbour, 10 November 1965, NSF, Box 139, LBJL.
56. Memorandum, Hare to Alexis Johnson, “Your Appointment with Ambassador Harman at 11:30 Today,” RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 2356, USNA.
58. Correspondence between the author and Mordechai Gazit, 1996–97.
59. Embtel, Rusk to Barbour, 30 July 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
60. On 25 January 1966 Ambassador Harman clarified that Weizman’s request was based on two separate articles in the 10 March Komer-Eshkol MOU, Articles III and V(c). The former article refers to the long-term effective Israeli deterrent; it was in this broad context that Weizman made his request for 210 new planes. Article V(c) refers to near-term needs and it was in this context that Weizman requested forty-five Phantoms (Memorandum of Conversation, “Aircraft for Israel and Jordan,” 25 January 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA).
61. Embtel (939), Barbour to Rusk, 19 January 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
62. Deptel (606), Rusk to Barbour, 26 January 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
63. Embtel (3747), Barbour to Rusk, 27 January 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
64. Memorandum of Conversation, “Nuclear Proliferation” (part 2 of 2), 9 February 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 2356, USNA; cf. Deptel (652), Rusk to Barbour, 10 February 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 2356, USNA.
68. Memorandum, Komer to Johnson, 8 February 1966, NSF, Box 6 (Komer files), LBJL. Emphasis in original.
69. Memorandum for the Record, “President Talk with Israeli Foreign Minister Eban,” 9 February 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 2356, USNA.
70. Deptel (691), Rusk to Barbour, 26 February 1966, NSF, Box 139, LBJL.
72. The proposed draft of the letter, prepared by the State Department, was located, along with a cover letter from Davies to Hoopes dated 21 February 1966, in RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
73. Memorandum of Conversation, “Letter on Aircraft Sale to Israel,” 4 March 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
75. Memorandum of Conversation, “Letter Request for Modification Aircraft Agreement Arrangements,” 14 March 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
78. Action Memorandum, Hare to Rusk, 16 March 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
79. Deptel (2250), Rusk to Barbour, 17 May 1966, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, Box 1644, USNA.
80. Ibid. (emphasis in original).
81. Former senior U.S. intelligence official, interview by author, 2 August 1996.
82. William N. Dale, telephone interview by author, 24 April 1995. Also, former senior U.S. intelligence official, interview, 2 August 1996. The official was familiar with Barbour’s views on this matter. Cf. Hersh, The Samson Option, 159–69.
83. Myer Feldman, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 10 June 1992.
84. Glenn T. Seaborg, telephone interview by author, 15 July 1996. It is not yet confirmed whether the CIA based its assumption that the Israelis possessed a reprocessing plant on hard evidence. Seaborg indicated his uncertainty on the matter.
85. Komer, interview, 22 June 1992.
86. The quote is taken from a U.S. government document entitled, “Background Paper on Factors Which Could Influence National Decisions Concerning Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons,” NSF, Committee on Nuclear Proliferation, LBJL.
