The Untold Story of Israel's Bomb

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"On Sept. 9, 1969, a big brown envelope was delivered to the Oval Office on behalf of CIA Director Richard M. Helms. On it he had written, "For and to be opened only by: The President, The White House." The precise contents of the envelope are still unknown, but it was the latest intelligence on one of Washington's most secretive foreign policy matters: Israel's nuclear program. The material was so sensitive that the nation's spymaster was unwilling to share it with anybody but President Richard M. Nixon himself.

The now-empty envelope is inside a two-folder set labeled "NSSM 40," held by the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the National Archives. (NSSM is the acronym for National Security Study Memorandum, a series of policy studies produced by the national security bureaucracy for the Nixon White House.) The NSSM 40 files are almost bare because most of their documents remain classified.

With the aid of With the aid ofrecently declassified documents , we now know that NSSM 40 was the Nixon administration's effort to grapple with the policy implications of a nuclear-armed Israel. These documents offer unprecedented insight into the tense deliberations in the White House in 1969 -- a crucial time in which international ratification of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was uncertain and U.S. policymakers feared that a Middle Eastern conflagration could lead to superpower conflict. Nearly four decades later, as the world struggles with nuclear ambitions in Iran, India and elsewhere, the ramifications of this hidden history are still felt.

Israel's nuclear program began more than 10 years before Helms's envelope landed on Nixon's desk. In 1958, Israel secretly initiated work at what was to become the Dimona nuclear research site. Only about 15 years after the Holocaust, nuclear nonproliferation norms did not yet exist, and Israel's founders believed they had a compelling case for acquiring nuclear weapons. In 1961, the CIA estimated that Israel could produce nuclear weapons within the decade.

The discovery presented a difficult challenge for U.S. policymakers. From their perspective, Israel was a small, friendly state -- albeit one outside the boundaries of U.S. security guarantees -- surrounded by larger enemies vowing to destroy it. Yet government officials also saw the Israeli nuclear program as a potential threat to U.S. interests. President John F. Kennedy feared that without decisive international action to curb nuclear proliferation, a world of 20 to 30 nuclear-armed nations would be inevitable within a decade or two."


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[Englander]

1. How many nukes does Isreal have in their arsenal, these days?

I think it's about 200.

[Scurrilous]

2. Estimates vary.

From Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI):

Israel is now an advanced NWS, in both quality and quantity of its arsenal. Estimates as to the size of Israel's nuclear arsenal vary significantly and range from fewer than 100 warheads to as many as 300. It is believed that Israel's current nuclear arsenal, along with its related delivery and command and control infrastructure, is comparable in quantity and quality to that of the United Kingdom and France (superior to that of India and Pakistan).

http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/index.html

[Poll_Blind]

3. Highest nuclear weapon per-square-mile ratio on earth. n/t

PB

[Englander]

4. Fresh data sheds light on U.S. recognition of Israeli nuke policy

By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent

New revelations about the circumstances under which Israel and the United States reached a secret understanding on the Israeli nuclear program, and the Richard Nixon administration came to recognize Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity," appear in an article published this weekend in Washington. The article, in the current issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, was coauthored by Israeli historian Avner Cohen, who wrote "Israel and the Bomb" (1998), and William Burr, an expert on U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

Cohen and Burr reveal internal documents of the Nixon administration about contacts with Israel over the nuclear issue, including Israel's official notification to the U.S. that it would not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The "nuclear understanding" reached in 1969 between then-prime minister Golda Meir and Richard Nixon ended a decade of American pressure on Israel to stop its nuclear program. In the '60s the Americans sent inspectors to the Dimona nuclear reactor, and officials in the Johnson administration sought to condition the supply of F-4 Phantom fighter planes to Israel on its signing the NPT. Israel refused and adhered to its vague pledge "not to be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East."

Nixon's entry to the White House in January 1969 heralded a change in U.S. policy. Cohen and Burr reveal that the administration worked up documents on the ramifications of a nuclear-armed Israel, the contents of which remain classified. According to documents that have been declassified, the administration was of the opinion before Meir's first Washington visit, in September 1969, that Israel was already in the possession of nuclear weapons and was capable of deploying and launching Jericho ground-to-ground missiles. Based on that assessment, the U.S. State Department recommended that Nixon pressure Meir to pledge that "Israel would not possess nuclear weapons, would sign the NPT, and would not deploy missiles." Cohen and Burr say it is not known whether Nixon tried to do this, but that "subsequent actions indicate that he did not."

