Date

May 30, 1961

Description

On his way to the Vienna summit with Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy stopped in Manhattan to meet with Ben-Gurion. For both leaders, the Dimona question was a top priority; just as Kennedy wanted Israel to "remove any doubts" that other countries had about its purposes, so Ben-Gurion wanted to resolve this outstanding problem and to let the project be finished quietly. Ben-Gurion stood by his earlier statements that the "main" purpose of the reactor was peaceful - namely, internal economic development. Given Kennedy's interest in regional stability and aversion to nuclear proliferation, he wanted to be able to let Israel's Arab neighbors know about the positive results of the recent Dimona visit by American scientists.

The official U.S. memorandum of conversation is published in the State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States (the file copy at the National Archives is classified even though the FRUS volume has been published), and an Israeli English-language version is also available. As noted earlier, a draft of the official memcon has surfaced which has some interesting differences with the final versions: for example, Ben-Gurion's tacit acknowledgement of a nuclear weapons potential and a statement suggesting freedom of action about eventual reprocessing. The Israeli minutes of the conversation manifest Ben-Gurion's ambiguities and evasiveness even more strongly, for example, his assertion that "for the time being, the only purposes of [the Dimona reactor] are for peace." Moreover, he said, "we will see what happens in the Middle East."

Document published in following posting(s):

Concerned About Nuclear Weapons Potential, John F. Kennedy Pushed for Inspection of Israel Nuclear Facilities

Apr 21, 2016