In the past eighty years, there have been clear shifts in the nature of the alliance between the United States and Israel. Though
the relationship has changed based on the president or the policy, the
history of Israeli nuclear development seems to indicate that the U.S.
has always related to Israel with a special tolerance, even in the
earliest stages of their interactions. Yet preferential treatment was not simply bestowed upon Israel by the U.S. In
the case of nuclear development in particular, the role that Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion's strategies played in these interactions
helped to create a political climate in which America could feasibly
turn a blind eye to Israeli nuclearization.
This article will tell the story of how Israel acquired nuclear weapons from the diplomatic perspective. What motivated Ben-Gurion's decision to embark on a nuclear program? Why did France and Norway come to the fledgling state's aid? And,
most importantly, how did the U.S., under the Eisenhower and Kennedy
administrations, allow Israel to acquire nuclear weapons?
The Background
The
Israeli nuclear program was initiated by Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion in 1952, four years after the state gained independence.
Interestingly, in Ben-Gurion's pre-state writings, there is an
insistence on the role of technology and science in determining the
security of the new state. He once explained his faith in the scientific
capabilities of the Jewish people: "Until now we have disseminated our
intellectual capital in foreign lands, and helped many nations in the
great scientific achievements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
... There is no reason why the genius of science would not blossom and
flourish in this native land." Although the need for
broad scientific advancements is clear, the question of why a newly
created state needed such costly and advanced weaponry remains.
Ben-Gurion's preoccupation with the Holocaust is one viable explanation for his insistence on developing nuclear weapons. One
cannot overstate the influence on Ben-Gurion's political ideology of
his visit to Germany in 1945, during which he visited Displaced Person
camps, former ghettos, and concentration camps. As Israeli nuclear
historian Avner Cohen notes, "Without the Holocaust we cannot understand
either the depth of Ben-Gurion's commitment to acquiring nuclear
weapons or his inhibitions about nuclear weapon policy. ... Anxieties
became national policy." Ben-Gurion genuinely believed that Israel's conflict with the Arabs could develop into another Holocaust if not prevented.
Ben-Gurion's
worries that were rooted in the tragedy of the Holocaust fused with
general anxiety over leading the new state of Israel. An aide once
described Ben-Gurion emerging one morning from his bedroom looking tired
and ill-rested and declaring "I could not sleep all night, not even for
one second. I had one fear in my heart: a combined attack by all Arab
armies." To the anxious leader, the Arab enemy was not
only territorial but also part of the larger continuum of the Jewish
Holocaust. This anxiousness can be seen in the heated debates that took
place within the Knesset over whether to negotiate with Germany for
Holocaust reparations. Ben-Gurion defended the need for the
strengthening of the Jewish state. "They [the Arabs] could slaughter us
tomorrow in this country. ... We don't want to reach again the situation
that you were in. We do not want the Arab Nazis to come and slaughter
us." For Ben-Gurion, the comparison of Arabs and the Nazis was not
propagandistic rhetoric; he truly believed that the conflict with the
Arabs could easily escalate to catastrophe and that nuclear weaponry was
the ultimate weapon of defense, the key to ensuring that "Never Again"
was more than a rhetorical injunction.
In
1952, Ben-Gurion met with Munya Mardor, who had served as head of the
underground organization that facilitated illegal Jewish immigration to
Palestine during the British Mandatory period. Mardor was
expected to administer the program; a chemist named Ernest David Bergman
had already agreed to oversee the scientific aspects. Ben-Gurion placed the nuclear program under the authority of the Defense Minister Shimon Peres. He
called the division EMET, a Hebrew acronym for "division of research
and planning," which also spells the Hebrew word for truth.
In
1956, when Israel, France, and the United Kingdom embarked on a joint
military operation to conquer the Suez Canal, Israel and France became
allies. At the start of the 1956 Sinai campaign, Israel
agreed to launch the offensive in exchange for a verbal promise from
France guaranteeing a nuclear reactor and the necessary uranium. At
the pre-Sinai summit at Sevres, near Paris, defense minister Peres
closed the discussions with a verbal understanding between the two
countries reached. At the close of the campaign, however, the certainty of that verbal agreement was unclear. But
internal French politics, specifically the collapse of the
Bourges-Maunory government, proved crucial in sealing the nuclear
promise.