87. Memorandum, Komer to Johnson, 8 February 1966, NSF, “Komer Memos, vol. 2,” Box 6, LBJL.
88. Feldman, interview, 10 June 1992.
89. Glenn T. Seaborg, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987), 105–7.
90. In a speech to the nation, Johnson noted that in recent years Khrushchev had shown himself “aware of the need for sanity in the nuclear age,” but Communist China had no “long experience as major powers in the modern world,” and
its nuclear pretensions are both expensive and cruel to its people…. Communist China’s expensive and demanding effort tempts other states to equal folly. Nuclear spread is dangerous to all mankind. What if there should come to be 10 nuclear powers, or maybe 20 nuclear powers? What if we must learn to look everywhere for the restraint which our own example now sets for a few? … The lesson of Lop Nor is that we are right to recognize the danger of nuclear spread; that we must continue to work against it, and we will…. We continue to believe that the struggle against nuclear spread is as much in the Soviet interest as in our own. We will be ready to join with them and all the world in working to avoid it. (Address of the President, 18 October 1964, Office of the White House Press Secretary)
91. Rusk raised the question of whether the United States would not be better off if India and Japan were able to respond to Chinese threats with nuclear weapons of their own. In late 1964 and early 1965 Rusk invoked the possibility of having an Asian group of nuclear weapons countries, explaining that the nuclear rivalry was among Asian countries, not between northern countries and Asians. He argued that “it is easier for the U.S. to speak against proliferation, but the Prime Minister of India or Japan must look at the question quite differently.” It was natural for the United States to be against nuclear proliferation in areas where American defense alliances already existed, such as in Europe, but preaching nonproliferation was more difficult in cases in which such alliances did not exist, as in the case of India:
De Gaulle doubts the US commitment even in Europe—it is much easier to have such doubt in distant areas not traditionally bound to us. Moreover, do we want to give guarantees which would guarantee that we will be involved at the risk of 100 to 150 million lives ten years from now in the face of possible Sino-Soviet alliance? An Asian nuclear defense community, perhaps with the US nuclear stockpile available for it to draw upon, may be one solution. (Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, “Secretary Meeting with the Gilpatric Committee,” 7 January 1965, NSF Committee File, Box 8a, LBJ)
92. “A Report to the President by the Committee on Nuclear Proliferation,” 21 January 1965, NSF, Box 5, LBJL.
93. Seaborg, Stemming the Tide, 145.
95. The report was politicized a few months later when Robert Kennedy used the report’s recommendation in his maiden speech in the Senate, urging a stronger American commitment to nonproliferation. He attacked the Johnson administration’s position on the MLF issue, claiming that India and Israel “could fabricate an atomic device within a few months” (“The Bomb: A Special Report,” Newsweek, 9 August 1965, 54).
96. Hedrick Smith, “U.S. Studies a Plan to Bar Israeli-U.A.R. Atom Race,” New York Times, 28 February 1966.
97. Komer, interview, 22 June 1992.
12. GROWING PAINS
1. Miriam Eshkol, interview by author, Jerusalem, 5 June 1995. Ms. Eshkol used the words “caretaker prime minister” to describe the way her husband initially saw his job. The American Embassy, in its first report on Eshkol’s new government, asserted “the return of Ben Gurion seems quite probable” (Airgram [842], 25 June 1963, RG 3948, State Department Central Files (SDCF), 1963, USNA.
2. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurion (in Hebrew), vol. 3 (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1987), 1560.
3. Matti Golan, Peres (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1982), 123–24.
4. John W. Finney, “Israel Permits U.S. to Inspect Atomic Reactor,” New York Times, 14 March 1965, 1, 8.
5. Avner Yaniv, Politics and Strategy in Israel (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Ha’Poalim, 1994), 199.
6. Editorial, Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 16 March 1965.
7. Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 17 March 1965.
8. Lamerhav (in Hebrew), 17 March 1965. Summary of the press commentary on this issue was forwarded to the Israeli embassy in the United States by the Foreign Ministry. See also Telegrams (161), 16 March 1965, (175), 17 March 1965, (197), 18 March 1965, (199), 18 March 1965, ISA, FMRG 3504/17.
9. Davar (in Hebrew), 13 May 1965.
11. Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1995), 98–99; Golan, Peres, 138–39.
12. Galili used to say, “only in 1965 did we become real partners in national decisions” (Arnan [Sini] Azaryahu, interview by author, Efal, June 1995).
13. Zvi Dinstein, interviews by author, Tel Aviv, 6 and 19 July 1992.
14. Ibid.; Avraham Hermoni, interview by author, Savyon, 24 August 1992;Munya M. Mardor, Rafael (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981), 379–409.
15. Dinstein, interviews, 6 and 19 July 1992.
16. Ibid.; Hani Bergmann, interview by author, Jerusalem, 19 August 1992.
17. According to Dinstein, Pratt used to say that he reported only to Peres and Ben Gurion. When Eshkol became prime minister, Pratt hardly agreed to talk with him, asking, “Who should be coming to whom?” (Dinstein, interviews, 6 and 19 July 1992).
