1960 Intelligence Report Said Israeli Nuclear Site Was for Weapons

Before the discovery of the secret nuclear reactor at Dimona during November-December 1960, the Atomic Energy Commission had provided Israel with a small five-megawatt research reactor under the “Atoms for Peace Program,” with fuel provided by the AEC. Located at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center formerly referred to as Nabi Rubin site, some fifteen miles south of Tel Aviv the recently constructed reactor (designed by Philip Johnson and inaugurated in June 1960) was subject to inspection under an Agreement for Cooperation between the AEC and the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission.

For the first inspection of this reactor, AEC officials John J. Downing and James H. Herring visited the site on 9 June 1960. Their report concluded that the operations of the reactor and the use of U.S. fuel were in “accordance with safeguards provisions.” Discussion at the embassy a few days later indicated that the reactor could produce only miniscule amounts of plutonium, 5 grams per day, and most likely far less. Under the inspection requirements there was “no risk of material diversion except for the production of isotopes for radiological warfare.”

Two days after the inspection, the AEC team met with U.S. diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, where there was vocal support for two inspections per year, the maximum permitted. The discussion quickly shifted to Israel and nuclear weapons. Perhaps not wholly appreciative or supportive of the Eisenhower administration’s developing concern about nuclear proliferation, Embassy officials focused on Israel’s security needs. With Israel surrounded by hostile states, “maximum effect” weapons were the “most effective means of self-protection.” Either Israel could build nuclear weapons, or France could supply them.

France may have been mentioned because embassy officials had heard “reports of a joint Israeli-French team doing something in atomic energy in or near Beersheba.” The AEC officials knew nothing about that and wanted to learn more. The discussion concluded with an understanding that, with “new separation techniques” (used for producing plutonium), Israel could “become a nuclear power.” Yet, keeping a nuclear weapons program a secret “would be difficult ... in so small a country.”

When AEC General Manager Luedecke subsequently provided, six months later, reports of the inspection and the embassy meeting to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, he observed that the discussion at the Embassy of French-Israeli atomic activities was in the nature of “rumor type reports” that had circulated during 1960. According to Luedecke, when the CIA’s Herbert Scoville testified to the JCAE on Israeli nuclear activities in December 1960, he had mentioned such reports.[9]

This recently declassified intelligence report, shared in December 1960 with Congress’s Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, used newly acquired information to go far beyond the earlier rumors by confirming not only the joint French-Israeli construction of a large reactor in a site near Beersheba but also by noting that the joint project would include a “plutonium separation plant.” We believe this is the first – and possibly the only – U.S. intelligence document that unequivocally and explicitly declared that the French-Israeli joint nuclear project included those two major components: a production reactor and a plutonium separation plant.

All subsequent U.S. intelligence estimates treated the issue of a separation plant as an unresolved matter of concern, most often taking the view that it did not yet exist, and that its construction most likely would require a new political decision. Yet the Committee did not explain how it reached the judgement that Dimona would include a separation plant. In any event, by positing the construction of a separation plant, the report assumed that the reactor’s purpose was weapons production, not research.

The Committee estimated that the power of the reactor was about 200 MW (thermal), which is almost 10 times larger than the declared nominal power, 24 MW. Tracing the construction of the site to 1959, it estimated that the reactor would be operational by mid-1961. The latter date was an overestimate, by far, as the document forecasts that, by mid-1962, Dimona could produce about 30 kilograms of weapons grade plutonium, given they conduct their first weapons test by late 1962 or early 1963. It also speculated that the French could provide a test site but that if they provided weapons designs no tests would be necessary. According to the report, the French and Israelis would be making a statement in a few days.

This AEC intelligence report was far less categorical than the JAEIC had been about the purposes of the French-Israeli project, but when the Commission’s analysts considered various interpretations they believed that the “secrecy surrounding the project suggested that the complex was intended for the production of weapons-grade plutonium, whether or not generation of electric power is involved.” One of the interpretations, that the purpose was a research reactor with little capacity to produce plutonium, they deemed “incompatible with the security of the site and the large scale of the entire project, and particularly the large size of the dome-shaped containment building.”

At that point, the AEC’s analysts were not sure what type of French reactor Dimona was modeled after and their report listed four different reactor types and their potential to produce plutonium, including the Marcoule and the EL-3 models. Some months later, however, Dimona plant director Mannes Pratt told the AEC officials examining the reactor in May 1961 that it was “very much influenced by the French EL-3 model.”[10] Whatever French model was relevant, AEC intelligence, unlike the JAEIC, did not specify that a reprocessing plant would be part of the Dimona complex, although the weapons grade plutonium interpretation would require the availability of one.

