1963 Israel–United States standoff

1963 Israel–United States standoff
Part of Cold War
Kennedy and Ben-Gurion in 1961
Date 2 April 1963 – 19 August 1963 Location United States and Israel Result See Aftermath section
Belligerents
United States	Israel
Commanders and leaders
John F. Kennedy	David Ben-Gurion Levi Eshkol

The 1963 Israel–United States standoff was a diplomatic crisis between Israel and United States during the spring and summer of 1963, the leaders of the United States and Israel – President John F. Kennedy and Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol – were engaged in what is called a "high-stakes battle of wills" over Israel’s nuclear program. The tensions were unknown to the publics of both countries at the time, and only a few senior officials, on both sides, were aware of the severity of the situation, the details of the crisis were declassified in 2019.

According to Yuval Ne'eman, Eshkol, Ben-Gurion’s successor, and his associates saw Kennedy as presenting Israel with a real ultimatum. According to Ne’eman, the former Israel Air Force commander Dan Tolkowsky, seriously entertained the fear that Kennedy might send U.S. airborne troops to Dimona, the home of Israel’s nuclear complex.

Background

In the fall of 1960, not long after Kennedy’s election, the outgoing Eisenhower administration first became aware of the Dimona reactor that Israel and France had begun building in secret during 1958. The CIA issued a Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) that determined that “plutonium production for weapons is at least one major purpose of this effort.” Furthermore, the estimate predicted that if the Arab world believed that Israel was acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability, it would cause “consternation,” and blame would be directed toward the U.S. and France for their presumed support of the project.

On January 19, 1961, the eve of his inauguration, Kennedy inquired which countries were seeking the bomb. “Israel and India,” outgoing Secretary of State Christian Herter told Kennedy, adding that the then-newly discovered Dimona reactor would be able to produce 90 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium by 1963, enough for 10 to 15 nuclear weapons. Herter urged Kennedy to press hard for inspections of Dimona before Israel introduced such weapons into the Middle East.

First US inspection of Dimona Nuclear Facility

Within days of taking office Kennedy began urging Ben-Gurion to accept a U.S. visit to Dimona, insisting that a visit was a condition for good diplomatic relations. In responding, Ben-Gurion dragged his feet, citing a cabinet crisis that had to be resolved. Later Israeli Ambassador to Washington Avraham Harman told the administration that Israel had agreed to a tour of Dimona by U.S. officials and on May 20, two Atomic Energy Commission scientists, U. M. Staebler and J. W. Croach, Jr., visited the site. Its management team said that the technological rationale for the project was to gain experience in building and operating nuclear reactors that could be used in the future for peaceful power generation. U.S. documents, show that the AEC team was “satisfied that nothing was concealed from them and that the reactor is of the scope and peaceful character previously described.” This visit laid the foundations for a meeting between Ben-Gurion and Kennedy in New York, on May 31, 1961.

The rationale Ben-Gurion presented to Kennedy during that meeting, held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, was consistent with what the Dimona management team had told the American scientists: The nuclear project was peaceful in nature; it was about energy and development. However, the Israeli leader's narrative also left a little wiggle room for a future reversal. His caveat amounted to a few words: “for the time being, the only purposes are for peace. … But we will see what will happen in the Middle East. It does not depend on us” The meeting with Ben-Gurion helped to clear the air for some time, but it did not remove American doubts and suspicions about Israel’s nuclear intentions.

Second US inspection of Dimona Nuclear Facility

Starting in June 1962, the Americans began trying to arrange a second visit to Dimona, but failed to make headway. It wasn’t until September 26, 1962, after frequent requests over several months, that such a visit finally took place. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Walworth Barbour referred to the second visit as “unduly restricted to no more than 45 minutes.”