Abel
Thomas, French Prime Minister Maurice Bourges-Maunoury's top aide, was
the main force behind the nuclear agreement between the two
countries�the actualization of the verbal agreement was the
Bourges-Maunory government's last action before it was voted out of
office by the French National Assembly. Like Ben-Gurion, Thomas's interest in Israeli nuclear development was tied to the Holocaust. Thomas's
brother, who had been a lieutenant in the French R�sistance, was
deported to Buchenwald and killed by the Nazis at age twenty-three.
Thomas placed the blame on France because of the Vichy government's
cooperation with the Nazis. Michael Karpin, an Israeli journalist and author of a recent book on Israeli nuclear history The Bomb in the Basement,
writes that Abel Thomas "felt a commonality of fate...he decided he
would give as much help as he could to the remnants of the Holocaust. This would become his life's mission." Through
the actions in the Sinai campaign as well as Thomas's final push, the
deal with the French came to fruition: the Israelis were now prepared
for the first stages of the nuclearization process.
France provided a reactor and uranium, but the reactor required significant quantities of "heavy water," a substance necessary to slow down neutrons in order for them to react with the uranium. France
could not supply Israel with heavy water, and in 1959 Israel
successfully negotiated a deal to acquire the substance from Norway. Karpin
claims that, as in the case of France, the Norwegian government agreed
to support the Israeli nuclear effort because of its guilt over the
deportation of Norway's Jews and its collaboration with the Nazis during
World War II. Other explanations center on the commercial
gains of such a deal and on the desire to end American and British
nuclear monopoly. Thus, while the Holocaust may not have been the sole
cause for Norwegian cooperation and while these other political
considerations certainly influenced Norway's decision, Karpin makes a
compelling case that the Holocaust was the key impetus.
The Eisenhower Administration: Turning a Blind Eye
The
U.S. government knew of Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona as early as
1958; nevertheless, the Eisenhower administration took little action to
halt Israel's nuclear progress. Studies have confirmed that as early as
March of 1958, the CIA requested a report of Israel's nuclear activities
from Bergmann. Nothing followed Bergmann's response and
the Americans continued to state that there was no reactor under
construction. One illustrative example of passivity in response to
information: in early 1958 Arthur C. Lundahl of the CIA Photographic
Intelligence Center showed Eisenhower aerial photographs of the Dimona
compound, and Lundahl was met with almost no reaction from the
president. Lundahl was never asked for further photographs from the Israelis or for follow up presentations with Eisenhower. Indeed, "[he] was left with the feeling that Eisenhower wanted Israel to acquire nuclear weapons." It
is clear that Eisenhower had some awareness of Israeli nuclear
ambitions, yet he opted for a moderate nuclear strategy, "setting the
precedent that the Israel nuclear weapons programs was treated as a
special case."
This
passive U.S. stance ended abruptly in 1960. In November of that year,
an American nuclear scientist named Henry Jacob Gomberg visited the
Israeli nuclear reactor in Nahal Soreq at the invitation of the Israeli
Atomic Energy Commission. After his visit, he publicly
aired his view that Israel was pursuing a nuclear program in Dimona. His
suspicion was based on an observation that the scientific training he
witnessed did not match the purported civilian nature of Israeli nuclear
aims.
Karpin
espouses an original theory about the Gomberg admission: he calculates
that by the year 1960 there was an extensive network required for the
maintenance of the nuclear reactor and its team. In addition, because of
the deal struck with France in 1958, scores of Frenchmen were residing
in Beersheba, a city near Dimona. Rumors were already circulating, and
the Israelis knew that the international community would demand more
information before long on the developments in Dimona. Therefore,
Gomberg, according to this analysis, was given to the Americans
purposely — "to keep the hungry lion at bay, it was worth throwing him a
chunk of meat." Indeed, as Karpin points out, Gomberg was
never pursued by the Mossad for divulging such an important national
secret. Gomberg's report, whether intentionally instigated or not,
caused Israeli to break its silence about the nuclear program, and
forced the United States to address it. The CIA drew up
its report for President Eisenhower on December 8, 1960 and public
discourse about Dimona began for the first time. The New York Times published its first piece on Dimona on December 19, 1960, and Dimona was discussed at the President's meeting on that same day.
Ben-Gurion's statement to the Knesset on December 21, 1960, the
only time an Israeli prime minister issued a statement about Dimona,
reflects Israel's public relations strategy from that point onward: to
stop American intervention and internal debate by claiming solely
scientific aims. Ben-Gurion presented the aims of the program as
follows. "We are presently engaged in building a research
reactor with a 24,000 thermal kilowatt (24 megawatt) output, to serve
the purposes of industry, agriculture, medicine and science." It
is clear in this statement that Israel was less than honest with the
U.S. about its objectives and capabilities, leaving it up to the U.S. to
guess the scope of Israel's progress. Because Ben-Gurion's half-truths
diminished confrontation with the general public, the State Department
could then continue speaking of the reactor's peaceful purposes.
