14. THE SIX-DAY WAR
1. Donald Neff, Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days That Changed the Middle East (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984); Avner Yaniv, Deterrence Without the Bomb: The Politics of Israeli Strategy (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987), 109–25;Michael Brecher, with Benjamin Geist, Decisions in Crisis: Israel 1967 and 1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Janice Gross Stein and Raymond Tanter, Rational Decision-Making: Israel’s Security Choices, 1967 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980); Michael Bar-Zohar, Embassies in Crisis: Diplomats and Demagogues Behind the Six Day War (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1970); Richard B. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Eitan Haber, Today War Will Break Out:: The Reminiscences of Brig. General Israel Lior, Aide-de-Camp to Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Edanim, 1987); Moshe Gilboa, Shesh Shanim, Shisha Yamim: Mekoroteiah Ve’koroteiah shel Milchemet Sheshet Hayamim (Six years, six days: Origins and history of the Six-Day War) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1968); Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 67–99; Indar Jit Rikhye, The Sinai Blunder (London: Frank Cass, 1980).
2. The decisions relating to nuclear weapons were suppressed for years. As part of its opaque nuclear posture, Israel has had an interest in belittling or even ignoring these decisions. Israeli publications on the crisis, especially the memoirs of principal decisionmakers, are vague about nuclear issues. The Israeli military censor has only recently become more lenient about the issue. U.S. documents referring to the nuclear dimensions of the crisis had also been classified for years, and some of them have only recently been declassified.
3. Aluf Benn, “The First Nuclear War” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 11 June 1993, B1. Oblique confirmation of these flights, without mentioning Dimona specifically, appeared in the longer, Hebrew version of The Rabin Memoirs (Yitzhak Rabin, Pinkas Sherut [Tel Aviv: Ma’ariv, 1979], 136–37, 163–66); also Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 161–63, 187–86, 208.
4. These questions have hardly been explored. Two recent publications, both by Israeli researchers, discuss the nuclear issue in the context of that war. Shlomo Aronson was the first to suggest that Israeli nuclear ambiguity over Dimona “might have generated” the 1967 war, and that Nasser’s initial moves and subsequent escalation aimed to prevent Israel from acquiring nuclear weapons (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], 109–18). Aronson, however, does not rely on concrete historical evidence concerning Nasser’s intentions or strategy. He admits that “we do not know which was the primary motive” for Nasser’s action (109). More recently Ariel Levite and Emily Landau, in a study on Arab perceptions of the Israeli nuclear posture, raised the question of the role of nuclear weapons in the Six-Day War. However, they do not reach a firm conclusion: “This historical issue remains for now still a mystery” (Ariel E. Levite and Emily B. Landau, Israel’s Nuclear Image: Arab Perceptions of Israel’s Nuclear Posture [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Papyrus, 1994], 41–42).
5. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 37.
6. Embtel 8080 (Cairo), Richard H. Nolte to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 27 May 1967, cited in Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 242.
7. These questions cannot be answered with certainty. Most of the Egyptian material is not available for research, and Nasser and Amer died shortly after the war before writing their memoirs. Materials of this kind in any case would likely have been self-serving. In addition to the open literature, my answer is based on recently declassified U.S. archival material, oral testimonies, and my understanding of earlier Egyptian patterns of dealing with the Israeli nuclear issue.
8. Department of State, “Current Status of US-UAR Relations,” n.d. (but prepared for the meeting between President Johnson and Egyptian Ambassador Kamel on 12 August 1966), NSF, Box 159, LBJL.
9. In their study of the way the Arab press dealt with the Israeli nuclear program, Levite and Landau found almost no references to Dimona in the Egyptian press during early 1967 (Levite and Landau, Israel’s Nuclear Image, 41).
10. “Memorandum of Conversation,” the White House, 23 February 1966, NSF: UAR, Box 159, LBJL.
11. Ibid., 12 August 1966.
12. Memorandum, Walt W. Rostow to President Johnson, “Our Latest Brush with Nasser,” NSF: UAR, Box 159, LBJL.
13. Lucius Battle, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 27 December 1994; Richard Parker, interviews by author, Washington, D.C., 23 and 26 December 1994. In January 1969 the Historical Studies Division of the State Department completed a comprehensive and authoritative study entitled “United States Policy and Diplomacy in the Middle East Crisis,” based on all the material related to the crisis in the files of the U.S. Department of State. This study was recently declassified almost in its entirety. It does not include even a single reference that could suggest that the 1967 war was a replay of the Badeau-Komer scenarios of 1964. From this study, too, one gets the impression that from the American perspective, the Israeli nuclear issue played no role in the 1967 crisis (NSF, NSC-History, Box 20 [Middle East Crisis], LBJL).
14. Battle, interview, 27 December 1994; Parker, interviews, 23 and 26 December 1994. See also Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 92, 104–7.
15. Battle, interview, 27 December 1994. Also Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation, 92.
16. Battle, interview, 27 December 1994.
17. His interviewees never raised the issue of Dimona, but Parker made it clear that he did not ask them about it either. He acknowledged that when he researched his book, he was unaware of the Egyptian reconnaissance flights over Dimona in May 1967 (though he knew from Egyptian sources that a reconnaissance flight took place over Beer Sheba), and he was not aware of the prominence of Dimona in Egyptian contingency air strikes on Israel. Had he been aware of those issues, he would have explored the question more thoroughly (Parker, interviews, 23 and 26 December 1994).
18. Among the Egyptians to whom Parker is referring are Anwar Sadat, Hassanein Heikal, Mahmoud Riad (foreign minister in 1967), General Muhammad Fawzi (chief of staff), Sayeed Marei (Sadat’s deputy in the National Assembly), General Murtagi (commander of the Sinai front). Heikal, editor of Al-Ahram and Nasser’s closest confidant, provided the most detailed apologetic account of Nasser’s actions and decisions in his (Heikal’s) thousand-page volume 1967—The Explosion (in Arabic), published in Arabic in 1990 by Al-Ahram.
19. In his memoirs Fawzi accounts for two occasions on which the idea was entertained. The first was in 1965, when the First Division returned from Yemen; “another time this hope was mentioned [was] when Marshal Amer went to Pakistan in 1966. From there he sent a telegram to Nasser proposing to send troops to Sharm Al Shaykh, and to threaten Israel with closure of the straits. Until now no one knows the reason for that message. Nothing was done about it” (cited in Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 91).
20. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 75–82.
21. Rikhye, The Sinai Blunder, 168.
22. Ehud Ya’ari, “June 1967: How Nasser Was Lured into War,” Jerusalem Report, 4 June 1992, 14–18. According to Ya’ari, new historical material, including “material from newly opened archives, as well as the memoirs of Egyptian generals and civilian leaders,” indicates that,
none of the leaders of Middle East countries wanted all-out war in 1967. It shows that the real culprit of 1967 was Abd al-Hakim Amer, Egypt’s vice president and commander in chief, an overconfident blunderer who recklessly pushed his country into the fateful confrontation with Israel…. He was certain Israel would not attack even after Eilat was blockaded; he failed to prepare defenses, and he did not respond to Nasser’s own warnings of an impending Israeli attack. (Ibid., 14)
23. On 7 April 1967 Israel engaged Syrian planes in an air battle deep inside Syria and shot down six Syrian MiGs, demonstrating Syrian vulnerability. A month later Rabin publicly warned the Syrian regime.