The JCAE hearing on 9 December 1960 that AEC General Manager Luedecke mentioned had its contentious moments. The hearing record remains classified, but this heavily excised account provides a little of the flavor. The testimony by the State Department’s Phillip Farley conveyed the gravity of the concerns about Dimona: that the “security of the United States” was involved and that the reactor’s existence had produced “needless suspicion and risk.”

Senator John Pastore (D-RI) “showed agitation” that the U.S. had been “‘snooping around’ [excised] our supposed friends” and said that as soon as it had the earliest evidence it should have “confronted Israel directly.” By contrast, Senator Albert Gore, Sr. (D-TN) “defended the subterfuge.” Both, “for different reasons,” blamed the CIA and the State Department “for tardy action.” Committee members were generally concerned that, if the existence of Dimona leaked out, the U.S. “would be blamed because of its close economic ties” with Israel. In particular, they did not want it to become general knowledge that the U.S. government had known about Dimona “before it was public.”

Despite those concerns, on 18 December 1960, AEC Chair John McCone appeared on “Meet the Press,” where he disclosed that the U.S. had “informal and unofficial” information about the reactor, acknowledged that it came as a “surprise” to the U.S., and said that Washington was seeking more information from Israel. Those statements incensed Ben-Gurion (See Document 5).

On 21 December 1960, Ben-Gurion made a statement to the Knesset acknowledging the reactor and declaring that its purpose was research for peaceful purposes. He did not mention the French connection. For the Eisenhower administration, this was not enough; top State Department officials found Ben-Gurion to be “evasive” in answering questions about plutonium and access to Dimona by U.S. scientists, and for his “failure to confide” with President Eisenhower. Seeking more candor, Under Secretary of State Douglas Dillon sent the Embassy in Tel Aviv, on 31 December 1960, specific questions to pose to the Israeli leadership – either Prime Minister Ben Gurion or Foreign Minister Meir – about the reactor, safeguards, and visits by “qualified scientists from the IAEA or other friendly quarters.”

As part of the follow-up to the Department’s request, on 4 January 1961, Ambassador Reid was summoned to Sde Boker (Ben Gurion’s Negev’s residence) and had a lengthy discussion with the Prime Minister, which he reported in a detailed five-part “eyes only” message. Ben-Gurion was plainly aggravated by the publicity given to the Dimona reactor and the detailed questions about Israel’s purposes, especially the demand for a categorical statement that Israel “has no plans for producing nuclear weapons.” Ben-Gurion said his answer was a “categorical yes,” that Israel had no such plans. He went on to discuss at length what he thought was the “greatness” of the United States, for example, as a “refuge for tens of millions of people of Europe,” for its war against slavery, and its early recognition of the State of Israel. But then he went on to say that “we are equals of America in terms of moral respect.” Soon, “drawing himself up in his chair,” he said, “We didn't deserve it and we will not accept such treatment.”

That was Ben Gurion’s irate and emotional response to the way that the Eisenhower administration had handled the Dimona issue. What especially rankled him was AEC Director John McCone’s statements on “Meet the Press” on 18 December 1960 that Dimona was a “surprise” to the U.S. and that Washington had asked Israel for more information. Evidently, Ben-Gurion did not think that such matters should be public, especially after his subsequent statement to the Knesset, on 21 December, which was as “trustworthy as any made by the highest [U.S.] officials.” Suggesting that U.S. officials should not raise doubts about Israel’s purposes, he declared that, “We are not a satellite of America... and will never be a satellite.” Later he observed that McCone’s comments had contributed to the “deterioration of the atmosphere in the Middle East” by increasing concern about Dimona, noting that, “If [Egyptian leader] Nasser wins, every Jew will be exterminated in this country.”

When the discussion turned to safeguards about plutonium produced from the reactor and possibilities for inspection, Ben-Gurion said, “I refuse” because he did not want Soviet inspectors as “part of an international body,” referring to the IAEA. Yet, when Reid asked why Dimona could not have inspections when Israel had accepted them for the Soreq research reactor, he could not get straightforward answers from Ben-Gurion, who wanted to avoid acknowledging that he wanted freedom of action for Israel to use Dimona as it saw fit. Ben-Gurion allowed that “access” by a “friendly” power could be possible under some conditions, for example, if McCone made no further statements.