18. Former senior Ministry of Defense executives and scientists, interviews by author, 1994–95.
19. Yuval Ne’eman, interviews by author, Austin, Texas, 16 and 19 February 1994; 25 May 1995.
21. Dinstein (interviews, 6 and 19 July 1992) recalls his own discomfort about asking Pratt to leave. He remembers telling him, “Pratt, we have to part. You created something that will be remembered forever in our history, and I don’t know if it could have been done without you, but just as Moses did not reach the Promised Land, so Manes must go.” Pratt, the former official recalls, was stunned. “Do you tell me that I have to go? You must be joking,” he responded. Dinstein interpreted that to mean, “What does he really want from me?”
24. Dinstein, interview, 19 July 1992.
28. The interpretative gap between this “leading project” and the nuclear project was first suggested by Aluf Benn, “The Age of Big Projects” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 15 November 1991, B3.
29. Mardor, Rafael, 387–89.
33. Elkana Gali (then editor of Mabat Hadash, a RAFI biweekly magazine), interview by author, Tel Aviv, 23 July 1992.
37. James Feron, “Israelis Honor Atom Scientist,” New York Times, 14 May 1966, 3. On the occasion of his departure, Bergmann was the most explicit about Israel’s nuclear capability, pointing out that “it’s very important to understand that by developing atomic energy for peaceful purposes, you reach the nuclear option; there are no two atomic energies.”
38. “The Resignation of the Professor” (in Hebrew), Yediot Achronot, 22 April 1966, 4; see also the exchange between Amos Elon and Shimon Peres (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 20 and 21 April 1966.
39. Mardor, Rafael, 404–5. The reforms Eshkol and Dinstein suggested did not ease concerns over the democratic control of the secret nuclear program, although Eshkol’s style of governing was less autocratic than Ben Gurion’s. The combination of a classified research program and an ambivalent political leadership may be hospitable to unauthorized activities.
40. Pierre Péan, Les deux bombes (Paris: Fayard, 1981), 120.
42. In February 1967 the Lebanese newspaper Al-Hayat, reported that “Israeli scientists trained in the United States exploded an underground atomic device in the Negev desert late last year” (sometime between 26 September and 3 October 1966). The newspaper said that “the blast occurred in a chamber 2,600 feet underground.” Associated Press (AP) cited that report, and it appeared in various American newspapers (see, for example, Las Vegas Review Journal, 27 February 1967). The AP story was also cited in Ha’aretz, 26 February 1967. Prime Minister Eshkol denied the story with three words: “It is untrue” (Ha’aretz, 4 April 1967). See also a commentary on this issue in Thomas B. Cochran and Christopher E. Paine, The Role of Hydronuclear Tests (Washington, D.C.: NRDC, April 1995), 29. The author is grateful to Aluf Benn and Christopher Paine for bringing this information to his attention.
43. Memorandum, Ambassador Bunker to Rodger P. Davies, “NEA Views on the Israeli Desalting Project,” 17 February 1967, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, E 11-3 ISR 1-1-67, Box 603A, USNA.
44. Pierre Langereux, “Dassault Lifts Veil over Jericho Missile,” Air & Cosmos/Aviation International, 6 December 1996, cf. English translation in FBIS Report, FBIS-EST97–1008.
45. John W. Finney, “Israel Said to Buy French Missiles,” New York Times, 7 January 1966, 1, 8.
46. James Feron, “Mideast Atom Curb Is Urged by Eshkol,” New York Times, 19 May 1966, 1, 11; “Eshkol: We Will Not be the First to Introduce Nuclear Weapons to the Middle East,” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 19 May 1966.