24. According to Heikal, Nasser’s miscalculation started in a meeting with Amer on the evening of 13 May at Nasser’s home, prompted by the Soviet warning. Both took the Soviet warning seriously and felt that this time, given the Egyptian-Syrian defense pact, Egypt must take military action. The two agreed, according to this version, that supporting Syria required a demonstration of force by deploying troops into the Sinai. They also recognized that something would have to be done with regard to UNEF, but they were divided on what exactly should be done. Amer thought that Egypt should use the moment to ask for the total withdrawal of UNEF, as he had suggested in the past. Nasser, however, was more cautious, deciding that Egypt’s request should be limited to the withdrawal of UNEF from the 1948 lines in the Sinai. This was also General Rikhye’s view: “It seemed clear, therefore, that Nasser never wanted or even approved complete withdrawal of UNEF at this stage, and his subsequent statements to this effect would, therefore, appear to be valid” (The Sinai Blunder, 160).
25. According to Rikhye, the commander of UNEF, the primary reason for the Egyptian request was tactical, not political, to allow them to dominate the hills near the international border (ibid., 160, 168).
26. Rikhye makes the point that the Egyptians may have had reasons for expecting that their request be complied with at the military level (ibid., 161).
27. Embtel 1517 (Lisbon), Robert Anderson to President Johnson, 2 June 1967, NSF, NSC History, Box 18, LBJL.
28. This judgment is based on viewing the absence of evidence as evidence. This absence of evidence may be an indication of deception, perhaps indicating that the nuclear issue did play a significant role in Nasser’s thinking, but this is unlikely. If the Israeli nuclear issue played a critical role in Nasser’s decision to initiate the 1967 crisis, it is likely that some support for this notion would have emerged by now. The reality is, however, that thirty years after the event, there is still no shred of evidence to support the claim. Human nature and political realities would have seen to it that the role of nuclear weapons, if any, would have become public knowledge by now.
While there is no evidence that nuclear weapons played a role in initiating the 1967 crisis, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence—the kind of evidence historians rely on—to support the contrary claim. In 1967 Nasser did not talk about the nuclear question openly as he did a year earlier. He also did not raise the issue in diplomatic contacts with the two superpowers in order to pressure Israel to open its nuclear facilities to outside inspections. Nasser also did not share his concerns about nuclear weapons with his associates, among them Heikal, Sadat, Riad, and Fawzi.
29. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 43.
30. Benn, “The First Nuclear War,” B1. Oblique confirmation of these flights, without mentioning Dimona specifically, appeared in Rabin, Pinkas Sherut, 136–37, 163–66; also Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 161–63, 187–86, 208.
31. Levite and Landau, Israel’s Nuclear Image, 41, 65.
32. William B. Quandt, Decade of Decisions: American Policy Towards the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967–1976 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 512; Ehud Ya’ari, “June 1967,” 17–18.
33. Yaniv, Deterrence Without the Bomb, 84.
34. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 56–57.
35. Avner Yaniv, Politics and Strategy in Israel (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Ha’Poalim, 1994), 154–56; also Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 56–57.
36. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 68; Bar-Zohar, Embassies in Crisis, 21.
37. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 68–69;Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 147–51; Dov Goldstein, “Interview with Ezer Weizman” (in Hebrew), Ma’ariv, 5 June 1973.
38. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 43, 89–90.
39. See Brecher, Decisions in Crisis, 35–50.
40. Letter, Johnson to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, 17 May 1967, Box 17, NSF, LBJL; also, Memorandum, Rostow to President Johnson, “Urgent Message to Eshkol,” 17 May 1967, NSF, NSC History, Box 17, LBJL.
41. Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 152.
42. Brecher, Decisions in Crisis, 230–34.
43. Rikhye, The Sinai Blunder, 14–62.
44. Rabin, Pinkas Sherut, 137; also Bar-Zohar, Embassies in Crisis, 36–37.
45. Ezer Weizman, On Eagle’s Wings (New York: Macmillan, 1976), 183–87.
46. This was recently acknowledged by Mordechai Hod, former commander of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), in Aluf Benn, “The First Nuclear War,” B1.
47. Shimon Peres, “The Time Dimension” (in Hebrew), Ma’arachot 146 (1962): 3–5.
48. “Israel Is Ready to Thwart Egyptian Action” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 22 February 1966.
49. James Feron, “Mideast Atom Curb Is Urged by Eshkol,” New York Times, 19 May 1966, 1, 14; also “Eshkol: We Will Not Be the First to Introduce Nuclear Weapons to the Middle East” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 19 May 1966.
50. For Hod’s comment, see Benn, “The First Nuclear War,” B1; also former senior IDF officers (active in 1966–67), interviews by author.
51. Yigal Allon, “The Last Stage of the War of Independence” (in Hebrew), Ot (November 1967): 5–13.
52. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 70.
53. Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 153; Bar-Zohar, Embassies in Crisis, 35–41; Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 69–70.
54. Egypt’s demand for the withdrawal of UNEF from the international border was broadcast by Cairo radio at 6:00 A.M. The Israeli Defense Ministerial Committee, which convened at 11:00 A.M., already knew about this move. In the meeting, however, Eshkol still considered the Egyptian move to be primarily political posturing, not an indication of plans for war. Rabin’s statement before the Knesset committee was also that morning.
55. Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 161.
57. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 85–86.
58. Former senior U.S. intelligence official, numerous interviews by the author, summer 1996.
59. Memorandum, Rostow to Johnson, 25 May 1967, 6:00 P.M., NSF, NSC History, Box 17, LBJL.
60. Quandt, Decade of Decisions, 36–37; also Bar-Zohar, Embassies in Crisis, 114–15.
61. Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 186; Benn, “The First Nuclear War,” B1.
62. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 89–90; cf. Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 259.
63. Quandt, Decade of Decisions, 51 n. 38. According to another version, after the blockade was imposed there was mounting pressure on Nasser by his general staff to attack first. At a meeting of the Egyptian general staff on 25 May Nasser was told that Egypt should be prepared for some hard blows from the air, and then to retaliate. Despite pleas from his air force chief to attack first, Nasser said, “We have a political decision not to start a war” (Ehud Ya’ari, “How Nasser Was Lured into War,” 14–18).
64. Telegram (203943), Johnson to Eshkol, 27 May 1967, NSF History, Box 17, LBJL.
65. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 91–92;Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 191–93;Bar-Zohar, Embassies in Crisis, 137–43;Brecher, Decisions in Crisis, 144–48.
66. Yossi Melman, “They Did Not Sit Shivah” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 30 May, 1997, 16.
67. Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 205, 207.
68. In the 1979 Hebrew version of his memoirs, A Service Record, which is longer than the English version, Rabin only hints at the issue (136–37, 163–66). In Israel Lior’s memoirs, written by Haber (Today War Will Break Out), the issue appears in various ways, but always in code (“sensitive strategic site”).
69. General Yariv, who died in 1994, acknowledged the issue in passing at private occasions in recent years. General Hod’s comments were cited in Aluf Benn, “The First Nuclear War,” B1.
70. Memorandum for the Record, “Record of National Security Council Meeting Held on May 24, 1967, at 12 Noon—Discussion of Middle East Crisis,” NSF, NSC History, Box 17, LBJL. Thirty years later Helms confirmed that he knew at the time that this statement needed qualifications. He was aware of the reports that Israel probably had a chemical separation plant, and that Israel might have been six to eight weeks from producing a nuclear weapon. There was no official National Intelligence Estimate that accepted these reports, however. The last AEC visit took place only six weeks earlier and revealed no weapon-related activities. Under the circumstances, he thought it would be a mistake to raise the possibility and unconfirmed reports (Helms, interview, February 1996). As another senior American intelligence officer recalls, the Operational side of the CIA, those “in the know,” would have never either contributed to or commented on NIEs referring to Israel (interview, 1998).