Meir and Nixon met in private at the White House on September 26, 1969. The precise contents of their conversation remains a blank, but it is known that it led to an understanding between the two countries. According to internal memoranda by Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, Nixon had made clear to Meir that it was in America's interest that "Israel make no visible introduction of nuclear weapons or undertake a nuclear test program."

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/711056.html

[wizdum]

5. Whatever happened to Vanunu? Did they imprison him again?

[Scurrilous]

6. Two years out of Israeli jail, Vanunu's life on hold

<snip>

"He served out his prison term two years ago and is widely reviled by fellow Israelis as a traitor, but nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu stands little chance of starting a new life abroad any time soon.

Citing security concerns, Israel's Justice Ministry last month renewed its ban on travel by Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona atomic reactor who all but blew away the country's cherished nuclear secrecy with a 1986 newspaper interview.

The ban is subject to annual review. Senior Israeli security sources said they expected it to be extended indefinitely."

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Vanunu moving in with roommates

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3244666,00.html

St. George Church too pricey for nuke whistleblower, who opts for Palestinian flatmates

<snip>

"Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu is expected to leave the St. George Church in Jerusalem, where he has been staying since his release from jail, and rent a flat with friends in east Jerusalem, Ynet has learned.

Vanunu announced his decision in a letter sent to Yael Lotan, member of the Free Vanunu Committee.

Since his release from prison, Vanunu has been living in a hostel in the church and has been financed by donations from overseas. According to Lotan, Vanunu explained the reasons for the move: "I am a little tired of it and also want to live frugally, since living at the church is too expensive."

<snip>

"Dr. Yoel Cohen, a mass communications lecturer at the Netanya Academic College and the author of a book on Vanunu titled "The Whistleblower of Dimona," explained: "First of all, Vanunu is looking for more privacy. Other than that, the church has been harshly criticized by Jews worldwide and in Israel for 'housing a traitor.'"

[anoraksia53]

8. aren't these both OT?

Maybe they were supposed to go onto another discussion or something.....

[Tom Joad]

11. Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu "He should get the Nobel Prize"

Mordechai Vanunu is the preeminent hero of the nuclear era. He is the one who consciously risked all he had in life to warn his own country and the world of an existing, ongoing addition to the nuclear dangers of the era. And he is the one who has actually paid that price, a burden in many ways worse than death, for his heroic and prophetic act, for doing exactly what he should have done and what others should be doing. He is a prophet who deserves honor in all the world.
Daniel Ellsberg, author Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

See also
http://tomjoad.org/ellsbergstatement.htm

[Englander]

7. Nuclear deja vu

David Fickling

May 4, 2006

The situation seems oddly familiar: a Middle Eastern nation sets up its own nuclear power programme. The international community suspects it is a cover for nuclear weapons development.

Policy chiefs fear the programme will upset the balance of regional peace. The US calls for the facilities to be checked out, but inspectors are only granted limited, unsatisfactory visits. A foreign government calls on the nation to rein in its nuclear programme. It is answered by defiant boasts that the nation's sovereignty will not be compromised.

The country in question is not Iran in 2006, but Israel in 1969. Any Washington policy-makers with a sense of history should be suffering deja vu at the moment, because the current crisis over Iran's nuclear programme has striking parallels with that sparked off by Israel's attempts to acquire the bomb in the 60s. Documents declassified by the US national security archive last week make the comparison clearer still, and may well give a clue to how current events will pan out.

Israel's Dimona reactor was set up with French and British help in the wake of the Suez crisis, with the ostensible purpose of running a desalination plant to green Israel's Negev desert. But, by the early 60s, the US government became aware that Dimona was being used to enrich uranium, and insisted on inspections. Israel refused IAEA inspections but allowed US inspectors on biannual, prescheduled visits (pdf) that read (pdf) like something out of the secret diary of Hans Blix.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_fickling/2006/05/nuclear_deja_vu.html

[anoraksia53]

9. good article

I've got a sneaking suspicion Bush is looking for an excuse to use his own nuclear bunker busters in Iran.

Let's hope Vanunu gets his full freedom SOON. He should be able to speak out.

[Beezer]

10. Tiny Jewish State has had the Bomb 15 years longer than india

And only 9 years less than France!