Reid and Ben-Gurion discussed the “spying question.” Ben Gurion was the one who raised the issue and asked whether the U-2 flew over Dimona. Reid responded that he had never been “officially informed” about U-2 flights and that the only photographs of Dimona he knew about were taken from the roadside. While taking “full responsibility” for the activities of the CIA and military attaches, Reid assured Ben-Gurion that “there was no spying going on.”

Noting the Embassy’s efforts to establish a “working relationship” between the two countries, Reid said that Israel had not helped matters by failing to “inform us of the reactor—particularly in light of the economic assistance we had been providing.” Reid believed that point, among others that he made, “registered” with the Prime Minister. After noting the severe impact of cabinet crises and the related Lavon Affair on Ben-Gurion, Reid believed that the conversation had “largely” helped clear the air, although Washington would want more information in response to its questions about the Israeli nuclear project.

As detailed in previous postings, U.S. concern about Dimona and the risk it posed to nonproliferation policy persisted during the Kennedy administration. Under nagging pressure for months from President John F. Kennedy, Ben-Gurion finally agreed to the first U.S. visit to the Dimona site in May 1961. Then, after an improvised and unsatisfactory visit in September 1962, President Kennedy resumed his pressure in the spring and summer of 1963 for an arrangement involving regular visits, to which Ben-Gurion (and subsequently his successor Levi Eshkol) reluctantly assented in August 1963. The first of those visits took place on 18 January 1964 under president Lyndon Johnson, and the full report on the visit was published for the first time in a previous posting. While President Johnson shared President Kennedy’s concern about nuclear proliferation, he was certainly not as persistent and demanding with the Israelis as his predecessor had been.

The 1965 Dimona visit was the second of those annual visits. Its arrangement involved as many diplomatic complications as the earlier ones. Prime Minister Eshkol delayed the visit, and the Israelis imposed restrictions on its length. The fundamental findings of the 1965 visit are outlined in a previously released short summary made available to the State Department and the White House. The full 30-page report by the 1965 U.S. team – Ulysses Staebler with the AEC, Clyde McClelland with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and Floyd L, Culler with Oak Ridge Laboratory – is even more interesting, in part because of its detailed coverage of the limited capacities the Israelis presented to the visitors in the areas of reprocessing and plutonium. The construction, apparently completed during this period, of a large underground reprocessing facility at Dimona was the big secret of Dimona that the Israelis had successfully concealed. As noted, State Department and CIA officials recognized that an Israeli bomb was possible only if spent reactor fuel could be chemically processed into plutonium. Trying to identify such a facility was high on the U.S. agenda, but U.S. officials had no idea that the secret 1957 French-Israeli agreement for the Dimona nuclear package had provided for a reprocessing plant that the French constructed and the Israelis completed in a secret underground structure. [11]

Hosted by Professor Igal Talmi, a prominent nuclear physicist at the Weizmann Institute, the January 1965 visit was rushed; it lasted only one day, a little less than 11 hours. The Israelis would not agree to provide more time, let alone an additional day. Nevertheless the team members believed that they had seen enough to draw reliable conclusions. Among the main findings of the report (also included in the summary and in Howard Brown’s cover letter) was that even though they thought there was “no near term possibility of a weapons development program,” the reactor “has excellent development and production capability and potential that warrants “continued surveillance at intervals not to exceed one year.” Among the points consistent with such “potential” was that the amount of uranium onsite was enough to “produce on the order of 10 to 30 Kgs of plutonium after 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 years of irradiation, depending upon the irradiation level desired for the plutonium.” In their assessment, a chemical separation plant to produce the plutonium “could be constructed .... within perhaps two years as an internal modification within an existing building.”

As long as Dimona remained a “secret facility,” the team recommended that future visits try to establish, for example “whether the reactor operating schedule is indicative of ‘weapons grade’ plutonium production” and to find “any evidence of the construction of a chemical separations plant.” Another sign of weapons potential became evident from the visit to the small plutonium hot cells laboratory, which included three rooms “equipped for work with dangerous alpha-active substances such as plutonium.” The lab was then working with 56 grams of the 150 grams of plutonium received from the French for research purposes. According to the report, the “plutonium facilities are very complete and are suitable for an extensive research or small production program.” While the glove box equipment needed for safe operations is “relatively small scale .... it would be possible ....to equip the [glove] boxes with equipment suitable for the fabrication of the plutonium components required for a nuclear weapon.”