71. Munya M. Mardor, Rafael (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1981), 499.
72. Myer Feldman recalls that, early on, elements within the U.S. government knew or estimated that the Israelis had two nuclear bombs: “I remember very well the number two” (Myer Feldman, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 22 June 1992). Other credible sources have confirmed Feldman’s comments.
73. Shlomo Nakdimon, Toward the Zero Hour: The Drama That Preceded the Six-Day War (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ramdor, 1968); Gilboa, Shesh Shanim, Shisha Yamim (Six years, six days); Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 177–89.
74. Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), 166–67.
75. In 1992 the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot published the story of a Soviet immigrant who had served on a Soviet submarine in the Middle East during the 1967 war. According to him, the submarine was prepared to hit Israeli targets on orders (Yehudit Yechezkelli, “We Were to Order the Launch of a Nuclear Missile on Israel” [in Hebrew], Yediot Achronot Magazine—Shivah Yamim, 8 May 1992).
15. TOWARD OPACITY
1. Hedrick Smith, “U.S Assumes the Israelis Have A-Bomb or Its Parts,” New York Times, 18 July 1970.
2. When Dayan took office he was briefed on the state of the project, including the contingency plans that had been prepared. He commented to his briefer that “this time, there was no need for any of that.”
3. The 1954–55 period, during which the two functions were divided between Moshe Sharett and Pinhas Lavon, was too brief to set a precedent.
4. Eitan Haber, Today War Will Break Out: The Reminiscences of Brig. Gen. Israel Lior (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Edanim, 1987), 184; Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life (New York: Morrow, 1976), 422–23; Yoram Peri, Between Battles and Ballots (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 136–37; Yehudah Ben Meir, Civil-Military Relations in Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 101.
5. Peri, Between Battles and Ballots, 137–38;Ben Meir, Civil-Military Relations in Israel, 102.
6. Joseph Burg, interview by author, Jerusalem, 19 August 1992. Burg was a leader of the National Religious Party and a cabinet member during that period.
7. Dayan, Story of My Life, 338–39.
8. Personal communication with a former senior Israeli official.
9. “Israel Said to Plan to Make Atom Bomb,” New York Times, 14 June 1967. Whether the story was a deliberate leak is not clear. The military censor did not clear the dispatch, and the Canadian Press was unable to report the story from Tel Aviv. According to the dispatch, “sources in Tel Aviv say it is likely that the Israeli government will make a formal decision to join the nuclear ‘club’ as soon as a Middle Eastern peace agreement is worked out.” On the same day officials at the U.S. State Department denied that the Israeli government was intent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
11. “An A-Bomb for Israel,” Newsweek, 17 July 1967.
12. Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 21 July 1967.
13. “Motions to Discuss the NPT Were Removed” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 8 August 1968.
14. Minutes from the meeting of the Israeli cabinet, 27 October 1968
15. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), 173–74.
16. Smith, “U.S. Assumes”; Hersh, The Samson Option, 173–81.
17. Smith, “U.S. Assumes.”
18. Foreign Ministry minutes, “A Discussion on Israeli-U.S. Relationship,” 13 June 1963, ISA, FMRG 3377/6 (author’s translation).
19. Mordechai Gazit, interview by author, August 1996.
20. Telegram (1093), Walworth Barbour to the Secretary of State, 24 March 1969.
21. Yitzhak Rabin, A Service Record (in Hebrew), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Ma’ariv, 1979), 251–52.
22. Former senior Israeli official, interview by author.
23. John W. Finney, “Israelis Reported to Be Reluctant at This Time to Sign Treaty Barring Spread of Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 20 November 1968.
24. Yigal Allon reformulated his opposition to nuclear deterrence:
A discussion of the problem of nuclear weapons is, practically speaking, irrelevant to the situation in the Middle East in the conceivable future because it [nuclear weapons] does not exist in any of the region’s states. However, it can be said theoretically that if it [were] possible to achieve nuclear balance this would not have been a guarantee against war. Nuclear balance would deny Israel the advantage of conventional weapons, in which the character of the regime, its social structure and the quality of the soldier are decisive aspects of the balance of power. At the same time we must not allow the enemy to reach any advantage in the nuclear area. We must continue maintaining a high level of nuclear research and technology for peaceful and developmental purposes, that will not allow the enemy to catch us. I accept the public statement of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, that “Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.” But I will permit myself to add that we should never allow the enemy to be the first one either. If we had, hypothetically speaking, the choice between nuclear weapons for both sides, or to none, we should prefer conventional over nuclear balance. (Curtain of Sand [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1968], 2nd ed., 401–2)
This statement captures one of the points of view in the debate of the early 1960s. In 1968 Allon knew of Israel’s nuclear-weapon capabilities, but he argued that his position was the policy of Israel.
25. Dayan, Story of My Life, 490–92;Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 271.
26. President Gamal Abdul Nasser, Cairo radio on 23 November 1967, and the BBC, on 25 November 1967, quoted in Ya’acov Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 1969–70 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 213–14.
27. Before the war the entire combat force of the IAF (about 180 jets on the eve of the war) consisted of French aircraft; two-thirds of them were older jets scheduled to be phased out in the coming years. The prewar plans of the IAF aimed at a force of about 250 modern combat aircraft by the end of 1968 by adding 48 American Skyhawks (A-4H) and 50 French Mirages (with an option for another 50) (see Eliezer Cohen, Israel’s Best Defense [New York: Crown, 1993], 252–53).
28. Ibid., 269–71;Haber, Today War Will Break Out, 195–96. The situation of the IAF was a matter of discussion between Ambassador Harman and Vice President Humphrey on 30 November 1967 (see Memorandum, Humphrey to Johnson, 12 December 1967, White House Central Files [WHCF], Confidential File (CF), Box 34, National Archives).
29. Peter Grose, “Israeli Industry Easing Dependence on Foreign Arms,” New York Times, 23 April 1971.
30. Dayan, Story of My Life, 437–38; William Beecher, “Israel Building Prototype for a Jet Fighter-Bomber,” New York Times, 15 September 1971; Grose, “Israeli Industry Easing Dependence on Foreign Arms.”
31. Aharon Klienman and Reuven Pedatzur, Rearming Israel: Defense Procurement through the 1990s (Jerusalem: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 1991), 75–77.
32. The United States did not retract its contractual obligations. Its suspension decision had no effect—in early August the administration had already exempted $3 million worth of military items that Israel urgently needed—and it was assumed that the suspension would be lifted altogether before the December 1967 delivery of the Skyhawks.
33. Finney, “Israelis Reported to Be Reluctant.”
34. By late 1970, when the Russian presence in Egypt reached its peak, there were about fourteen thousand Russian military personnel in Egypt (Drew Middleton, “14,000 Russians Play Big Role in Egypt,” New York Times, 3 October 1970).
35. Ze’ev Schiff, Phantom Over the Nile: The Story of the Israeli Air Corps (in Hebrew) (Haifa: Shikmona, 1970); Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition; Dan Schueftan, Attrition: Egypt Post-War Political Strategy, 1967–1970 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 1989); David A. Korn, Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1967–1970 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992); Avi Shlaim and Raymond Tanter, “Decision Process, Choice and Consequences: Israel’s Deep Penetration Bombing in Egypt, 1970,” World Politics 30, no. 4 (July 1978): 483–516.
36. Mohammed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Ballantine, 1975), 78–85; Schueftan, Attrition, 253–59.
37. Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 152–54.
38. Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli ambassador in Washington, expressed his sense of uncertainty in the following way:
The United States is under no formal obligation to come to the aid of Israel, even if the latter is attacked by the USSR. Without going into the causes, the state of Israel has no prospect today, in the present state of affairs in America, of receiving any American support or pledge of this kind. There is no prospect of the United States issuing a warning that a blow directed against Israel will be seen as blow at the United States. (Ma’ariv, 5 June 1970, quoted in Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 158)
39. Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 158–59.
41. In his autobiography Dayan writes that during the debriefing he had with the pilots, he said: “Israel was not Czechoslovakia, and our generation was not the generation of Massada, where the defenders of the last Jewish outpost in the war against the Romans in the first century B.C. held out to the end and then committed suicide. We would continue to fight and live” (Dayan, Story of My Life, 450).
42. Central Intelligence Agency, SNIE 30–70, “The USSR and the Egyptian-Israeli Confrontation,” 14 May 1970.
43. Moshe Dayan, Milestones (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Edanim, 1976), 475, 485.
44. Moshe Dayan, New Map: Different Attitudes (in Hebrew) (Haifa: Shikmona, 1969), 64, 68.
45. In May–July 1970 Dayan repeatedly alluded to the linkage between Israeli resolve and American preparedness to take a bold line:
We have to be ready to fight physically on the cease-fire lines, even in conditions of Soviet involvement in Egypt, since no other force will fight our war for us. If we possess the readiness to fight, then maybe other nations—including perhaps the United States—will be likely to help us. (Ma’ariv, 5 May 1970, quoted in Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 156)
Ten days later Dayan issued another deterrent signal:
If we do not fight, no one will come to our help, we shall not get the Phantoms, and tomorrow the Russians will already be installing SA-3 missile sites on the canal, if they discover that this does not involve their pilots clashing with ours. We are not going to rush to meet the Russian pilots, but if there is a line we shall fight on that line. We cannot allow ourselves anything else than this, and on this basis alone can we have any prospect of getting support from others as well and hope that the Russians will calm down and be deterred and not press things to the point where we shall have to fire at them and also bring down their planes. (Ma’ariv, 15 May 1970, quoted in Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 156)
46. Hersh, The Samson Option, 176–77.
47. Finney, “Israelis Reported to Be Reluctant”; also Smith, “U.S. Assumes.”
48. James Feron, “Mideast Atom Curb Is Urged by Eshkol,” New York Times, 19 May 1966.
49. New York Times, 22 July 1967. The article referred to the Egyptian economic situation as “desperate.” Lost revenue from the Suez Canal was estimated at about $230 million a year, and the balance of payments deficit was believed to exceed half a billion dollars.
51. Before the 1967 war the AEE negotiated with three American firms to expand the nuclear research center at Inchas, but the contracts were now suspended. The other plans of the AEE, to build a dual-purpose nuclear power station and desalination plant at Burg El Arab with other supporting fuel cycle facilities, were also postponed (and then died) in the wake of the war (ibid., 55–59).
52. Shyam Bhatia, Nuclear Rivals in the Middle East (London: Routledge, 1988), 55–59.
53. Even Heikal, who was the most open about the significance of the nuclear issue to the conflict, evaluated the issue in July 1970. In response to the New York Times story of 16 July 1970, Heikal conceded that Israel had the ability to produce nuclear weapons, “but he said that the bombs could not be used within the context of the present world balance of nuclear power” (New York Times, 22 July 1970).
54. Yigal Allon exemplified this point in his public writings and speeches (cf. Allon, Curtain of Sand, 401–2).
16. THE BATTLE OVER THE NPT
1. When Secretary of State Dean Rusk met French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou on 15 December 1964, they briefly discussed Israel’s nuclear activities. Rusk noted that the United States was not sure that Israel had abandoned the idea of producing nuclear weapons. Pompidou replied that France was not sure either (cited in Glenn T. Seaborg, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years [Lexington, Mass.: Lexington, 1987], 154); Myron Kratzer (AEC), interviews by and correspondence with author, 1992–97; Michael Sterner, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 3 April 1995; Joseph Sisco (State Department), interview by author; Robert Komer, interviews by author, Washington, D.C., 1992–97; and Spurgeon Keeny (NSC), interviews by author, Washington, D.C., 1994–97.
2. Former senior U.S. intelligence official, interview by author; Komer, interviews, 1992–97.
3. In their discussions with the Germans, American officials often referred to India and Israel as the “real targets” of the treaty (Telegram [Bonn, 7342], Ambassador George C. McGhee to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 20 December 1966, NSF, Box 26, LBJL).
4. George Bunn, interviews by author, 1991–97; Culver Gleysteen (former ACDA senior official), interview by author, March 1996, and correspondence with author, 3 June 1996.
5. Bunn, interviews. Bunn also said the following: “What it comes down to is that there were many countries we talked to but none (that I know of) that was handled in the way Israel was handled: At a very high level leaving most officials working on the treaty completely in the dark. I knew almost nothing about the discussions with Israel … maybe my boss Bill Foster knew about the discussions with Israel, but if he did, he didn’t tell me. Some of the discussions with India about security assurances in return for accession for the NPT were quiet, but I knew about them—perhaps because India was a member of the Geneva disarmament conference but more likely because the discussions were handled quite differently” (Bunn, letter to author, 19 July 1996). It is unlikely that there were no American-Israeli discussions on this issue, but I found no trace for such discussions. Also Keeny, conversations.
6. Memorandum, Harold Saunders to Walt W. Rostow, “The President’s Stake in the Middle East,” 16 May 1967, NSF, Box 7, LBJL.
7. For example, the question of the NPT was not mentioned in the eight-page talking points prepared for the visit of Foreign Minister Abba Eban to the United States on 23–24 October 1967 (NSF, Box 140–41, LBJL).
8. In his “talking points” for President Johnson prepared for Eshkol’s visit, National Security Advisor Rostow made it clear that the “main [American] issue” for the meeting is movement for peace:
The real issue between us is that the Israelis think the Arabs will come around if they just sit tight and we think the Israelis may have to go more than half way to get the Arabs to negotiate. We can’t dictate Israeli tactics, … But we must be assured that the Israelis aren’t going to sit themselves tight right into a “fortress Israel” that we would not want to be tied to. (Memorandum, W. W. Rostow to President Johnson, “Talking Points for Prime Minister Eshkol,” 5 January 1968, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL)
10. Memorandum, Saunders to Rostow, “Rough Sketch of Package for Eshkol,” 29 December 1967, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 144–45, LBJL.
11. Memorandum, “Talking Points for Prime Minister Eshkol,” 5 January 1968.
12. On 30 November departing Israeli ambassador Avraham Harman put forward the Israeli argument in his farewell meeting with Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Given the Israeli losses during the war and the likelihood that the French embargo would continue, Harman pointed out that even if Israel were to receive an additional 78 planes Weizman asked for, it was still short of its goal of a fleet of 250 modern aircraft by the end of 1968. Taking into account the long lead time for aircraft supply, Israel made the case that it was essential that decisions be made immediately to ensure Israel’s ability to deter a renewal of hostilities. On 12 December Humphrey passed on the Israeli request in a five-page memorandum to President Johnson.
13. “Visit of Levi Eshkol, January 7–8, 1968: The Nuclear Issue and Sophisticated Weaponry,” NSF, Country file, Israel, Eshkol Visit Briefing Book, 1/7–8/68, Box 144, POL 7 ISR 1-1-68, LBJL.
