5/9/2014 Newly declassified documents reveal how U.S. agreed to Israel's nuclear program - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.613221 1/7

SUBSCRIBE TO HAARETZ DIGITAL EDITIONS

NEWS OPINION BLOGS JEWISH WORLD BUSINESS TRAVEL LIFE ARCHAEOLOGY PODCASTS NEWS BROADCAST

Home New s Diplomacy and Defense

Haaretz.com הארץ TheMarker עכבר העיר TheMarker Café

Nature &Environm ent

Mazal tov, it's a 100-pound girl!

Friday, September 05, 2014 Elul 10, 5774

Hello h kjh Pr ofile Log ou t

Search Haaretz.com

subscri be now

ISRAEL NEWS Middle East updates Islamic State Israel-Gaza conflict: In depth Sy ria Out & About 214kLike Follow

Text size

Comments (15)

Print Page

Send to friend

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share

RELATED TAGS

Israel nuclear

Israel US

IDF

Yitzhak Rabin

Newly declassified documents reveal how U.S. agreed toIsrael's nuclear programDocuments reveal contacts between Washington and Jerusalem in late 1960s, when someAmericans believed the nuclear option would not deter Arab leaders but would trigger anatom bomb race.

By Amir Oren | Aug. 30, 2014 | 8:48 PM | 15

78 Tweet 2,432

Israeli PM Golda Meir meets U.S. President Richard Nixon in Washington, March 1 , 1 97 3. Also in the photo:

Yitzhak Rabin, Henry Kissinger and Simcha Dimitz. Photo by AP

The Obama administration this week declassified papers, after 45 years of

top-secret status, documenting contacts between Jerusalem and

Washington over American agreement to the existence of an Israeli

nuclear option. The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel

(ISCAP), which is in charge of approving declassification, had for decades

consistently refused to declassify these secrets of the Israeli nuclear

program.

The documents outline how the American administration worked ahead of

the meeting between President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Golda

Meir at the White House in September 1969, as officials came to terms

with a three-part Israeli refusal – to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty; to

agree to American inspection of the Dimona nuclear facility; and to

condition delivery of fighter jets on Israel’s agreement to give up nuclear

weaponry in exchange for strategic ground-to-ground Jericho missiles

“capable of reaching the Arab capitals” although “not all the Arab

capitals.”

The officials – cabinet secretaries and senior advisers who wrote the

documents – withdrew step after step from an ambitious plan to block

Israeli nuclearization, until they finally acceded, in internal

correspondence – the content of the conversation between Nixon and

Meir is still classified – to recognition of Israel as a

DI PLO MACY AND DEFENSE

BREAKING NEWS More Breaking News

Raimo Kangasniemi and 4,268 others recommend this.Recommend Share

HAARETZ SELECT

Would the caustic Joan Rivers havejested about her own sudden death?Quite possibly , y es, for Riv ers relied on theabiding gratitude felt by audiences for whatev erlaughter she could prov ide in a grim world.By The Forw ard , Benjamin Ivry |

Jewish World Features

How can you protest against Fergusonyet ignore the Israeli occupation? By Max Berger | Jewish World Opinions

Jewish thoughts for the NFL ondealing with players who beat wives By Rabbi Dan Dorsch / Jew ish World blogger |Rabbis' Round Table

Dear Tutu: Singling out Israel won’tbring peace Your letter addresses Israelis, but ignores theircentral concern: The conflict isn’t just aliberation struggle, it’s a struggle for surv iv al.

By Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein | Opinion | 11

The Jewish journalists who interviewjihadists By Joanna Chen | Features

Jews are divided in Beit Shemesh By Allison Kaplan Sommer | Routine Emergencies

In Israel, New York gay rabbi firesback at critics

By Judy Maltz | National | 5

David Makovsky quits U.S.

State Departm ent’s

Mideast peace teamBy JTA |01:45 AM

Netany ahu: Steven Sotloff was m urdered

because he sy m bolized the West

5:07 PM Islamic State kidnaps 40 men in Iraq's Kirkuk region (Reuters)

5/9/2014 Newly declassified documents reveal how U.S. agreed to Israel's nuclear program - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.613221 2/7

RELATED ARTICLES

In 1973, Dayan suggested Israel prepare

nukes for action, but Golda Meir refused

By Amir Oren | Oct. 3, 2013 | 11:00 AM | 9

Kissinger: If Israel took out its nukes in

1973, U.S. neither knew nor reacted

By Amir Oren | Oct. 2, 2013 | 5:03 PM | 24

Military Affairs / Breaking the Taboo

By Bruce Riedel | Nov. 5, 2010 | 12:57 PM | 2

Between Natanz and Dimona

By Avner Cohen | May 15, 2009 | 1:45 AM

Kissinger wants Israel to know: The U.S.

saved you during the 1973 war

By Amir Oren | Nov. 2, 2013 | 7:34 AM | 83

threshold nuclear state.

In fact, according to the American documents, the

Nixon administration defined a double threshold for

Israel’s move from a “technical option” to a

“possessor” of nuclear weapons.