Ben-Gurion was willing to say what he needed to say, and the Americans
were willing to publicly show their belief in Ben Gurion.
The Kennedy Administration: Political About-Face
Upon his election, John F. Kennedy established nuclear nonproliferation as a top priority of his administration. Kennedy
feared a nuclear Middle East, and he also resented the fact that the
Israelis had received the Nahal Soreq reactor from the U.S. in 1955 as
part of Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program, a program aimed at nuclear
cooperation for the sake of economic development, as they
simultaneously developed a larger nuclear program at Dimona. Although
the Kennedy administration continued to privately press the Israeli
government to increase the transparency of its nuclear program, it
achieved very little in the first years of Kennedy's presidency. The
U.S. made clear, at almost weekly intervals, that it wanted visitation
rights; during the early months of Kennedy's presidency, February to
April of 1961 specifically, Kennedy and Ben-Gurion see-sawed on the date
for the Dimona visitation. Meetings occurred frequently between the
various ambassadors and State Department officials involved, but
Ben-Gurion remained steadfast. He used any reason within his
grasp�including internal politics, or the Jewish holidays�as an
excuse to push off the American visit.
Internal
politics at the time were, in fact, tumultuous. Ben-Gurion's Mapai
party was embroiled in a scandal known as the Lavon affair, which forced
Israeli Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon to resign after a failed Israeli
covert operation against Egyptian-owned, American-owned, and
British-owned targets in Egypt. The State Department's report to Kennedy
about the Dimona visit seems to indicate that the department believed
Ben-Gurion's pledges for visitation and also thought that the delays
were because of the domestic politics plaguing Ben-Gurion's
administration. Eventually, however, in May of 1961, two
American Jewish lobbyists, Myer "Mike" Feldman and Abe Feinberg,
successfully facilitated a visitation as well as a meeting between
Ben-Gurion and Kennedy.
On
May 17-18, 1961, two American scientists, Ulysses Staebler and Jesse
Croach, conducted a two day inspection of Israel's nuclear facilities. They
spent the first day touring the Technion, the Weizmann Institute, and
the Nahal Soreq reactor, and they spent the second day on a closely
monitored tour of Dimona. After the visit, they reported to the State
Department that although the Dimona reactor could eventually produce
enough plutonium for nuclear weaponry, there was no evidence of this
being the Israeli aim.
The
Israelis must have exercised a great amount of discretion and some
deception during that visitation. The visit was held on the Sabbath. The
scientists were not allowed to bring any measuring tools or collection
instruments. The underground plutonium plant was kept hidden. The
Israeli scientists spent a great deal of time lecturing the visitors,
which limited the actual inspection time. Yet despite this
apparent deception, the facile American conclusion about Dimona's
purpose indicates that the scientists were not inclined to challenge
Israeli promises.
In
exchange for this visit, Ben-Gurion had his first meeting with
President Kennedy. The meeting, which occurred on May 30, 1961, is
described by historians as amicable and relaxed. Though the topic of
nuclear development was a priority, the recent visit of American
scientists to Dimona created a climate of ease and openness between the
two leaders. In fact, though Ben-Gurion stuck to his earlier policy of
claiming solely energy and peaceful purposes, he made certain additions
that historians like Zaki Shalom and Avner Cohen interpret as hints to
Kennedy of Israel's ultimate intentions. Ben-Gurion stated that "Our
main�for the time being�and only purpose is to dedicate it to
peaceful purposes...after three or four years Israel might want to
develop a pilot plant for plutonium separation, which is needed for
atomic power, but there is no intention to develop weapons capacity
now." Here, Ben-Gurion opened the door for the future transition from
peaceful to military purposes. Ben-Gurion reasoned that a future change
in policy could always be traced back to this honest senior meeting and
blame for duplicity would be avoided. Why Kennedy did not respond to
this verbal foreshadowing may be a sign of Kennedy's tacit approval or,
at the very least, resistance to fully halting Israeli nuclearization.
The meeting guaranteed that the American government tacitly approved
Israel's demand that discussions regarding the Dimona project must take
place "neither publicly, threateningly, or embarrassingly, but behind
the scenes and in a low profile mode."