14. Mordechai Hod, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 27 May 1996. General Hod was the commander of the Israeli Air Force, and he attended the meeting.
15. “Notes on Meeting Between President Johnson and Prime Minister Eshkol,” 7–8 January 1968, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 142–43, LBJL.
16. For example, in Rostow’s four-page memorandum to President Johnson the issue of the Phantoms is discussed without reference to the NPT. The reason for holding off the Phantoms decision is explained by the need “to have a clearer picture of Soviet and French policy and Jarring’s progress” (Memorandum, “Talking Points for Prime Minister Eshkol,” 5 January 1968; see also note 17 below).
17. Another indication of this attitude appeared in an interview with Foreign Minister Eban that appeared a few weeks later in Ha’aretz. In the interview Eban was asked directly, “Will Israel join the NPT?” to which he replied:
Israel’s position is that it will first study the draft and views of countries similar to itself, that is without military atomic power but with a marked interest in maximum freedom of atomic development. If such countries want the draft amended, it will only be reasonable to join them. Ultimately, when the best possible draft has been written, Israel will not be the exception. In this respect, Israel is not a separate problem but part of the general international problem. (Ha’aretz interview with Eban, quoted in Embtel 2438, 7 February 1968, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 142–43, LBJL; the English translation of the interview appears in Airgram [Tel Aviv] A-576, 12 February 1968, NSF, Box 142–43, LBJL)
18. The “Plowshare” Project originated in November 1956 during the Suez campaign as a proposal to consider the use of nuclear explosions to build a sea-level canal across Israel as an alternative to the Suez Canal. In the mid-1960s there was talk about replacing the Panama Canal with a new one, through Nicaragua, using Plowshare. On the origins of the Plowshare Project, see Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 528–30; see also Seaborg, Stemming the Tide, 309–52.
19. Yuval Ne’eman, correspondence with author, 28 April 1996.
20. Edward Teller, telephone interview by author, 27 April 1996. Carl Duckett, a former deputy director for Science and Technology, told Seymour Hersh that in 1968 Teller said he “was convinced that Israel now had several weapons ready to go.” If the CIA was waiting for an Israeli test before it would make a determination on Israel’s nuclear status, it was wrong. “The Israelis have it and they aren’t going to test it” (Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy [New York: Random House, 1991], 186–87). In addition to Teller’s more general stand for openness in nuclear matters, he might have believed that convincing American decision makers about Israel’s true status as a nuclear-weapon state would ease American pressure on Israel to sign the NPT. Teller did not believe that Israel should give up its nuclear weapons in order to join the NPT. If Israel was inhibited about telling the United States what it had, Teller would do so. Teller did not confirm or deny this reading.
21. In his 1991 interview with Seymour Hersh, Duckett acknowledged that without Teller’s “opinion,” and other circumstantial evidence regarding diversion of nuclear material, the CIA had little to support this finding.
22. According to Duckett’s testimony (released in 1978):
He showed it to Mr. Helms. Helms told him not to publish and he would take it up to President Johnson. Mr. Helms later related that he had spoken to the President, that the President was concerned, and that he said “Don’t tell anyone else, even Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara.” (Inquiry into the Testimony of the Executive Director for Operations, vol. 3, Interviews, Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, National Security Archive Collection on Non-Proliferation, # 26090)
Richard Helms said he had no recollection of Johnson asking him to keep information from Rusk and McNamara. Helms says that since Teller was a consultant of the Agency, it makes sense that he passed information on to Duckett. Helms says it is less likely that such sensitive information was drafted as an NIE in 1968. To do so would have required approval by the Board of National Estimates. Helms does not recall how the issue got to his attention, but thinks it likely that Duckett passed the information on to him and he conveyed it to Johnson (Richard Helms, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 9 September 1996).
23. Memorandum, from Davies to Bunker, NEA Views on the Israeli Desalting Project, 17 February 1967, 3, USNA
24. Richard Helms, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 13 August 1997.
25. Cover note, Saunders to Bromley Smith, n.d., NSF, Box 142–43, LBJL.
26. Department of State, Policy Planning Council, “After NPT, What?” 28 May 1968, NSF, Box 26, LBJL.
28. Memorandum, Rostow to Johnson, 22 April 1968, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 142–43, LBJL.
29. Note, Keeny to Rostow, 3 May 1968, NSF, Country File—Israel, Box 142–43, LBJL.
30. “Israel’s Position on the Treaty under Review” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 6 May 1968.
31. “Israel: We Will Join the Nuclear Treaty” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 28 May 1968.
32. Telegram (5181), Department of State to Tel Aviv Embassy, 27 June 1968.
33. “‘Reservations’ Said to Keep Israel from Signing Treaty,” New York Times , 2 July 1968.
34. “Israel Conducts Consultations on the Nuclear Treaty” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 2 July 1968.
35. “Motions to Discuss the NPT Were Removed” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 8 August 1968.
36. This month-long ninety-eight-nation conference of nonnuclear-weapon states, chaired by the foreign minister of Pakistan, in which the nuclear-weapon states were given only observer status, produced a number of criticisms of the NPT, including its lack of adequate security assurances. Nevertheless, nearly all the participating countries eventually joined the treaty. I owe this note to Charles N. Van Doren who was an American observer in that conference.
37. Many of the advanced states in the nuclear field, such as Italy, India, Brazil, and Sweden, were members of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference (ENDC) and were consulted. Germany sought information and got it. Israel, not a member of the ENDC, showed no interest in the treaty. Had Israel shown interest, the United States would have provided information about it (Gleysteen, correspondence).
38. In August 1968 Ambassador Rabin met with Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate for president. Rabin formed the impression that Nixon understood Israel’s security needs and that “Nixon might be proved an even better president for Israel than Hubert Humphrey might be” (Yitzhak Rabin, A Service Record [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Ma’ariv, 1979], vol. 1, 222–23).
39. Amos Ben Vered, “Israel’s Nuclear Option” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 5 September 1968; Ha’aretz, 11 September 1968.
40. “Israel Will Set Its Policy after the Non-Nuclear State Conference” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 30 August 1968.
41. Ha’aretz, 11 September 1968.
42. George Bunn and Roland M. Timerbaev, Nuclear Verification under the NPT: What Should It Cover—How Far May It Go? PPNN Study, No. 5 (The Mountbatten Center for International Studies, University of Southampton, April 1994), 3–8. According to Bunn and Timerbaev, during the negotiations on the NPT the United States gave its own criteria for defining “manufacture” to potential signatories who asked for clarification. In his testimony before Congress, William C. Foster, the U.S. chief negotiator, characterized the criteria, developed in consultations with the Soviet Union and Sweden, as the following:
Facts indicating that the purpose of a particular activity was the acquisition of a nuclear explosive device would tend to show non-compliance. (Thus the construction of an experimental or prototype nuclear explosive device would be covered by the term “manufacture” as would be the production of components which could only have relevance to a nuclear explosive device.) Again, while the placing of a particular activity under safeguards would not, in and of itself, settle the question of whether the activity was in compliance with the treaty, it would be helpful in allaying any suspicion of non-compliance. (Ibid., 5)
The Foster criteria, the authors stress, put the prohibition on manufacture in terms of activities much earlier than “the final assembly of an explosive device,” as Sweden suggested. Nevertheless it did not list what these activities were, but rather defined them by their purpose.
43. Memorandum, Dean Rusk to President Johnson, “Your Meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban,” 21 October 1968, NSF, Box 144, LBJL.
