1949–1956

Israel's first PM David Ben-Gurion was "nearly obsessed" with obtaining nuclear weapons to prevent the Holocaust from recurring. He stated, "What Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Teller, the three of them are Jews, made for the United States, could also be
done by scientists in Israel, for their own people".

1… Ben-Gurion decided to recruit Jewish scientists from abroad even before the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War that established Israel's independence. He and others, such as head of the Weizmann Institute of Science and defense ministry scientist
Ernst David Bergmann, believed and hoped that Jewish scientists such as Oppenheimer and Teller would help Israel.

2… In 1949 a unit of the IDF Science Corps, known by the Hebrew acronym HEMED GIMMEL, began a 2-year geological survey of the Negev. While a preliminary study was initially prompted by rumors of petroleum fields, one objective of the longer 2-year
survey was to find sources of uranium; some small recoverable amounts were found in phosphate deposits.

3… That year Hemed Gimmel funded 6 Israeli physics graduate students to study overseas, including one to go to the Uni/ Chicago and study under Enrico Fermi, who had overseen the world's first artificial and self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

4… In early 1952 Hemed Gimmel was moved from the IDF to the MOD and was reorganized as the Division of Research and Infrastructure (EMET). That June, Bergmann was appointed by Ben-Gurion to be the first chairman of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (
IAEC).

5… Hemed Gimmel was renamed Machon 4 during the transfer, and was used by Bergmann as the "chief laboratory" of the IAEC; by 1953, Machon 4, working with the Department of Isotope Research at the Weizmann Institute, developed the capability to extract
uranium from the phosphate in the Negev and a new technique to produce indigenous heavy water.

The techniques were 2 years more advanced than American efforts.

6… Bergmann, who was interested in increasing nuclear cooperation with the French, sold both patents to the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA) for 60 mil. francs. Although they were never commercialized, it was a consequential step for future
French-Israeli cooperation.

In addition, Israeli scientists ‘helped’ construct the G-1 plutonium production reactor and UP-1 reprocessing plant at Marcoule. France and Israel had close relations in many areas. France was principal arms supplier for the new Jewish state, and as
instability spread through French colonies in North Africa, Israel provided valuable intelligence obtained from contacts with Sephardi Jews in those countries.

7… At the same time Israeli scientists were also observing France's own nuclear program, and were the only foreign scientists allowed to roam "at will" at the nuclear facility at Marcoule.

In addition to the relationships between Israeli and French Jewish and non-Jewish researchers, the French believed that cooperation with Israel could give them access to international Jewish nuclear scientists.

8… 1955:- After U.S. President Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace initiative, Israel became the 2nd country to sign on, and signed a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States on July 12, 1955.

This culminated in a public signing ceremony on March 20, 1957, to construct a "small swimming-pool research reactor in Nachal Soreq", which would be used to shroud the construction of a much larger facility with the French at Dimona.

9… In 1986 Francis Perrin, French high-commissioner for atomic energy from 1951 to 1970 stated publicly that in 1949 Israeli scientists were invited to the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre, this cooperation leading to a joint effort including sharing of
knowledge between French and Israeli scientists especially those with knowledge from the Manhattan Project.

10… The Dimona project, 1956–1965

The French justified their decision to provide Israel a nuclear reactor by claiming it was not without precedent. In September 1955 Canada publicly announced that it would help the India build a heavy-water research reactor, the CIRUS reactor, for "
peaceful purposes".

11… When Egyptian President Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, France proposed that Israel attack Egypt & invade the Sinai as a pretext for France and Britain to invade Egypt posing as "peacekeepers" with the true intent of seizing the Suez Canal. In
exchange, France would provide the nuclear reactor as the basis for the Israeli nuclear weapons program.

12… Shimon Peres, sensing the opportunity on the nuclear reactor, accepted. In September, 1956, Peres and Bergmann reached a tentative agreement in Paris for the CEA to sell Israel a small research reactor.

Israel benefited from an unusually pro-Israel French government during this time.

13… After the Suez Crisis & the British & French were being forced to withdraw, then Ben-Gurion sent Peres and Golda Meir to France. During their discussions the groundwork was laid for France to build a larger nuclear reactor and chemical reprocessing
plant, and PM Guy Mollet, ashamed at having abandoned his commitment to fellow socialists in Israel, supposedly told an aide, "I owe the bomb to them." The Chief of the Defence Staff, said, "We must give them this to guarantee their security, it is vital.
"

14… 1957:- The French–Israeli relationship was finalized on October 3, 1957, in two agreements whose contents remain secret:

*The result was that Israel was now able to produce 22 kilograms of plutonium/yr.