In connection with the plutonium issue, the team visited the “ventilation, filtration, decontamination building” where a pilot plutonium separation plant “was to have been constructed.” But Director Mannes Pratt said that he doubted that “it will ever be constructed,” and the team found no evidence “that the radiochemical processing pilot plant does exist ... or is planned.” Thus, the Israelis maintained the narrative that despite their initial plans reprocessing capability did not exist.

An important issue was how Israel would handle the first reactor core that had been irradiated and removed. According to Pratt, the core would be returned to France for chemical processing, but that issue had not yet received “detailed consideration.” He did not make clear exactly what would happen with the core and responded to a “direct question about the disposal of the plutonium recovered from the Israeli fuel” only by stating that it “was a question of policy.” According to Pratt, the French could continue to supply small quantities of plutonium for research purposes under the same conditions that they had supplied the 150 grams, but those conditions were not explained. When a team member “mentioned that a four-year cooling period would reduce transportation costs, Mr. Pratt acknowledged that [Dimona lacked] facilities for such long cooling times” and he “worried about the consequences of an air attack” if irradiated material was onsite.

The uranium metal production facility that produced material used in the fuel elements was part of the visit, but the U.S. team was informed that the plant had been shut down because of a shortage of uranium supplies. At that point, one of the team members asked about Israeli procurement of uranium concentrate from foreign sources. While the team did not mention uranium from Argentina, it is what they had in mind when the issue was raised. The Israelis, however, refused to discuss “foreign sources” declaring that it was “outside the scope of this visit.”

Before the U.S. team arrived at Dimona, it lodged at the Desert Inn Hotel in Beer Sheba. There, as it turned out, Harvard Professor Henry Kissinger, previously an adviser to the Kennedy White House, was also staying (apparently meeting Israelis connected to the nuclear project). That caused some consternation until it was determined that none of the team members were acquainted with him. A few days later, Kissinger met with U.S. diplomats in Tel Aviv and during that meeting said that the Israelis had “embarked on a nuclear weapons construction program.”

When Howard Brown sent the report of the April 1966 visit to Dimona, his cover letter considered two possibilities about the reactor’s actual operations. One was the “bare possibility that the reactor may have operated to produce about 3 kilograms of plutonium since the time of the last visit in January 1965.” But the other possibility, indeed what the team saw as the overall “most probable conclusion” was “that the reactor was operating as a research reactor,” since there was “no evidence of any nuclear weapons research and development work being conducted at the Dimona site.”

The 17-page report did not name the team’s three members, but from other documents we know it consisted of W. Kelly Woods, a General Electric employee at the AEC Hanford works in Richland, WA; Donald E. Erb, with the Division of Reactor Development and Technology at the AEC’s Headquarters, and Floyd L. Culler, the Oak Ridge scientist who participated in the 1965 visit to Dimona.[12]

Professor Amos De-Shalit, a prominent nuclear physicist at the Weizmann Institute for Science where he was also the Scientific Director, served as the visit’s host on behalf of the Prime Minister. Before Dimona was constructed, De-Shalit had been a critic of Israel’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. During the course of the visit, De-Shalit told a team member – believed to be Floyd Culler – that the Israeli government had “long recognized that it cannot develop weapons to the displeasure of either US Jews who contribute heavily to Israel’s support or, more particularly, the US Government.”[13] From the report. it is impossible to assess whether De-Shalit made this remark as a personal opinion or as a factual claim. That concern, along with Nasser’s threating statements about Dimona at that time, may have contributed to Prime Minister Eshkol’s cautiousness on Dimona during this period.[14]

It was not for want of looking that the 1966 U.S. team found no evidence that “Israel is or intends to produce nuclear weapons in the facilities which we have seen” (emphasis in the original). To support that conclusion it cited several considerations, including the apparent absence of a reprocessing facility at the Dimona site, the lack of a “capability in installed equipment for producing PU [plutonium] metal in any appreciable quantity,” the fact that the irradiation objectives at Dimona “will not produce PU that is particularly useful for nuclear weapons,” and that the “reactor has not been pushed to … full power operation at its design power of 26 MWT with any urgency.” Moreover, the past presence of French technicians, although in lessening numbers “mitigates against diversion or deviation from the patterns which we have observed.” There also was no evidence that diversion of the uranium inventory at Dimona had occurred. Some of those considerations were not as conclusive as the team may have assumed; for example, because the French were in on the secret of the underground reprocessing plant, the U.S. team was too sanguine in assuming that their presence acted as a check on Israeli weapons goals.[15]

The 1966 report prudently acknowledged the “possibility that the team may have been deliberately deceived,” but added that the team “believed that this is unlikely.” Now we know that Israel concealed the existence of its underground super-secret reprocessing plant and that plutonium production trials started in 1966. In retrospect, it is well understood that the U.S. visits at Dimona necessitated a systematic effort to deceive U.S. inspectors by concealing major operations, most prominently the reprocessing plant and the reactor’s actual power level.[16] One also wonders whether the official host on behalf of Prime Minister Eshkol, Professor Amos De Shalit, was fully aware of Dimona’s big secret, the underground reprocessing plant. We do not know.