48. To the best I can determine, Eshkol’s earliest public use of the phrase was on 1 July 1964, during his visit to Paris. In a press conference he stated: “I hope there are no nuclear weapons in the region, and I can promise that we will never be the first to introduce such a weapon. First, because that would be very expensive; second, because it negates our spiritual principles; and, third, because the accumulation of conventional weaponry is bad enough” (Amos Elon, “Eshkol on the Chances of Improving Arab-Israeli Relations: Willing to Meet with Khruschev—‘We Will Not Be the First to Introduce Nuclear Weapons’” [in Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 2 July 1964).
49. “Protocol of Conversation with President Kennedy on April 2, 1963,” ISA, FMRG 4326/16; Peres, Battling for Peace, 258; Peres, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 31 March 1991; also Golan, Peres, 125. See chapter 7, n. 22.
50. Peres, interview; Peres, Battling for Peace, 258.
51. Dinstein, interview, 19 July 1992. According to Dinstein, he and Ya’acov Herzog, anticipating the way Johnson might raise the nuclear issue, first proposed the formula. Moshe Zak, former editor of Ma’ariv, recalls that Ben Gurion used this formula in a 1962 meeting with newspaper editors (conversation with author, 1995).
52. Former senior official in Israel’s Ministry of Defense, interview by author, Tel Aviv.
53. “Leaking, Leaking” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 6 July 1966.
54. A former senior Israeli Ministry of Defense official, interview by author, Tel Aviv.
56. Yuval Ne’eman, interviews by author, 16 and 19 February 1994; 25 May 1995.
57. Avraham Tamir, interviews by author, Tel Aviv, 16 September 1992;July 1993.
58. Former senior civilian and military Ministry of Defense officials, interviews by author, 1992–94.
59. This argument was made by Yuval Ne’eman. Ne’eman supported Israel’s advanced nuclear R&D, but he maintained that “nuclear weapons are not the answer to Israel’s real security needs.” In the early 1960s he opposed the adoption of a nuclear doctrine by the IDF. Years later, as a leader of Tehiya, a small right-wing party, he argued against the dovish advocates of an Israeli shift to reliance on nuclear weapons (those who argued that Israel could substitute the territories occupied in 1967 for an open nuclear deterrence posture). See Yuval Ne’eman, “Israel and Nuclear Deterrence” (in Hebrew), Ma’archot 308, 19–21.
60. Interviews with former senior officials who played a role in these matters in the 1960s, 1993–97.
61. Dinstein, interview, 19 July 1992. Dinstein recalled that Eshkol used to ask Bergmann, who always pushed for a way to conduct a test, “Do you think that the world would sit and applaud us for our achievement?”
62. Former senior civilian and military officials in Israel’s Ministry of Defense, interviews.
63. Matti Peled (Chief of Logistics from 1966 to 1968), interviews by author, Tel Aviv, 9 and 16 July 1992.
64. Years later, now retired, both Ne’eman and Tamir expressed views about the dangers of legitimizing nuclear deterrence in the Middle East, and Israel’s commitment to do its utmost to prevent the nuclearization of the region (Ne’eman, “Israel and Nuclear Deterrence”; also Ne’eman, interviews, 16 and 19 February 1994; 25 May 1995; Avraham Tamir, A Soldier in Search of Peace [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Edanim, 1988], 232–33; also Tamir, interviews, 16 September 1992;July 1993).
65. Only in 1994, following a report on Israeli television, the IAEC confirmed that on 14 December 1966 an accident occurred in one of the labs at the Dimona facility. A technician was killed and three others injured. The accident, interpreted as a critical accident, required three months to dlean up, which ended in February 1967 (Alex Doron, “A Mysterious Accident in the Nuclear Reactor in Dimona” [in Hebrew], Ma’ariv, Special Supplement, 4–7).
66. Jerusalem Post, 3 February 1967. The publicity of the visit led Ambassador Barbout to “suggest that the Israeli Government is moving toward a more open attitude towards the Dimona nuclear complex vis-à-vis the public” (Airgram [A-494], “Dimona Nuclear Research Center,” 10 February 1967, Box 141, LBJL).