44. The reference to Rusk’s meeting with Allon appears in “Notes on President’s Meeting with House Leadership on 9 September 1968,” Tom Johnson’s notes of Meetings, Box 4, LBJL.
45. Telegram, Rusk to Barbour, 11 September 1968, RG 59, CFPF 1967–69, Box 2055, USNA.
46. The quote, taken from a cabinet session, appears in Reuven Pedatzur, “Shamir May Consider a New Nuclear Policy” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 11 November 1991. As noted earlier, Rusk was not an NPT proponent until President Johnson began supporting it in the summer of 1966.
47. Telegram (765), Rusk to Barbour, 1 October 1968, RG 59, CFPF 1967–69, Box 1486, DEF 12-5 ISR, USNA.
48. Memorandum, Rusk to the President, “Your Meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban,” 21 October 1968; also Paul C. Warnke, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 11 January 1994.
49. William B. Quandt, The Peace Process (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1993), 56.
50. Neil Sheehan, “Johnson Barring Jets for Israelis,” New York Times, 15 September 1968.
51. “Notes of the President’s Meeting with the Tuesday Luncheon Group, 17 September 1968,” Tom Johnson Notes of Meetings, Box 4, LBJL.
52. “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; “Israeli Nuclear Deterrent Urged by Jerusalem Paper,” New York Times, 5 October 1968.
53. “Eshkol: Israel Knows the Secret of the Production of Atomic Bomb,” 4 October 1968.
54. “Israeli Nuclear Deterrent Urged by Jerusalem Paper,” New York Times, 5 October 1968.
55. This was noticed by Schweitzer, “A Bomb, by the Way” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 13 October 1968.
57. Memorandum, Hart to Rusk, 21 October 1968, RG 59, CFPF 1967–69, Box 2060, USNA.
58. “Notes on Foreign Policy Meeting, Tuesday, November 26, 1968,” in Tom Johnson Notes of Meetings, Box 4, LBJL.
59. See note 16, above. This was confirmed by Warnke (Warnke, interview, 11 January 1994).
60. Telegram (261146), Rusk to Barbour, 22 October 1968, RG 59, CFPF 1967–69, Box 2060 POL ISR 1968, USNA.
61. Cover note, Saunders to Bromley Smith, undated, NSF, Box 142, LBJL. Helms, interview by author, 9 September 1996.
62. Memorandum, “Suggested Talking Points for President’s Meeting with Foreign Minister Eban,” n.d., 1968, NSF, Box 144, LBJL; Memorandum, W. W. Rostow to President Johnson, “Your Meeting with Abba Eban, NSF, Box 142–43, LBJL.
63. Memorandum, Dean Rusk to the President, “Your Meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban,” 21 October 1968, NSF, Box 144, LBJL.
65. Memorandum, “Suggested Talking Points for President’s Meeting with Foreign Minister Eban.”
66. According to Eban’s memoirs, the tone of the discussion was more that of a friendly farewell than pressure. Johnson wanted Eban to pass on to Eshkol that “Lyndon B. Johnson has kept his word,” and expressed his intention to sign the agreement for the supply of the Phantoms (Abba Eban, Personal Witness [New York: Putnam’s, 1992], 474). Eban hardly mentioned the nuclear issue in his memoirs. Johnson most likely did mention his expectation that in the context of the negotiations to provide the Phantoms, Israel would be able to strengthen its nonproliferation stance by signing the NPT, but he probably left the tough business of pressing Israel on the NPT to Rusk and Warnke. If it succeeded, which he must have doubted, he would get the credit; if it did not, he could call off the effort. He did not ask Rusk and Warnke to stop them from pressuring Israel.
67. Before his departure to Israel, Eban told the press that the negotiations would proceed “urgently and swiftly,” but American sources were not so certain. They noted that the talks may be “prolonged.” There was a press reference that “one problem to be ironed out” is the Israeli attitude toward the NPT. Eban continued to say publicly that Israel was still “studying” the text of the treaty, and refused to indicate when or if it would sign it (“U.S., Israel Open Talks on Purchase of Jets,” Evening Star, 23 October 1968).
68. These statements were made by Yigal Allon and Abba Eban in a cabinet meeting on 27 October 1968.
69. Abba Eban’s comments at a cabinet meeting on 27 October 1968; and Pedatzur, “Shamir May Reconsider a New Nuclear Policy.”
71. Dean Rusk, As I Saw It: Dean Rusk as Told to Richard Rusk (New York: Viking, 1990), 343.
72. Ibid. See Pedatzur, “Shamir May Consider a New Nuclear Policy.”
74. From minutes of the Israeli cabinet, 27 October 1968.
75. Telegram (5862), Barbour to Rusk, 28 October 1968, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, Box 1484 POL ISR 1968, USNA.
77. Telegram (253), UN to Rusk, 5 November 1968, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, Box 1486, POL ISR 1968, USNA.
78. “Talking Points for the Secretary’s Meeting with Israel’s Foreign Minister Eban, October 22,” NSF, Box 142–43, LBJL.
79. Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Negotiations with Israel—F-4 and Advanced Weapons,” 4 November 1968, NSF, Box 142–43, LBJL, 1.
80. Paul C. Warnke, telephone interview and conversations with author, 2 November 1993, 21 May 1996, and 11 November 1997.
84. By 1997 the minutes of those sessions have been declassified almost in full. Rabin’s version of the climax of these negotiations was told in his Rabin Memoirs. Paul Warnke was kind to sit with me, a number of times, in order to recount those negotiations.
85. Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, 141–42; for the Hebrew version of the meeting—there are small differences of wording between the two accounts—see Rabin, A Service Record, vol. 2, 236. In his brief author’s note Rabin touches the objectivity issue. He notes that the book is his own personal memoir, describing events from his point of view, but he also stresses that, in writing it, he was assisted by official documents written at the time, “papers and cables … including cables and summaries dating from my period of service as Israel’s ambassador to Washington.” Rabin stressed that “at all times my first interest has been to preserve the accuracy of events and exchanges as reflected in these sources.”
86. Office of the Assstant of Secretary of Defense, Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Negotiations with Israel—F-4 and Advanced Weapons,” 8 November 1968, 1–2, attached to memorandum, Joseph J. Sisco to the Acting Secretary, “Subject: Talking Points for Initial Meeting with Israelis on Nuclear and SSM Issue July 29—Briefing Memorandum,” 28 July 1969, RG 59, CFPF 1967-69, Box 2060, POL ISR-US 1969, USNA.
87. Warnke, telephone conversations. For a similar version of that encounter, including the cite from Harry H. Schwartz, see Hersh, The Samson Option, 189–91.
88. Telegram (269999), Rusk to Tel Aviv Embassy, 8 November 1968, attached to memorandum, Hart to Rusk, “Subject: Response to Israeli Government’s Paper of October 28,” 8 November 1968, RG 59, CFPF, 1967-69, Box 2060, POL ISR-US 1968, USNA.
92. If earlier Johnson had seemed to endorse Rusk’s efforts to press Israel, he now decided to back off when he realized the extent of the Jewish community’s opposition. Warnke speculates that Rusk was informed shortly after his mid-October meeting with Eban of the CIA’s conclusion that Israel already had nuclear weapons. The speculation is based on Warnke’s observation that Rusk and Parker Hart played no part in nor showed any interest in the negotiations with Rabin and his team in November. Warnke today can think of no other explanation for Rusk’s abandonment of the effort to get Israel to sign the NPT (Warnke, letter to author, 27 June 1996).
93. Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Negotiations with Israel—F-4 and Advanced Weapons,” 12 November 1968, 1, attached to memorandum, Joseph J. Sisco to the Acting Secretary, “Subject: Talking Points for Initial Meeting with Israelis on Nuclear and SSM Issue July 29—Briefing Memorandum,” 28 July 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967-69, Box 2060, POL ISR-US 1969, USNA.
96. General Hod noted that this was the first time he heard the argument, and he was quite impressed by the conceptual point Rabin made (Mordechai Hod, interview by author, Tel Aviv, 27 May 1996).
97. Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: Negotiations with Israel—F-4 and Advanced Weapons,” 12 November 1968, 3–4.
98. Memorandum of Conversation, 18 November 1968, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, Box 2060, POL ISR-US 1968, USNA.
99. Letter, Rabin to Warnke, 22 November 1968, 1, attached to memorandum, Joseph J. Sisco to the Acting Secretary, “Subject: Talking Points for Initial Meeting with Israelis on Nuclear and SSM Issue July 29—Briefing Memorandum,” 28 July 1969.
101. Memorandum of Conversation, “Subject: F-4 Negotiations with Government of Israel,” 27 November 1968, attached to memorandum, Joseph J. Sisco to the Acting Secretary, “Subject: Talking Points for Initial Meeting with Israelis on Nuclear and SSM Issue July 29—Briefing Memorandum,” 28 July 1969.
102. Warnke, interview; telephone conversations. Warnke’s version of the exchange appears in his “Nuclear Israel,” a book review of Seymour M. Hersh’s The Samson Option (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 48, no. 3 [March 1992]: 41–42). A different account of the meeting appears in Hersh, The Samson Option, 189–90. According to Hersh, citing Warnke’s aide Harry Schwartz, the meeting ended with an acrimonious tone when Warnke said: “Mr. Ambassador, we are shocked at the manner in which you are dealing with us. You, our close ally, are building nuclear weapons in Israel behind our back.” Warnke stated categorically in 1994 that he has no recollection of the exchange as it appears in Hersh’s book, and he believes that such words were never said (Warnke, interview).
103. Warnke, interview; telephone conversations.
104. Letter, Eshkol to Johnson, 4 December 1968, attached to memorandum, Joseph J. Sisco to the Acting Secretary, “Subject: Talking Points for Initial Meeting with Israelis on Nuclear and SSM Issue July 29—Briefing Memorandum,” 28 July 1969.
106. Hedrick Smith, “US Will Start Delivering F-4s Jets to Israel in 1969,” New York Times, 28 December 1968.
107. Warnke, telephone conversation, 21 May 1996.
108. From minutes of the Israeli cabinet, 27 October 1968.
109. Rusk, As I Saw It, 343.
17. OPACITY TAKES HOLD
1. “A Report to the President by the Committee on Nuclear Proliferation,” 21 January 1965, NSF, Box 5, LBJL.
5. Glenn T. Seaborg, with Benjamin S. Loeb, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington, 1987), 136–48.
6. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), 209.
7. Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit, 1983), 148; cf. Hersh, The Samson Option, 210.
8. Hersh, The Price of Power, 140.
9. Ibid. According to Hersh, citing Shlomo Aronson, Kissinger was frank about his views during his visit to Israel in February 1968. In a meeting with a group of Israeli academics, Kissinger told the audience that the United States would not “lift a finger for Israel” if the Soviets were to intervene directly in a conflict with Israel. The implication was that for the sake of Israel and the United States, Israel should take care of its own security (ibid., 177). Aronson gives the date of the informal meeting as sometime in the mid-1960s (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], 328).
10. Yitzhak Rabin, Pinkas Sherut (in Hebrew), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Ma’ariv, 1979), 222.
12. John W. Finney, “Israelis Reported to be Reluctant at This Time to Sign Treaty Barring Spread of Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 20 November 1968, 11.
13. CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “Prospects for the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” NSF, NPT files, Box 26, LBJL.
14. Finney, “Israelis Reported,” 11; Elyahu Salpeter, “The Nuclear Treaty vis-à-vis Israel’s Security: Conventional and Nuclear Guarantees are Needed Prior to Signature” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 24 November 1968.
15. Ha’aretz, 11 September 1968; “Change of Government Could Lead to Cancellation of Eshkol’s Visit” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 26 November 1968.
16. India, having also raised the issue, asked whether the United States or Britain would use their nuclear weapons to defend India. Other nations demanded stronger international agreements that would eliminate the UN as the implementing mechanism.
17. In these consultations Israel came closest to saying that its nuclear program was a compensation for its material inferiority relative to Arab conventional military power. This argument is still at the heart of the Israeli position, and is central to its position to the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in any arms control forum.
18. “Israel and the NPT” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 18 December 1968.
19. Rabin, Pinkas Sherut, vol. 2, 226.
20. “TV Report of an Israeli A-bomb Draws a Denial in Washington,” New York Times, 9 January 1969, 2.
21. “Responses in Jerusalem” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 10 January 1969; “Israeli Bomb Is Doubted,” New York Times, 10 January 1969.
22. John W. Finney, “U.S. Aides Doubt That Israel Has Decided to Build A-Bomb,” New York Times, 11 January 1969, 3. According to former ambassador James Leonard, who was in 1966–68 a senior analyst at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), this was his own view at the time, which he believes was also shared by INR and the State Department.
25. Department of State, Action Memorandum to the Secretary of State, “Subject: Visit by US Team to Israeli Nuclear Reactor at Dimona,” 7 March 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA.
26. Former senior CIA officer, interview by author, 2 August 1996.
27. Department of State, Action Memorandum to the Secretary of State, “Subject: Visit by US Team to Israeli Nuclear Reactor at Dimona,” 7 March 1969.
30. Telegram (36436), Secretary of State William Rogers to Ambassador Walworth Barbour, 8 March 1969, CFPF, 1967–69, RG 59, AE11–2 ISR, USNA.
31. Telegram (1093), Walworth Barbour to Secretary of State William Rogers, 24 March 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA.
32. Telegram (1246), Barbour to Rogers, 10 April 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA. The document was only partially declassified in 1992.
34. The telegram to Barbour read:
We are disappointed in PM’s [Golda Meir’s] request that [the] visit be postponed until late June. Our experts have always felt [that the] lapse of [a] year between visits [is] too great to give us complete confidence concerning activities at Dimona. This was [the] reason we pressed for semi-annual visits in 1963 and we have always considered Eshkol’s August 19, 1963, letter to President Kennedy together with his accompanying comments to you as constituting GOI [Government of Israel] commitment to visits on [a] semi-annual basis. Accordingly, you should reopen [the] question with GOI, asking that PM be reminded of our 1963 understanding with Eshkol, and that she reconsiders [the] response cited [by] reftel. We would strongly prefer [that the] visit take place May 3. (Telegram [54653], Rogers to Barbour, 10 April 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA)
The document was only partially declassified in 1992.
35. Telegram (1246), Barbour to Rogers, 10 April 1969.
36. Telegram (1308), Barbour to Rogers, 12 April 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA.
37. Telegram (97540), Rogers to Barbour, 14 June 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA.
39. Telegram (2378), Barbour to Rogers, 23 June 1969, CFPF, RG 59, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA.