In considering a theoretical possibility of deception, the report made several points. One was that the team could not affirmatively rule out whether there was a reprocessing plant in site or even another reactor elsewhere in Israel.[17] Thus, U.S. intelligence needed to “maintain a constant surveillance of the country to determine whether such a plant or plants exists or are being built.” Also relevant was the need to determine “as conclusively as possible” the disposition or shipment of the irradiated fuel discharged from the reactor” to ensure that it was not used for plutonium production.

Another concern about the possibility of deception was that nothing could be learned about the 80 or more tons of uranium from Argentina and how Israel was using it.[18] When asked about the uranium, Dimona’s new director, Joseph Tulipman said he “knows nothing and acted as though it was the first time he had heard of it when asked.” In its report, the U.S team correctly pointed to the risk that it “could be a supply of uranium that has been or could in the future be run through the reactor between our visits and not be detected so long as the indicated reactor utilization is low.” Israel would be doing something very much like that in its efforts to acquire weapons-grade plutonium during this period.

Besides the central question of whether the Israelis were using Dimona for weapons production purposes, the report covered a visit to the Soreq research reactor, the possibility of inspection by the IAEA or other international organizations, and the intense concern for secrecy about Dimona. A major worry was that the reactor’s vulnerability made the Israelis “very concerned about a possible leak to the media which again might draw Nasser’s attention to the reactor.” According to De-Shalit, “Israelis fear there may be an unannounced large strike at Dimona.” Those concerns made them so apprehensive about the security of the irradiated fuel from bombing that they wanted to ship the fuel elements to France as soon as the French were ready for them to do so. The team asked De-Shalit if the U.S. could observe the loading of the fuel, and he agreed to look into it.

De-Shalit believed that “open inspection” of Dimona would be to Israel’s advantage, but it could not be by the IAEA because any information its inspectors obtained would become available to Arab countries. Suggesting that the visits to Dimona by U.S experts were too “unstable” with their “potential for embarrassing both parties,” De-Shalit proposed inspections by EURATOM or NATO as an alternative. Once again, one cannot but wonder whether De-Shalit was fully aware of Dimona’s big secrets.

Just less than a year after the 1966 inspection, the State Department was considering the possibility that Israel had begun to reprocess spent fuel from the Dimona reactor. In early February 1967, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Walworth Barbour sent an airgram, not yet declassified, discussing allegations made by two local sources suggesting, according to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, that “Israel could be much closer to nuclear weapons capability than we had supposed.” Around the same time, Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs Rodger P. Davies wrote that, “Some recent intelligence reports suggest that Israel may be constructing a chemical separation facility and proceeding so far in the production of bomb components that assembly of a nuclear weapon could be completed in 6-8 weeks.”[19]

Secretary of State Dean Rusk wanted intelligence offices to assess these startling claims, and one result was a memorandum that Thomas Hughes, director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), sent to Davies. The CIA excised large portions of the document, but enough information was left to see the major points. Drawing on statements made by several secret sources, at least one of which may have been a member of the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament (better known as the Committee for Denuclearization of the Middle East)[20], Hughes stated that the conclusions from the 1966 inspection visit about the lack of a reprocessing plant were not necessarily valid because the Israelis “have had enough time to install separation facilities.”[21] INR’s analysts did not consider the possibility that Israel had a secret reprocessing plant at Dimona that had been operating for several years; they characterized the facility as a “relatively small plant” that was probably installed after the last visit and that could “handle perhaps 100 KG per day of spent fuel, sufficient to process material for one or two nuclear bombs a year.”

Hughes discussed how that could happen. If the reactor “were run at full power and the fuel elements were changed frequently, maximum output of weapons grade plutonium would result.” In that scenario, the “missing 80 tons of uranium concentrate reported purchased from Argentina” is very significant because it would give the Israelis the ability to use the reactor that way with a “reasonable chance of not having this detected.” Also relevant to plutonium production was that the “reactor can and has been operated at various power levels, short of full capacity, and that weapons grade plutonium can be extracted at these levels over a period of time.” Hughes’ interpretation strongly suggested that Israel had been conducting a deception operation at Dimona, but he did not draw that conclusion.