15… When the reactor arrived in Israel, PM Ben-Gurion declared that its purpose was to provide a pumping station to desalinate seawater & thus turn the desert into an "agricultural paradise". 6 of 7 members of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission
promptly resigned, for political reasons.

16… 1957: Building it:- Before construction began it was decided that the project would be too big for the EMET and IAEC team, so Peres recruited Col. Manes Pratt, then Israeli military attaché in Burma, to be the project leader. Building began in
late 1957 or early 1958, bringing hundreds of French engineers & technicians to the Beersheba and Dimona area.

17… LEKEM

1959:- Peres had established and appointed a new intelligence service assigned to search the globe and clandestinely secure technology, materials and equipment needed for the program, by any means necessary. The new service would eventually be named
LEKEM, & Peres appointed IDF Internal Security Chief, Blumberg, as CEO. As head of the LEKEM, Blumberg would rise to become a key figure in Israel’s intelligence community, coordinating agents worldwide and securing the crucial components for the
program.

18… 1958:- When de Gaulle became President in late 1958 he wanted to end French–Israeli nuclear cooperation, and said that he would not supply Israel with uranium unless the plant was opened to international inspectors, declared peaceful, and no
plutonium was reprocessed.

19… Through a series of negotiations, Shimon Peres finally reached a compromise with FM de Murville over 2 yrs later, in which French companies would be able to continue to fulfill their contract obligations and Israel would declare the project
peaceful. Due to this, French assistance did not end until 1966. However the supply of uranium fuel was stopped earlier, in 1963.

20… Despite this, the French uranium company based in Gabon may have sold Israel uranium in 1965.

21… British aid [late 50s & early 60s]

….meanwhile, Britain made hundreds of secret shipments of restricted materials to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. These included specialist chemicals for reprocessing and samples of fissile material—uranium-235 in 1959, and plutonium in 1966, as well
as highly enriched lithium-6, which is used to boost fission bombs and fuel H bombs.

22… 1959–60:- Britain shipped 20 tons of heavy water directly to Israel in 1959 and 1960 to start up the Dimona reactor.

23… The transaction was made through a Norwegian front company called Noratom, which took a 2% commission on the transaction. Britain was challenged about the heavy water deal at the IAEA after it was exposed but, the British claimed - this was a sale
to Norway.

24… Israel admits running the Dimona reactor with Norway's heavy water since 1963. French engineers who helped build Dimona say the Israelis were expert operators, so only a relatively small % of the water was lost during the years since the reactor
was first put into operation.

25… 1961:- PM Ben-Gurion informed the Canadian PM Diefenbaker that a pilot plutonium-separation plant would be built at Dimona. British intelligence concluded from this and other information that this "can only mean that Israel intends to produce
nuclear weapons".

26… The nuclear reactor at Dimona went critical in 1962.

27…. After Israel's rupture with France, the Israeli government reportedly reached out to Argentina. The Argentine government agreed to sell Israel yellowcake =uranium oxide.

From ‘63-’66 about 90 tons of yellowcake were allegedly shipped to Israel from Argentina in secret.

28… By 1965 the Israeli reprocessing plant was completed and ready to convert the reactor's fuel rods into weapons grade plutonium.

29… Costs:- The cost $80 mil. in 1960: half of which was raised by foreign Jewish donors, including many American Jews. Some of these donors were given a tour of the Dimona complex in 1968.

30… Israel begun full-scale production of N-weapons following the 1967 6-day war, although she had built her first functional N-weapon by Dec. ‘66.

31… Comment:- Israel, to protect herself, has now a triad of 3 major defence shields to keep her enemies at bay.

A. N-weapons [ about 250 - 4 varieties],

B. Virus & neuo-bacteria.

C. smart mechanical rockets & similar - to fly at missiles, or planes that try to enter Israel.

In category A; ICBMs - {The Jericho family}, submarines and (hand) - deliverable A-weapons to sensitive sites in enemy places.

Israel, using her Jewish, Israeli, Russian and French/British talent is in the front row of new/innovative N-research with these weapons - for her defence.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)