67. In a letter dated 9 March 1967, marked “official-informal,” to a State Department colleague concerning the desalting project, Barbour writes:
I must confess that up until six months or so ago I was certain that the Israelis could not be persuaded to surrender their nuclear weapons option in return for the desalting project. A quid pro quo of this kind would be impossible for the GOI [government of Israel] to keep quiet and its revelation would arouse a storm of protest in many important political quarters here … But I believe that some new hopeful elements have recently entered into the picture. It is possible now to detect a lessening in determination to keep Nasser in the dark about what Israel’s nuclear intentions are. Israeli awareness of the dangers of this course of action has been manifest in several of my recent conversations with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister … Moreover, my own impression … is that Dimona is not running at full blast.
… The most promising device at present on the horizon is the possibility that Israel will open Dimona to an appreciable number of non-Israeli research scientists. As I have reported, Eban is thinking along that line and significantly (more significantly, I think, than the two “intelligence” reports which seem to be scaring everybody to death) at least one trial balloon has recently been lofted in that direction. (Letter, Ambassador Barbour to Rodger Davies, 9 March 1967, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, E 11-3 ISR 1-1-67, Box, 603A, USNA)
68. Avner Yaniv, Politics and Strategy in Israel, 199–200; Shlomo Aronson with Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory and Reality. 1960–1991: An Israeli Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 83–111.
69. Eitan Haber, Today War Will Break Out: The Reminiscences of Brig. Gen. Israel Lior (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Edanim, 1987), 54–57, 67–70, 97–99.
13. THE ARABS AND DIMONA
1. An Egyptian physicist, studying at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, noticed that two Israeli scientists, also working at Argonne, were interested in plutonium processing, and he reported his suspicions to the Egyptian government (Shyam Bhatia, Nuclear Rivals in the Middle East [London: Routledge, 1988], 54, 108–9). In 1992 Mohammed Heikal said that in 1957 Egypt first recognized that Israel had started a nuclear weapons program (Mohammed Heikal, Illusions of Triumph: An Arab View of the Gulf War [London: Harper and Collins, 1992], 72).
2. John W. Finney, “U.S. Misled at First on Israeli Reactor,” New York Times, 20 December 1960, 1, 15.
3. Ariel E. Levite and Emily B. Landau, Israel’s Nuclear Image: Arab Perceptions of Israel’s Nuclear Posture (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Papyrus, 1994), 73.
4. “Nasser Threatens Israel on A-Bomb,” New York Times, 24 December 1960, 6.
5. For example, the issue was raised in a conversation between Robert Strong of the State Department and Shimon Peres during the latter’s visit to Washington in May 1962 (ISA, FMRG, 4317/1; Ambassador William Crawford [then in charge of Lebanon-Israel affairs in the State Department], interview by author, Washington, D.C., July 1997).
6. Levite and Landau, Israel’s Nuclear Image, 73.
7. Letter, Foreign Minister Mahmoud Fawzi to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 16 September 1961, Department of State, Central Files (CF), 1960–63, Box 2057, USNA.
8. Levite and Landau, Israel’s Nuclear Image, 39, 64, 73–74.
9. “While Nasser from time to time will try to use the Israeli issue to distract attention from internal difficulties, it is highly unlikely that he would intentionally embark on a course that would lead to large-scale hostilities” (Research Memorandum, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “The Outlook for Nasser,” 30 October 1961, Department of State, CF, 1960–63, Box 2057, USNA).
10. Levite and Landau, Israel’s Nuclear Image, 73.
11. It was not discussed even at the level of the UAR ambassador in Washington. For example, twice when Ambassador Mustafa Kamel discussed U.S.-UAR relations with Johnson on 25 May and 10 August 1964, the nuclear issue was not raised (Memorandum of Conversation, Ambassador Mustafa Kamel with President Lyndon B. Johnson; National Security Files [NSF], Box 158, LBJL).