The first threshold was the possession of “the

components of nuclear weapons that will explode,” and

making them a part of the Israel Defense Forces

operational inventory.

The second threshold was public confirmation of

suspicions internationally, and in Arab countries in

particular, of the existence of nuclear weapons in

Israel, by means of testing and “making public the fact

of the possession of nuclear weapons.”

Officials under Nixon proposed to him, on the eve of

his conversation with Meir, to show restraint with

regard to the Israeli nuclear program, and to abandon

efforts to get Israel to cease acquiring 500-kilometer-

range missiles with one-ton warheads developed in the

Marcel Dassault factory in France, if it could reach an

agreement with Israel on these points.

Origins of nuclear ambiguity

Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity – which for the

sake of deterrence does not categorically deny some

nuclear ability but insists on using the term “option” –

appears, according to the newly released documents,

as an outcome of the Nixon-Meir understandings, no

less than as an original Israeli maneuver.

The decision to release the documents was made in

March, but was mentioned alongside the

declassification of other materials less than a week ago

in ISCAP, which is headed by a representative of the

president and whose members are officials in the

Department of State, Department of Defense and

Department of Justice, as well as the intelligence

administration and the National Archive, where the documents are stored.

The declassified material deals only with events in 1968 and 1969, the end

of the terms of President Lyndon Johnson and Prime Minister Levi

Eshkol, and the beginning of the Nixon-Meir era. However, it contains

many contemporary lessons. Among these are the decisive nature of

personal relations between a president like Obama and a prime minister

like Benjamin Netanyahu; the relationship between the diplomatic process

of “land for peace,” American guarantees of Israeli security in peace time,

supplies of weapons to Israel and Israel’s nuclear status; and the ability of

a country like Iran to move ahead gradually toward nuclear weapons and

remain on the threshold of military nuclear weapons.

Follow @haaretzcom

In the material declassified this week, one document was written by senior

officials in the Nixon administration in a working group led by National

Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, exploring the nature of the Israeli

nuclear weapons program known as “NSSM 40.” The existence of the

document and its heading were known, but the content had so far been

kept secret.

The document was circulated to a select group, including Secretary of

State William P. Rogers, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and CIA

director Richard Helms, and with the knowledge of the chairman of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Earle Wheeler. In it, Nixon directed Kissinger to

put together a panel of experts, headed by Assistant Secretary of State

Richard Nixon (not Bibi), March 1 5, 1 97 3.

Photo by AP

Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1 97 2.

Photo by Moshe Milner / GPO

By Barak Ravid |01:10 AM

Peres pitches pope 'UN of

religions' to battle

terrorismBy The Associated Press , JTA |07:52 PM

Daniel T ragerm an's

parents urge UN chief to

denounce Ham as

By JTA |07:12 PM | 3

MO RE FRO M THE WEB

Recommended by

5/9/2014 Newly declassified documents reveal how U.S. agreed to Israel's nuclear program - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.613221 3/7

Joseph Sisco.

The experts were asked to submit their intelligence evaluations as to the

extent of Israel’s progress toward nuclear weapons and to present policy

alternatives toward Israel under these circumstances, considering that the

administration was bound to the pledge of the Johnson administration to

provide Israel with 50 Phantom jets, the diplomatic process underway

through Rogers, and the aspiration to achieve, within the year, global

nonproliferation – all while, simultaneously, Israel was facing off against

Egypt on the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition.

The most fascinating parts of the 107 pages discuss internal disagreements

in the American administration over how to approach Israel – pressure or

persuasion, as Sisco’s assistant, Rodger Davies, put it in the draft of the

Department of State document. Davies also formulated a scenario of

dialogue and confrontation with Israel’s ambassador to Washington,

Yitzhak Rabin, the IDF chief of staff during the Six-Day War, who

continued to sign his name using his military rank of Lieutenant General.

The documents are an intriguing illustration of organizational politics.

Unexpectedly, the Department of State’s approach was softer. It opposed

threats and sanctions because of the fear of obstructing Rogers’

diplomatic moves if Israel hardened its line. “If we choose to use the

maximum option on the nuclear issue, we may not have the necessary

leverage left for helping along the peace negotiations,” Davies wrote.

The two branches of the Pentagon – the civilian branch headed by Laird,

his deputy David Packard (a partner in the computer manufacturer

Hewlett-Packard, who objected to a previous sale of a super-computer

manufactured by Control Data to Israel, lest it be used for the nuclear

program) and their policy advisers; and the military branch headed by

Gen. Wheeler – were more belligerent. Laird fully accepted the

recommendation of the deputy secretary of defense in the outgoing

Johnson administration, Paul Warnke, to use supplying the Phantoms to

leverage far-reaching concessions from Israel on the nuclear issue.