Hughes doubted the source’s claim that Israel could produce a weapon in six to eight weeks, but he allowed the possibility that the French “might be willing to test an Israeli device or that Israel on its own might assemble and stockpile a small number of untested devices.” For Hughes, the next U.S. inspection of Dimona was critically important to help resolve the question of reprocessing capability. Moreover, Hughes recommended “cultivating” the Israeli sources to obtain more details.

The full report for the 1967 visit by U.S. inspectors is not available, but this 11-page declassified “preliminary” summary and the conclusions indicated that U.S. inspectors were categorically told that Dimona lacked a reprocessing facility and that Israel had no intention to build one at the Dimona site. While the inspecting team accepted the Israeli denial of a reprocessing plant and their overall presentation of Dimona as a “research center,” the U.S. team noted that as long of tons of irradiated fuel “remains in Israel, the risk of diversion is present.”

Questions and comments handwritten on the back of the report, possibly by National Security Council staffer Harold Saunders, indicated serious concerns about Dimona. For example, could Dimona "be completely divorced from military program?" "What are chances of cheating"? "What questions about Israel's overall nuclear capability are left unanswered?" "Do your findings mean there can be no other plutonium in Israel?" "If fuel not shipped to France in a year, should worry."

Those were the right problems to worry about, but the comment in the report about “risk of diversion” was beside the point because only six weeks later, on the eve of the June 1967 Six Day War, Israel assembled two or three nuclear implosion devices for the first time using plutonium cores produced secretly at Dimona.[22] This unprecedented “operational alert” was designed for the “most extreme scenario,” where Israel’s existence might be in extreme danger; under that circumstance, a nuclear device could be exploded in the eastern Sinai to demonstrate a capability.[23] That move was utterly secret and, as far as can be known, undetected by other powers, although U.S. intelligence agencies were becoming aware of Israel’s developing nuclear capabilities. But the reason for the nuclear contingency plan deployment, as a deterrent for the worst-case situation, was Israel’s basic justification for possessing the weapons.[24]

When a JCAE official wrote this memorandum, Richard Nixon was becoming U.S. president. Downplaying proliferation concerns generally, in less than a year Nixon took a new approach to important regional ally Israel by accepting Prime Minister Golda Meir’s assurances that Israel would keep its nuclear status ambiguous and unacknowledged while the U.S. would end pressures for inspection at Dimona and NPT commitments.[25]

What motivated the writing of this heavily excised memorandum were recent news stories that Israel “already had … or would shortly have a number of nuclear weapons.”[26] On 8 January 1969, NBC news reported that, two years earlier, Israel had begun a “crash program” to produce the weapons. Both U.S. and Israeli sources denied or “discounted” the reports. In point of fact, they were correct in spirit because, as already noted, Israel had assembled several devices on the brink of the Six Day War.[27]

To check out the story, JCAE staffer Murphy asked the CIA whether there had been an Israeli “breakthrough” in the nuclear weapons field. The CIA withheld the rest of the memorandum, except for the AEC’s biographic sketch of Raymond Fox, a U.S. nuclear physicist residing in Israel. Fox, who would make a career in Israel as an expert on plasma astrophysics, had formerly been on the staff of Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, where he may have had some access to weapons information. He had taken a fellowship at the Weizman Institute and decided to stay in Israel. By inference, the CIA’s information may have concerned Fox’s possible contributions to the weapons program or his knowledge of it.[28]

After India’s “peaceful nuclear explosion” in May 1974, concern about its impact and implications put nuclear proliferation on the front burner in U.S. government policymaking. In late August 1974, the intelligence establishment published a top secret Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE), “Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.” The document was closely held, but its conclusions, such as the ones about Israel, were distributed to senior officials at the Atomic Energy Commission and probably other agencies. Some years ago, the SNIE was substantially declassified including the section on Israel.

This is the excised version of the SNIE’s concussions that went public in early 1978 in response to a FOIA request by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Well covered in the news media was the CIA’s evaluation that Israel had produced nuclear weapons, a judgment based on “Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium, partly by clandestine means; the ambiguous nature of Israeli efforts in the field of uranium enrichment, [and] Israel’s large investment in a costly missile system designed to accommodate nuclear weapons.” [29]

The comprehensive withholding by the CIA of the entire text of this recent release is another example of the deep secrecy surrounding information about Dimona.