12. Telegram (A-767), Ambassador John Badeau to Rusk, 18 April 1963, RG 59, CFPF, February–December 1963, POL UAR, USNA.
15. Telegram (3479), Rusk to Badeau, 15 June 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 594.
16. Telegram (2470), Badeau to Rusk, 28 June 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 610.
17. Also, Hermann F. Eilts, telephone interview by author, 23 May 1997.
18. Telegram (2491), Badeau to Rusk, 30 June 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 616.
19. Ibid., 618; Eilts, interview, 23 May 1997.
20. Memorandum, Robert W. Komer, National Security Council, to President John F. Kennedy, 3 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 623; Eilts, interview, 23 May 1997.
21. Telegram (121), Rusk to Badeau, 7 July 1963, in FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 18, 635.
25. Telegram (A-737), Badeau to the Department of State, “Various Aspects of U.S.-UAR Relations,” 11 April 1964, NSF, Country File—UAR, Box 158, LBJL.
26. In a memo to Johnson on the eve of Eshkol’s visit, Komer wrote the following on the matter of reassuring Nasser:
We appreciate Israel’s commitment to regular inspection but are disturbed at Eshkol’s refusal to let us reassure the Arabs in general terms (you sent Eshkol two messages on this). We’re firmly convinced that Israel’s apparent desire to keep the Arabs guessing is highly dangerous. To appear to be going nuclear without really doing so is to invite trouble. It might park Nasser into a foolish preemptive move. (Memorandum, Komer to Johnson, 29 May 1964, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 143, LBJL)
27. Robert W. Komer, interviews by author, Washington, D.C., 22 June 1992; 11 January 1995.
28. Embtel (5567), George W. Ball to American Embassy, Cairo, 26 May 1964, NSF, Country File—UAR, Box 158, LBJL.
30. Komer, interview, 11 January 1995.
31. Embtel (5592), Ball to American Embassy, Cairo, 29 May 1964, NSF, Country File—UAR, Box 158, LBJL.
32. Memorandum, McGeorge Bundy to Johnson, 3 August 1964, NSF, Box 159, LBJL. At about that time the U.S. Embassy in Cairo reported that Egypt was interested in acquiring a nuclear power reactor, but that it had no interest in concluding an IAEA safeguard agreement nor any other bilateral agreement that the United States would require (Embtel [363], Boswell to Rusk, 29 July 1964, NSF, Box 159, LBJL).
33. Memorandum, Rusk to Johnson, n.d., National Security Files, Box 159, LBJL.
34. The minutes of the McCloy-Nasser meeting are still classified. The two-page memorandum of the meeting McCloy gave Dean Rusk is available at the LBJL (Memorandum of Conversation, John McCloy with Rusk, NSF, Box 159, LBJL).
35. This attitude was evident in Nasser’s public statements. In an interview he gave the British Observer on 4 July 1964, the Egyptian leader said that although the Dimona reactor was capable of producing nuclear weapons, according to the information Egypt had, it was not used for that purpose (Mordechai Oren, “Israel as a Nuclear Factor” [in Hebrew], Al-Hamishmar, 18 November 1966).
36. John W. Finney, “Israel Permits U.S. to Inspect Atomic Reactor,” New York Times, 14 March 1965, 1, 8; Telegram, Ball to Battle, 6 April 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, POL UAR, USNA.
37. Telegram, Ball to Battle, 6 April 1965, RG 59, CFPF, 1964–66, POL UAR, USNA.
38. Embtel (3653), Battle to Rusk, 18 April 1965 (section 1 of 4), NSF, Box 159, LBJL.
41. The program did not bear fruit because its scientists were unable to overcome technical problems involving the missiles’ guidance system and the weight of the warhead. According to Robert Komer, the German scientists were “leftovers” from the few Second World War German scientists who, in the 1950s, worked for the French rocket program. The number of scientists who went to Egypt was small, perhaps fewer than half a dozen. The CIA, which kept tabs on these scientists, knew from the start that they had difficulties with developing guidance systems and that the Egyptian project would not be of value militarily as long as those problems remained unsolved (Komer, interview, 11 January 1995).