Packard’s opposite number in the Department of State – Rogers’ deputy,

Elliot Richardson – was Packard’s ideological ally in reservations

regarding Israel. However, Sisco’s appointment, rather than an official

5/9/2014 Newly declassified documents reveal how U.S. agreed to Israel's nuclear program - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.613221 4/7

from the strategic section of the Department of State, which agreed with

the Pentagon, steered the recommendations of the officials toward a

softer stance on Israel.

There was also an internal debate in the American administration over the

extent of Israel’s progress toward a nuclear weapon. The Department of

State, relying on the CIA, strongly doubted the evidence and described it

as circumstantial in light of the inability to collect intelligence, including

during the annual visits to the Dimona facility. As to conclusive evidence

that Israel had manufactured a nuclear weapon, Davies wrote, “This final

step is one we believe the Labor Alignment in Israel would like to avoid.

The fierce determination to safeguard the Jewish people, however, makes

it probable that Israel would desire to maintain the ultimate weapon at

hand should its security again be seriously threatened.”

The Department of Defense, based on its intelligence agency, was more

decisive in its evaluation that Israel had already attained nuclear weapons,

or would do so in a matter of months.

Rabin, with his military aura and experience in previous talks on arms

supplies (Skyhawks and later Phantoms) with the Johnson administration,

was the key man on the Israeli side in these discussions, according to the

Americans. This, even though the decisions were made in Jerusalem by

Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Foreign Minister Abba Eban and

their colleagues, who were not always happy with Rabin’s tendency to

express his “private” stances first and only then obtain approval from

Jerusalem.

The Johnson and Nixon administrations concluded that, in talks with

Rabin, it had been stated in a manner both “explicit and implicit” that

“Israel wants nuclear weapons, for two reasons: First, to deter the Arabs

from striking Israel; and second, if deterrence fails and Israel were about

to be overrun, to destroy the Arabs in a nuclear Armageddon.”

The contradiction in this stance, according to the Americans, was that

Israel “would need a nuclear force that is publicly known and, by and

large, invulnerable, i.e., having a second-strike capability. Israel is now

building such a force – the hardened silos of the Jericho missiles.”

214kLike

However, “it is not really possible to deter Arab leaders – and certainly

not the fedayeen – when they themselves represent basically irrational

forces. The theory of nuclear deterrence that applies between the U.S. and

the U.S.S.R. – a theory that requires a reasoned response to provocation,

which in turn is made possible by essentially stable societies and

governments – is far less applicable in the Near East.”

Four years before the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 and the general

scorn for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the Nixon administration

wrote that Israel “would never be able to rule out the possibility that some

irrational Arab leader would be willing to sustain great losses if he believed

he could inflict decisive damage on Israel.”

Sisco and his advisers worried that a threat to cut off arms supplies “could

build military and psychological pressures within Israel to move rapidly to

the very sophisticated weaponry we are trying to avoid.”

According to the documents, the Nixon administration believed that

Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would spur the Arab countries to

acquire their own such weapons within 10 years, through private

contracts with scientists and engineers in Europe. Moreover, “deeply

rooted in the Arab psyche is the concept that a settlement will be possible

only when there is some parity in strength with Israel. A ‘kamikaze’ strike

at the Dimona facilities cannot be ruled out,” the document states.

The Nixon advisers concluded that, all things considered, “we cannot

force the Israelis to destroy design data and components, much less the

technical knowledge in people’s minds, nor the existing talent for rapid

5/9/2014 Newly declassified documents reveal how U.S. agreed to Israel's nuclear program - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.613221 5/7

MORE FROM HAARETZ.COM FROM AROUND THE WEB

COMMENTS

improvisation.” Thus, Davies wrote in July, two months before the Nixon-

Meir meeting, the lesser evil would be to agree for Israel to “retain its

‘technical option’” to produce nuclear weapons.

“If the Israelis show a disposition to meet us on the nuclear issue but are

adamant on the Jericho missiles, we can drop back to a position of

insisting on non-deployment of missiles and an undertaking by the Israelis

to keep any further production secret,” Davies added.

The strategic consideration, mixed with political considerations, was

persuasive. The draft of Meir’s unconditional surrender – formulated in

the Pentagon without her knowledge in her first month in office – was

shelved, and the ambiguity option was born and lived in secret documents

until the Obama administration made them public, for reasons (or

unintentionally) of their own.

To get the latest from Haaretz Follow @haaretzcom

Like us on Facebook and get articles directly in your news feed

Recommended by

214kLike

Israeli billionaire's firm finds

reported 3 billion barrels of

oil in…

(Haaretz | Business)

Restaurant owner

threatened over Israeli flag

(Haaretz | Jew ish World)

Ministers Livni, Ya'alon get

in shouting match over peace

talks

(Haaretz | New s)

Islamic State draws heat

from Israel - but not for long

(Haaretz | New s)

Calls for Glasgow politician's

resignation after he waves

Israeli…

(Haaretz | New s)

London Times refuses to run

Elie Wiesel ad denouncing

Hamas' human…

(Haaretz | New s)

Name

Subject

Comment Your comment here

By adding a comment i agree to this site’s Terms of use

LATEST MOST VIEWED HIGHEST RATED Open All

59 85