Date

Jul 6, 1960

Description

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]

Source

National Archives, Record Group 128, Joint Congressional Committees (RG 128), Records of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Subject Files, Box 16, Foreign Activities- Israel 1957-1976

Document published in following posting(s):

1960 Intelligence Report Said Israeli Nuclear Site Was for Weapons

Dec 17, 2024

R. Ludecke, General Manager, Atomic Energy Commission, to James T Ramey, Executive Director, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 4 March 1961, enclosing memorandum from John J. Downing to John V. Vinciguerra, “Safeguards Inspection – Israel,” with enclosure, 6 July 1960, Secret, Excised copy