After the two AEC visiting scientists – Thomas Haycock and Ulysses Staebler – had inspected the small, U.S.-supplied reactor at Nahal Sorek, they were unexpectedly offered a sightseeing tour at the Dead Sea. Later, as they were being driven back to their hotel, their host told them that they were near the Dimona reactor and that a meeting with the director could be arranged. The director was not there, but they met and were briefed by the principal engineer, who gave them a 40-minute tour of the facility.

The report’s final sentence states that “the inspectors were not certain whether they were guests of their scientist-hosts or on an inspection. Although they have not had time to see the entire installation, and although there were some buildings they did not enter, they were able to confirm the research nature of the installation.” The highly unconventional nature of the visit stirred suspicion in Washington, especially in the intelligence community. During one interagency meeting, Deputy Director of Intelligence Ray Cline, was quoted as saying that “the immediate objectives of the visit may have been satisfied, [but] certain basic intelligence requirements were not.” It was also stated that “there were certain inconsistencies between the first and second inspection reports.”

In early 1963, however, concerns over Dimona resurfaced. By late January, Kennedy had received a new National Intelligence Estimate, entitled “The Arab-Israeli Problem,” that highlighted the weapons potential of the Dimona reactor. On Israel’s nuclear potential, the NIE concluded that the facility would become operational later that year and that by the following year, 1964, “if operated at its maximum capacity for the production of weapon-grade plutonium, the reactor could produce sufficient plutonium for one or two weapons a year.” Reacting to the intelligence estimate, NSC official Robert Komer suggested that Israel “will attempt to produce a weapon sometime in the next several years and could have a very limited capability by 67-68.” In retrospect, that assessment turned out to be on target. Komer informed the president that “we are planning a better look [at Dimona] in the next month or so.”

in early March 1963, Kent Sherman, director of the Office of National Estimates, which prepared the NIEs, signed an intelligence estimate detailing the grave consequences of Israeli nuclearization. “Israel’s policy toward its neighbors would become more rather than less tough… it would … seek to exploit the psychological advantages of its nuclear capability to intimidate the Arabs and to prevent them from making trouble on the frontiers.” Furthermore, in dealing with the United States, Israel “would use all means in its command to persuade [it] to acquiesce in and even to support, its possession of nuclear capability.”

On March 25, 1963, President Kennedy and CIA Director John A. McCone discussed the Israeli nuclear program. According to McCone, Kennedy raised the “question of Israel acquiring nuclear capability,” and McCone provided Kennedy with Kent’s estimate of the anticipated negative consequences of Israeli nuclearization. According to McCone, Kennedy then instructed National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy to guide Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in collaboration with the CIA director and the AEC chairman, to submit a proposal “as to how some form of international or bilateral U.S. safeguards could be instituted to protect against the contingency mentioned.” That also meant that the “next informal inspection of the Israeli reactor complex [must] …be undertaken promptly and... be as thorough as possible.”

Standoff

This presidential request was translated into diplomatic action, on April 2 1963, Ambassador Barbour met Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and presented the American request for his “assent to semi-annual visits to Dimona perhaps in May and November, with full access to all parts and instruments in the facility, by qualified U.S. scientists.” Ben-Gurion, apparently taken by surprise, responded by saying the issue would have to be postponed until after Passover, which that year ended on April 15. To highlight the point further, two days later, Assistant Secretary Talbot summoned Israeli Ambassador Harman to the State Department and presented him with a diplomatic démarche on the inspections. This message to Ben-Gurion was the first salvo in what would become "the toughest American-Israeli confrontation over the Israeli nuclear program".