42. The military interest behind the Egyptian effort to develop a national nuclear program was apparent in the interviews Jim Walsh conducted in Egypt in 1994–95 on the history of the Egyptian nuclear program (Jim Walsh, “Nuclear Threats, Resources Constraints and State Behavior: Egypt’s Nuclear-Decision Making, 1955–1992” [paper presented at the Western Political Science Association Meeting, 10 March 1994]; Jim Walsh, “Why States Don’t ‘Go Nuclear’” [paper presented at the American Political Science Association Meeting, San Francisco, 31 August 1995]). For more on the Egyptian nuclear weapons program in the 1960s and the pro-bomb advocacy of Salah Heydayat, see Bhatia, Nuclear Rivals in the Middle East, 51–56; Tayser N. Nashif, Nuclear Warfare in the Middle East: Dimensions and Responsibilities (Princeton, N.J.: Kingston, 1984).
43. William Foster wrote in Foreign Affairs that both India and Israel could develop nuclear weapons shortly; Elyahu Salpeter, “Israel Has the Knowledge to Produce Nuclear Weapons” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 18 July 1965; Elyahu Salpeter, “Increased Worry in Washington about Proliferation of Nuclear Possession” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 26 June 1965; Senator Robert Kennedy made a similar point in a speech in Congress in June. Glenn Seaborg, in a press interview, also made the point that Israel had the knowledge and capability to produce nuclear weapons (see Salpeter, “Israel Has the Knowledge to Produce Nuclear Weapons”).
44. Leonard Beaton, Must the Bomb Spread? (London: Penguin, 1966).
45. John W. Finney, “Israel Said to Buy French Missiles,” New York Times, 7 January 1966, 1, 18.
46. This debate was monitored in Israel. The Israeli intelligence services’ translation unit, Chatzav, the equivalent to the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), translated the Arab debate into Hebrew and made it available to Israeli journalists. For Israeli summaries of this debate, see Ze’ev Schiff, “Arab Pretexts for Preventive War Against Israel” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 28 January 1966; Eliezer Ben Moshe, “Israeli Atom in the Eyes of the Arab” (in Hebrew), La’merhav, 11 February 1966. For a historical retrospective, see Ariel E. Levite and Emily B. Landau, “Arab Perceptions of Israel’s Nuclear Posture, 1960–67,” Israel Studies 1, no. 1 (spring 1996): 34–59.
47. “Cairo Editor Says Israel Plans to Test Nuclear Device Soon,” New York Times, 21 August 1965, 2; Hedrick Smith, “Soviet Said to Offer Cairo Atom Defense,” New York Times, 4 February 1966, 1, 12; Mohammed Heikal’s article was also translated into Hebrew and was published in a shortened version in “Is Israel Capable of Producing an Atomic Bomb?” Ha’aretz, 25 August 1965.
48. Smith, “Soviet Said to Offer Cairo Atom Defense,” 1, 12; Mohammed Heikal, “Israel Will Reach Nuclear Weapons Production Capability Within Three Years” (in Hebrew), Ma’ariv, 15 October 1965.
49. Smith, “Soviet Said to Offer Cairo Atom Defense,” 1, 12.
50. Daily Telegraph, 26 January 1966, cited in Yossef Lapid, “Daily Telegraph:Egypt Informed Arab Representatives That It Is Engaged in Nuclear Research Capable of Being Adopted to Military Needs” (in Hebrew), Ma’ariv, 27 January 1966.
51. “Nasser Cites Need for Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 9 May 1966, 8. 19.
52. Hedrick Smith, “Warning on Bomb Given by Nasser,” New York Times, 21 February 1966, 8; Hedrick Smith, “Nasser Says U.S. and Britain Back His Rightest Foes,” New York Times, 23 February 1966, 1, 2, “Nasser Threatens to War on a Nuclear Armed Israel,” New York Times, 18 April 1966, 6; “Nasser Cites Need for Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 9 May 1966, 8.