In a telegram sent in early February 1977, most likely for use as a briefing paper for a forthcoming trip to Israel by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, the U.S. Embassy provided an overview of the U.S.-Israeli nuclear relationship, including a pending bilateral nuclear power agreement with the United States involving the construction by Westinghouse of two large power plants.

The Embassy pointed to the secrecy surrounding Dimona. While the Israelis had permitted U.S. “informal inspections” during the 1960s, no U.S. officials had been allowed to visit since 1969. In the fall of 1976, they forbade a request for a visit by Senators Abraham Ribicoff (D-Ct) and Howard Baker (R-TN).

Assuming that Israel had plenty of capability to produce nuclear weapons, the Embassy left open the question of whether it had actually done so: Theoretically, Israel “has the capacity to have generated the material for a dozen or so 20-kiloton nuclear weapons” since the Dimona reactor went critical in 1963. It also had the “scientific and technological capability to have developed these weapons.” Yet, Israel had denied that it had nuclear weapons and the government’s “basic line” was that “Israel is a non-nuclear country” and “will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the area.”

On the NPT, the Embassy quoted a statement made by Foreign Minister Yigal Allon to a Congressional delegation that he favored signing it, but that the world in which Israel lived was one “where its neighbors sign but claim those signatures do not apply to their relations with Israel, and Israel, therefore, has not [sic] faith in the NPT.” It is worth noting that was not true at least with respect to Egypt. When Egypt signed the NPT, it made no spoken or written statement or reservation.[30]

The judgement in the 1974 SNIE that Israel had the bomb became public through the CIA’s FOIA release to the NRDC. When reporters made inquiries, a CIA official stated that the release had been a “mistake” because some of the information should have remained classified. According to one account, a CIA officer had said that the error could cause an “international incident.”[31]

Noting the stories, the U.S. Embassy in Israel asked Ambassador Samuel Lewis, then in Washington, for guidance and instructions in the event that the Israeli Foreign Ministry brought up the matter officially. It is possible that the Israelis expressed discontent about the revelations, but no record of that has surfaced.

The State Department responded quickly by informing the Embassy that questions on the press stories should go to Washington. It provided guidance based on the “strong” statements by the Government of Israel that it “will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East” and declarations by Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in 1974 and 1975 that “we have no nuclear weapons” and that “Israel is a non-nuclear country.” According to the Department. those were “authoritative statements” and “we have nothing to add.”

By validating those statements, the State Department was sustaining the position taken by President Nixon in September 1969 when he reached a secret understanding with Prime Minister Golda Meir that, in return for continued Israeli ambiguity on the status of its weapons activities, the U.S. would avoid pressure on its nuclear program. Although the Jimmy Carter administration had put nuclear nonproliferation at the heart of its foreign policy, for broader policy reasons it spared Israel from significant pressure in that respect.

On 21 February 1978, a few weeks after the news stories on the CIA’s release of the SNIE conclusions, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin met with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance for a discussion of current matters including SALT, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East. Dobrynin handed Vance a “non-paper” raising questions about the press reports about Israeli nuclear weapons. According to the non-paper, the Soviets wanted the U.S. to clarify the matter: “to what extent are true [sic] the reports …. that U.S. government agencies … came to the conclusion that Israel is in possession of nuclear weapons.” Vance observed that the Israelis had denied they had the bomb and that the CIA was divided on the matter. He would study the Soviet memorandum.

At an earlier meeting, on 6 March 1978, Dobrynin raised another nuclear proliferation issue, South Africa. During the meeting on 11 March, Dobrynin asked Vance for a reply to the questions about South African and Israeli nuclear capabilities. The Secretary said that a response on South Africa would be ready on 16 March and that the Department was working on a reply about Israel.

Surprisingly, Vance went somewhat beyond the usual position of accepting Israeli denials by acknowledging that “our intelligence community agreed that Israel had the capability to make nuclear weapons, [but] it was split on the question of whether it had already done so.” Whether there actually was a split or not, Dobrynin was skeptical: he said he had “‘a higher opinion of the US intelligence people’ than the answer implied.”

At this meeting, Vance provided answers to Dobrynin about Israel and South Africa. On the South Africa nuclear issues, Ambassador Gerard C. Smith ducked discussion. They gave Dobrynin a written reply and observed that “we had no information about the additional sites mentioned by the Soviets and we would be glad to have any further information the Soviet Union wished to make available.” Smith mentioned a Pravda article claiming that NATO was providing South Africa with nuclear aid, a claim that Smith said was “completely wrong.”