Memorandums
and reports on Dimona nonetheless circulated through the White House
and State Department through 1962, and a push for the future visitations
remained in the foreground of these memos. In July of
1962, the Egyptians displayed their ballistic missile capabilities, and
in that same year, calamity was avoided in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Partially as a result of these events, Kennedy reapplied pressure to
freeze the Israeli nuclear program at Dimona.
The
"volte-face" in American policy, as historian Zaki Shalom calls it,
spelled a renewed distrust in Dimona's purposes and its stage of
advancement. Language in the memos at this time changed from discussions
on the "visit" to the "inspection" and policy-wise, the Kennedy
administration was resolved to "abolish Israel's nuclear activity at
Dimona." Additionally, internal White House documents reveal a surge of
memos and meetings; these documents reveal that Kennedy came closest of
any American president to stopping the actions at Dimona. On May 18,
1963, Kennedy wrote that "American commitment and support would be
seriously jeopardized in public opinion and in the West, if it should be
thought that this Government was unable to obtain reliable information
on a subject as vital to peace as Israel's efforts in the nuclear
field." The potential withdrawal of American support was a
significant hazard to Israel, and this letter presented the greatest
threat so far to the success of the Dimona project. Ben-Gurion
refused to submit to biannual visitation, saying that "the 'start-up'
time of the Dimona reactor will not come until the end of this year or
early 1964...this will be the most suitable time for your
representatives to visit the reactor." He also continued to insist that Israeli nuclear aims were civilian in nature.
Kennedy
was no longer willing to tolerate Ben-Gurion's wavering. In June of
1963, Kennedy wrote that if inspections and the desired conditions of
these inspections did not take place as early as that summer and a
satisfactory agreement was not reached, it would "jeopardize the U.S.
government's commitment to, and support of, Israel." This memo never reached Ben-Gurion. He resigned from office the day it was cabled to him.
Ben-Gurion's
closest aides have debated what role Kennedy's pressure regarding the
nuclear reactor had in pushing Ben-Gurion to resign. Many
of Ben-Gurion's aides dismiss the idea that the nuclear cause alone
caused Ben-Gurion to leave office. They point to the other pressures
which must have been significant as well, among them the Lavon affair
and Ben-Gurion's deteriorating health. But Pinhas Sapir and Yuval
Neeman, who also served as aides to Ben-Gurion, claim that Kennedy's
pressure was the single impetus for resignation. Neeman
views Ben-Gurion's resignation as yet another stalling tactic which
would allow Israel to finish the project. It is certainly the case that
Levi Eshkol's succession delayed the American visitations past the
summer of 1963, because Eshkol was able to feign relative ignorance and
to request time to learn the details of the negotiations. Eventually,
under Eshkol's watch, Israel allowed limited visitations to Dimona, but
the Kennedy administration never renewed the pressure that they had
used during the Ben-Gurion years.
Why did Kennedy fail to stop Israeli nuclearization? In
particular, is it possible that Kennedy, a president who made nuclear
non-proliferation a top priority of his administration, could not stop
the completion of Dimona? Perhaps Ben-Gurion's secrecy was a successful tactic. Kennedy never acquired enough information to merit a strong reaction. Israel to this day continues to give ambiguous indications regarding its nuclear capabilities. When
I wrote to Michael Karpin to try and make sense of what exactly was and
is known within Israel, he explained "The information is still
classified and your�indeed everyone's�confusion about the definition
of what Israel has and has not is a direct consequence of Israel's
ambiguity policy."
Beyond Kennedy
The nuclear story does not end with Kennedy and his policy about-face. The
succeeding pairs of leaders�Levi Eshkol/Lyndon Johnson and Golda
Meir/Richard Nixon��each had their own complicated interactions on
the topic of Dimona. When the reactor went critical in 1964 and Israel
could no longer claim that it was for solely scientific purposes, the
Israelis adopted a line first coined by then Defense Minister Shimon
Peres in a meeting with Kennedy that "Israel would not be the first to
introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East." Thus, a clear transition in policy occurred as Ben-Gurion's ambiguity became Eshkol's and Meir's transparencies.
Political diplomacy,
political scientists argue, revolves around nuanced advances by two
mutually independent decision-makers. In the case of Israel-American
nuclear dialogue, the positions of the two sides met: America's
preferential attitude towards Israeli nuclear development was more
easily justified because of Ben-Gurion's stealthy policies. Thus, the case of Israeli nuclear history provides a window on way this special relationship played out in real policy.
https://www.columbia.edu/cu/current/articles/winter2006/how-ben-gurion-got-the-bomb.html
