I DECI ASSIFIEO Authority NNJ ff''f1Q5 - 1 - - - -- J To NEA - Mr Rodger P Davies From lNR Subject Nuclear Developments - Israel Thomas L Hughes Overall Evaluation lNR can neither prove nor disprove the allegations in Tel Aviv's A-478 concerning Israel's nuclear progra separation plant £0'2 5kl ' crA ·- · ·-- that Israel has a chemical There is no physical evidence or first-hand observation to support these documents At the same tine the allegations are plausible and we cannot lightly dismiss them Major Allegations Embassy Tel Aviv's sources claim that 1 Israel either has or 1s about to complete a separation plant 2 the plant is located at Dimona and 3 the DilllOna reactor has been operated at full capacity E 2'$x -·c·rA ·---·••w••·· ··· ·- • · I ·la separation E· s n ·c-r t1 · ·· ··· · · ·-··· - plant has been established it does not specify the location with a capacity of 250 KC per day Separation Plant Assessment If Israel has indeed acquired a separation plant it would be logical to locate it at Dimona in order to reduce problems of transporting the highly radioactive fuel elements from the Dimona reactor One of the US scientists who visited Dimona in April 1966 estimated that a small chemical separation plant could be installed there in 12 - 18 months without any new construction visible to external observation A relatively small plant of this sort could handle perhaps 100 KG per day of spent fuel sufficient to process material for one or two nuclear bombs a year A plant which could process 250 KG f r h _ It per day would be much larger and could not be physically concealed within the Dirnona cowplex as it existed in April 1966 Nearly a year ago Gfa UP 1 xcluded from automat1a SEi8Ml'f 8l il 8 downgi•ading and declassirication NW# 38555 Docld 509291 ------ ---------- - ec l a s i fi ed e i nie r Da te Autt orit y 38555 6-1 5-2 01 6 By J r an d DECLASSIFIED Authority Nil f 'i 'f' -05 - 2 - US inspectors saw no evidence of separation facilities at Dimona the waste -' traatment plant they did see was too lightly shielded to process the radioactive effluent from a separation facility These observations can no longer be relied upon because the Israelis have in theory at least had enough time to install separation facilities and to increase the shielding Only another inspection of Dimona could resolve this issue Operation of the Dimona actor The allegation that the reactor has been operated at full capacity is ambiguous in its technical implications exist 1 In broad terms two possibilities if the reactor were run at full power and the fuel elements not changed frequently the resulting plutonium would be degraded 2 If however the reactor were run at full power and the fuel elements changed rt-f u l JIJ frequently maximwn output of weapons grade plutonit1111 would result This is o' li-r i c I i' _1 I ill f - O iP where the missing 80 tons of uranium concentrate reportedly purchased from Argentina comes in Its long as this is notaccounted for the Israelis at least theoretically have the capability for using the reactor in the second way listed above and a reasonable chance of not having this detected The Embassy's sources did not volunteer any information on the timing of the fuel element changes however so that the infot'lllation as it now stands tells us only that the reactor has gone up to full capacity whereas last year it had not The difficulty of evaluating this information is apparent frODI the fact 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 NW# 38555 ---- ------ It is therefore the possible combination of full Oocid 509291 DECLASSIFIED Authority Nl'ID t f 'i'i'7- - - - - 5 _J - 3 - power operation frequent fuel element changes and the employ1Qent of the unaccounted-for Argentine concentrate that would point definitively to an Israeli intention to accuraulate the maximum amount of weapons grade plutonium as sooo as possible °Eo2'5 i1 01-11 _ _ • ·- '·· - ·-·-•- - _ -• • I ' 10- 1 Points Io Question We share the Embassy's doubts about Israel's capability for producing a QUclear weapons in 6-8 weeks The technical problems involved in warhead design make it unlikely that Israel could telescope the estimated two year time interval unaided NW# 38555 We cannot however exclude the possibility that France Oocid 509291 - --- J might be willing to test an Israeli devtce without attributing it to Israel or that Israel on its own might assemble and stockpile a small number of untested devices We attach no special significance to the separation of the Atomic Energy item in the Israeli budget and note that the sum involved $13 7 million is well within the annual outlays estimated in NIE 4 66 Table II page 17 Dr Bergmann' resignation as chairman of Israel's AEC is reassuring rather than 0111inous since he reportedly was a hawk_on the subject of nuclear weapons for Israel Thus his policy differences with dlll Prime Minister Eshkol logically should find the PM on the other side of the issue More- over the increase in the Israeli AEC'a membership from three to 14 also may indicate that Eshkol is willing to share his policy makingre_ 'l onsibilities with a larger group-something he would be unlikely to do if the group were involved in covert designing or stockpiling of nuclear weapons It is however also possible that the expanded AEC membership does not participate in policy determinations concerning nuclear weapons and that this responsibility is reserved fur a far smaller group higher up in the government Evaluation of Sources Finally insofar as the various sources of this most recent intelligence are concerned the Committee for Nuchar Disarmament has been in existence and crusading against nuclear weapons for Israel since 1961 The C01111llittee's membership is composed mainly of professors at Hebrew University and Technion and it is possible that they have professional and or family associations with persomel working at Dimona NW# 38555 For this reason even though its members are Docid 509291 - - - DECLASSIFIED Authority t J 'il r etr'1'7-Q5 EetmT 11 J Di8 - 5 - biased on the subject and they are not members of the govertu1ent's inner circle '' they should be cultivated and attempts made to obtain further information fr0111 them of a more specific nature -------------------- D We have discussed the _ •b o ve ·e CJalu'a'tian -· ' ' •·' • we - wuie s· --- at all the steps of an intelligence nature that can now be made are being made From an intelligence viewpoint of course it is of greatest importance that the next US inspection of Dimona take place without further delay When the report of the inspection ia in a USIB asaess- qent would be in order Sl CIU lf HB 9 · INR RES G Jofonk INR RNA STTait dja NWM 38555 Docid 509291 r - ------ --- - - - 3 9 67