40. The passage is as follows:
[The] Dimona facility has steadily grown in size and complexity in recent years and our experts have increasingly felt [that a] one-day visit by [a] team of only three members is inadequate to cover [the] entire facility. This inadequacy [was] inevitably reflected in [the] team’s report in [the] form of reservation to conclusions of report which can only have [the] effect [of] feeding already existing uncertainties concerning Israel’s nuclear intentions. You should make [the] further point that [the] attempt to limit [the] size of [the] team, duration of visit, or periodicity of visits is contrary to assurances conveyed by Eshkol to you in 1963 that visits would be conducted QUOTE as we desire. UNQUOTE Refusal to allow [the] team to be made up of four members is particularly puzzling and disappointing since this change could not possibly be embarrassing to GOI. (Telegram [105618], Rogers to Barbour, 29 June 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, AE11–2 ISR, USNA)
41. George B. Pleat, telephone interview by author, 14 July 1996; Pleat, correspondence with author, 26 July 1996.
42. A former senior CIA officer who was familiar with the issue characterized the Agency’s attitude in a letter to the author in the following way: “In the Agency view, there was no need for the team to be given any information. They were supposed to gather information, not assess it. Once you get scientists talking to each other, there would be no control at all over information made available to them” (former senior CIA officer, correspondence with author, 9 November 1996).
44. Edwin Kintner, interviews by author, June 1996. Pleat, interview, 14 July 1996. Kintner recalls returning from the CIA briefing so disappointed that he told his wife that if the United States needed to rely exclusively on CIA collection and analysis, it would be in bad shape.
45. Pleat, interview, 14 July 1996.
46. Pleat, correspondence with author, 26 July 1996. Pleat adds: “I do recall vividly the experience as I descended alone thirty or so feet to inspect the facility which I recall was there in conjunction with the waste system. At that time I asked myself what am I doing—thirty feet from the surface, in a foreign facility, in the middle of the Negev desert at midnight? I still get a chuckle thinking about it.”
47. Pleat, interview, 14 July 1996; Floyd Culler, correspondence with author, 9 May 1996; Kintner, interviews, June 1996.
48. In spite of revelations about Dimona by Péan, Perrin, and Vanunu, Kintner still believes that a reprocessing plant probably did not exist in Dimona at the time of his visits there (Kintner, interview, June 1996).
49. Glenn Seaborg, a former AEC chairman, voiced these suspicions in his diary: “We had difficulty and were not given permission to make the necessary inspections to assure ourselves that such a nuclear weapons program was not under way” (Glenn T. Seaborg, personal diaries, 25 September 1966. The entry was made available to the author by Seaborg).
50. Pleat, interview, 14 July 1996; Culler, correspondence, 9 May 1966; Kintner, interviews, June 1996. According to the New York Times, the 1969 team “complained in writing about the limitations on its inspections and reportedly stated that, for this reason, it could not guarantee that there was no weapons-related work at Dimona” (Hedrick Smith, “U.S. Assumes the Israelis Have A-Bomb or Its Parts,” New York Times, 18 July 1970, 1, 8).
51. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, “1969 Dimona Visit,” 13 August 1969, RG 59, CFPF, 1967–69, Box 2649, AE11-2 ISR, USNA.
54. Smith, “U.S. Assumes,” 1, 8; Hersh, The Samson Option, 209–15.
55. Rabin, A Service Record, vol. 2, 251.
56. Memorandum, Joseph S. Sisco to the Acting Secretary, n.d., RG 59, CFPF 1967–69, Box 1486, USNA.
58. Rabin, A Service Record, vol. 2, 251–52 (translation by author).
59. Richardson may have wanted a factual acknowledgment from Rabin about Israel’s nuclear program (that is, that Israel was not manufacturing nuclear weapons or weapon-grade material), but instead he received an analytical pledge. Rabin evaded the factual question of whether Israel was producing nuclear weapons, saying only that as long as Israel did not conduct a nuclear test, no one should assert that Israel had nuclear weapons.
60. Rabin, A Service Record, vol. 2, 251–52 (translation by author).
61. Former senior CIA officer, interviews by the author, 1995–97; correspondence with author, 9 November 1996.
62. Peter Grose, “Mrs. Meir Greeted Warmly by Nixon; Seeks U.S. Pledge,” New York Times, 26 September 1969, 1, 3.
63. Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoir (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 155.
64. Rabin, A Service Record, vol. 2, 257 (translation by author).
65. Gary Samore, conversation with author, Washington D.C., 26 November 1997.
66. The American intelligence community believed at the time that the Israeli nuclear arsenal was composed of devices that were not fully assembled (former senior CIA officer, interview, 2 August 1996).
67. Smith, “U.S. Assumes,” 1.
71. “Israelis Criticize Article in the Times,” New York Times, 19 July 1970; “Jerusalem Response: Israel Will not Be the First to Use Nuclear Weapons” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 19 July 1970.
72. Smith, “U.S. Assumes,” 1.
73. “Washington Responds: Facts on Israeli Atom Speculative” (in Hebrew), Ha’aretz, 19 July 1970.
EPILOGUE
1. These headlines appeared in the Economist (26 October 1991; 19 October 1996).
2. Shimon Peres, in From These Men: Seven Founders of the State of Israel (New York: Wyndham, 1979), 196, says: “It is possible that if we had foreseen all the difficulties on the way, we might have decided that the odds were against us.” Israeli journalist Dan Margalit has recently noted the following: “The Israel in which I started as a journalist had built the atomic reactor in Dimona in ways which, in 1997, would have resulted in the imprisonment of David Ben Gurion and his lieutenants. In the 1990s—with exposure, investigative journalism, and criticism—the nuclear reactor would have never been built” (Dan Margalit, I Saw Them [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1997], 7).
3. One can even argue that the price Israel paid for opacity is expressed not only in democratic terms but even in terms of its security. It has been pointed out recently that “Israel’s defense doctrine has never been updated to take into account the major changes that have swept the Middle East over the past few decades … The [military] doctrine is now obsolete, unsuited to present realities” (Ze’ev Schiff, “Facing Up to Reality,” Ha’aretz, 9 January 1998;Amnon Barzilai, “Seminar to Examine Military’s Strategies” [in Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 18 January 1998). One can argue that one prominent reason for the stifling of military doctrine is the culture of nuclear opacity that has not allowed coherent and thorough conceptualization of Israel’s security and military doctrine that systematically includes the nuclear issue.
4. Avner Cohen and Steven Lee, eds., Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity: The Fundamental Questions (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allenheld, 1986).
5. Robert Dahl, Controlling Nuclear Weapons: Democracy versus Guardianship (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1985), 5; Richard Falk, “Nuclear Weapons and the Renewal of Democracy,” in Cohen and Lee, Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity, 437–56.
6. Little has been written in the Israeli press about the petition, in part because the censor issued a gag order. See Ethan Bronner, “MIT Scholar Fights Israel Censor on Nuclear Article,” Boston Globe, 28 April 1994; Mike Moore, “Avner Cohen, Meet Franz Kafka,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (September/October 1994): 5–6; Ethan Bronner, “Taking on the Censor,” Boston Globe, 23 February 1995.
7. When Shimon Peres, in 1995, sounded as if he might give up nuclear weapons for peace, he was harshly attacked by many as ready to compromise Israel’s vital interests. Within hours he corrected himself by simply saying that he was only reiterating Israel’s official view about NWFZ. The episode was a firsthand demonstration of the tension I describe. Under opacity, of course, the issue was brushed aside as if it did not exist.
8. The late Shalheveth Freier, the director general of the IAEC (1971–1976) and the “unofficial” foreign minister of the IAEC until his death in 1994, told me that when he was in charge he made it known that every senior employee in the system could have an open door with the prime minister (Golda Meir) without his presence. He was heavily criticized for installing that policy, but he thought it would be one form of institutionalizing a “watchdog” into the system. In reality, rarely did anyone use that opportunity.