On Israel, Vance provided an oral note or “non-paper” (see document 19), in part saying that “we accepted Israeli assurances they had not produced nuclear weapons.” A skeptical Dobrynin “persistently questioned whether we really believe what the Israelis said.” Vance replied, “there was no evidence that Israeli assurances were untrue.” Thus, in this example of government-to-government dialogue about Israel’s nuclear status, the Department formally upheld Israel’s posture of nuclear ambiguity. In any event, whether he believed Israel’s assurances, Vance was not going to share intelligence on its weapons program with a Cold War adversary; he may well have been concerned that the Soviets would share the information with their Arab associates, which would not help the Carter administration’s efforts to maintain equilibrium between Israel and Egypt, much less reach a peace settlement.

In the non-paper for Dobrynin, the U.S. position was that it shared Soviet concerns about nuclear proliferation in “volatile areas of the world.” It had seen the press reports about Israeli nuclear weapons and had raised the matter with the Government of Israel, “which has denied that it possesses such weapons.”

The Israeli Government had also made assurances that “it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East.” The U.S. “accept[s] these assurances.” Thus, the Department formally declared its support for Israel’s position of nuclear ambiguity.

The last paragraph made it clear why the U.S. would not be pressing Israel on the NPT. The U.S. did not expect Israel to accede to the Treaty until there was “significant progress toward a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East.”

The day after the Dobrynin-Vance meeting, Israel’s nuclear weapons program was one of the topics of a lengthy report prepared by the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs. Noting that U.S policy since the May 1974 Indian nuclear test had focused on checking the spread of nuclear-relevant technologies, Gelb saw that approach as having “impressive if not total success” and distinct “shortcomings,” especially the narrow focus on “nuclear transfers” and the avoidance of “linkage with other aspects of bilateral relations.” Also problematic was the emphasis on “capabilities rather than motivations.” To broaden the approach, Gelb presented his readers with a study that explored the “capabilities and motivations” of eleven “sensitive countries,” including Argentina, Brazil, India, and Pakistan, among others.

Gelb put the eleven countries in two broad groups. In one were those that had no “apparent interest” in acquiring nuclear weapons but that would have the means to produce them. The others were those that lacked a capability but were “strongly motivated” to achieve one. The coverage of Israel on pages 26-28 portrayed it as straddling the two categories in that it had an “interest” in a nuclear capability and had probably acquired one, despite its “steadfast and careful ambiguity” about its status. While Washington “lacked the basis” for determining whether Israel had nuclear weapons, it had the means to produce them: “we believe Israel has reprocessed some spent [Dimona] fuel.... to obtain plutonium.” Thus, if a “significant reprocessing capability exists, the Israelis could produce weapons on demand.” If U.S. intelligence reporting and analysis was more specific than this, the drafters of this report either did not have access to it or the report’s “secret” classification prevented use of sensitive intelligence.

While the writers were not sure whether Israel saw an “actual demonstration of nuclear weapons to be in its self interest,” they saw plenty of motivation to have a weapons capability and to use it in a crisis: Israel’s “insecurity is profound because of its precarious location, the number, size, and commonality of its opponents and the intractability of the regional conflict.” With its capabilities, “we judge it likely that it could and would resort to nuclear weapons if its existence as a state were threatened.”

Israel’s dependence on the U.S. for conventional weapons support was an important aspect of the security relationship and may have been “responsible for whatever restraint Israel had exercised regarding nuclear weapons.” Yet, it did not give Washington significant leverage for nonproliferation purposes because of the “unequivocal” support for Israel by U.S. “domestic interests” and by the “clandestine character of the Israeli nuclear program which makes official deniability possible and shield[s] the program from attempts to verify military use.”

The State Department working-level drafters of this report were most likely unaware of the Meir-Nixon agreement because of its extreme sensitivity. Yet, they understood that the problem of Israel was a special case, to a degree untouchable by demarches, diplomatic pressure, and export controls, in part because of domestic political considerations as well as larger diplomatic concerns. The final sentence of the section on Israel made even more explicit the point raised in Document 19: “The high US priority in finding a peace settlement in the area is overriding and inhibits effective pursuit of non-proliferation objectives in Israel.”

This report’s recipients included a long list of senior officials from Ambassador Gerard C. Smith and Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Harold Saunders to Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Patsy Mink and Policy Planning Staff director Anthony Lake. Whether the recipients returned the report with comments and suggestions or whether it was subsequently revised remains to be learned.