Futile Work
  • Home
  • News
    • Articles Of Interest
    • Numbers In The News
    • Life and Humanity
    • Quotes
    • Futile Updates
  • Curio
    • The Wonder of Lasers
    • Japan 2011 Psyop
    • Know Your Rights
    • Masonic Symbols and the LDS Temple
    • The Nun's Story
    • Special Edition
    • Explosion On The Launch Pad
  • Archive
    • Dave McGowan
    • Document Archive
    • Multi Media
    • Time For A Laugh
  • Blog

Articles of Interest

The U.S. Discovery of Israel's Secret Nuclear Project‏

4/16/2015

 
Israeli Cover Stories about the Dimona Reactor Dismayed Top Level Officials Who Saw a "Clearly Apparent Lack of Candor"

U.S. Embassy Telegram Quotes Ben-Gurion Aide That It Was a "Stupid Mistake" by Israel to Cloak the Nuclear Project in Secrecy

To Prevent Military Uses of the Facility, U.S. Officials Believed the International Atomic Energy Agency Should Monitor Dimona (It Never Has)
Today's Posting Inaugurates the National Security Archive's Special Web Site on Israeli Nuclear History

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 510
Posted - April 15, 2015
Avner Cohen and William Burr, editors
For more information contact:
Avner Cohen at 202-489-6282 (mobile) or 831-647-6437 (office)
William Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu


Washington, DC, Posted April 15, 2015 -- The U.S. government first learned of Israel's secret nuclear program at Dimona from an American corporate official talking to U.S. diplomats in Tel Aviv during mid-summer 1960, according to a declassified document published today for the first time by the National Security Archive, the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, and the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Other documents published today detail the discovery of the secret project that some in the U.S. government believed from the very start aimed at a weapons capability; the U.S. debates over Israel's lack of candor; and U.S. government efforts to pressure the Israelis to answer key questions about the nature of the Dimona project.

This "discovery," which came as the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower was drawing to a close, caused apprehension in Washington by raising concern about regional stability and nuclear proliferation, but it also produced annoyance because Israeli officials at all levels repeatedly provided less than credible answers to U.S. questions about Dimona. Thus, in September 1960, when embassy officials asked about a new construction site when they were on a helicopter ride nearby, an adroit Israeli official, Addy Cohen, improvised a story to keep the secret: it was the site of a textile factory, he said; a story that was not wholly false because there was a textile plant near Dimona. An interview with Addy Cohen detailing the episode appears in this posting for the first time.

Documents published in this collection shed light on a particularly notable intelligence failure: how Washington missed warning signs that the Israelis had a nuclear project underway, but also how the U.S. belatedly realized what the Israelis were doing, and how Eisenhower and his senior advisers reacted to this discovery. Among the documents are:

* The June 1959 Israel-Norway secret agreement providing for the sale of Norwegian heavy water to Israel (through the United Kingdom), transmitted by Oslo Embassy political officer Richard Kerry (father of Secretary of State John Kerry).

* Reports about information from a then-covert source -- University of Michigan nuclear engineering professor Henry Gomberg -- who learned that the Israelis had a secret nuclear reactor project that involved experiments with plutonium.

* A telegram from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv reporting on Finance Ministry official Addy Cohen's statement that "we've been misbehaving," and one by an unidentified official close to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that the secrecy surrounding Dimona was unjustifiable and that it was "a stupid mistake on the part of Israel."

* Reports by U.S. Ambassador Ogden Reid on conversations with Ben-Gurion.

* A State Department message to the embassy in Tel Aviv conveying irritation that the responses of the Israeli government showed a "lack of candor."

* Messages about a role for the International Atomic Energy Agency in inspecting and safeguarding Dimona.
Many of the documents published today have been declassified for years but have not been collected and published comprehensively with the aim of shedding light on the Eisenhower administration's efforts to come to terms with the discovery of Dimona. This material is only the tip of the iceberg: many documents from this period are still classified in State Department records and in the files of the Atomic Energy Commission, although they are currently under request by the National Security Archive.

Today's posting marks the inauguration of the National Security Archive's special Web page on Israeli Nuclear History, edited by Avner Cohen. As a project of the Archive's Nuclear Vault, it will be the homepage for the Archive's postings relating to the Israeli nuclear program.


Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive - http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb510/

Find us on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/NSArchive

Unredacted, the Archive blog - http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/

jump to top | return to articles home

Comments are closed.
    Articles Home

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    November 2020
    June 2020
    November 2019
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    May 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    May 2010
    April 2010
    May 2006
    December 2004
    October 2003
    June 2002
    September 2001
    February 2001
    February 1998

New Here?

Updates
About

Miscellany

​Contact
Disclaimer

Search

  • Home
  • News
    • Articles Of Interest
    • Numbers In The News
    • Life and Humanity
    • Quotes
    • Futile Updates
  • Curio
    • The Wonder of Lasers
    • Japan 2011 Psyop
    • Know Your Rights
    • Masonic Symbols and the LDS Temple
    • The Nun's Story
    • Special Edition
    • Explosion On The Launch Pad
  • Archive
    • Dave McGowan
    • Document Archive
    • Multi Media
    • Time For A Laugh
  • Blog