Ben-Gurion decided to try to avoid confrontation and evade the nuclear issue by attempting to persuade Kennedy to think about Israel’s overall security predicament. The prime minister changed the subject of the conversation from Kennedy’s specific demand for American twice-a-year visits to Dimona into a broader and urgent discussion about Israel’s overall strategic situation. On April 26 1963, more than three weeks after the original U.S. demand concerning Dimona, Ben-Gurion responded to Kennedy with a seven-page letter that focused on broad issues of Israeli security and regional stability. Claiming that Israel faced an unprecedented threat, Ben-Gurion invoked the specter of “another Holocaust,” and insisted that Israel’s security should be protected by joint external security guarantees, to be extended by the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Kennedy, however, was determined not to let Ben-Gurion change the subject. On May 4 1963, he replied to the prime minister, assuring him that while “we are watching closely current developments in the Arab world,” As to Ben-Gurion’s proposal for a joint superpower declaration, Kennedy dismissed both its practicality and its political wisdom. Kennedy was much less worried about an “early Arab attack” than he was by “a successful development of advanced offensive systems which, could not be dealt with by presently available means.”

Kennedy’s dismissive reply did not deter Ben-Gurion. In another lengthy and highly emotional reply to Kennedy’s May 4 letter, Ben-Gurion continued his earlier effort to change the conversation while also indirectly explaining the true purpose of Dimona. Acknowledging Kennedy’s view that a joint U.S.-Soviet security guarantee was politically impossible, Ben-Gurion now suggested a sweeping, bilateral U.S-Israel security agreement that would include the following: a supply of U.S. arms equivalent to what the Arabs were receiving from the Soviet Union, the transformation of Jordan’s West Bank into a demilitarized zone, and “a plan of general disarmament between Israel and the Arab states under a system of mutual and international inspection and control.” This was a laundry list of unrealistic ideas and proposals. Again, Ben-Gurion may have meant to convey to Kennedy his rationale for the Dimona project, while avoiding expressing it explicitly. By reminding Kennedy that another Holocaust was possible and suggesting (indirectly) that Israel could not feasibly obtain a credible external security guarantee, he was effectively signaling to the president why Israel wanted a nuclear deterrent in the first place.

Kennedy, would not budge on Dimona, and the disagreements became a “pain in the neck” for him, as Robert Komer later wrote. The confrontation with Israel escalated when the State Department transmitted Kennedy’s latest letter to the Tel Aviv embassy on June 15 for immediate delivery to Ben-Gurion by Ambassador Barbour. In the letter Kennedy fleshed out his insistence on biannual visits with a set of detailed technical conditions. The letter was akin to an ultimatum: If the U.S. government could not obtain “reliable information” on the state of the Dimona project, Washington’s “commitment to and support of Israel” could be “seriously jeopardized.”

Resignation of Ben-Gurion

But the letter was never presented to Ben-Gurion. The telegram with Kennedy’s letter arrived in Tel Aviv on Saturday, June 15, the day before Ben-Gurion’s announcement of his resignation, a decision that stunned his country and the world. Ben-Gurion never explained, in writing or orally, what led him to resign, beyond citing “personal reasons.” He denied that his move was related to any specific policy issues, but the question of the extent to which Kennedy’s Dimona pressure played a role remains open to discussion to the present day.

On July 5, less than 10 days after Levi Eshkol succeeded Ben-Gurion as prime minister, Ambassador Barbour delivered to him a first letter from President Kennedy. The letter was virtually a copy of the undelivered letter of June 15 to Ben-Gurion. As Yuval Ne’eman stated, it was immediately apparent to Eshkol and his advisers that Kennedy’s demands were akin to an ultimatum, and thus constituted a crisis in the making. A stunned Eshkol, in his first and interim response, on July 17, requested more time to study the subject and for consultations. The premier noted that while he hoped that U.S-Israeli friendship would grow under his watch, “Israel would do what it had to do for its national security and to safeguard its sovereign rights.” Barbour, apparently wanting to mitigate the bluntness of the letter, assured Eshkol that Kennedy’s statement was “factual”: Critics of strong U.S.-Israel relations might complicate the diplomatic relationship if Dimona was left uninspected.

On August 19, after six weeks of consultations that generated at least eight different drafts, Eshkol handed Barbour his written reply to Kennedy’s demands. It began by reiterating Ben-Gurion’s past assurances that Dimona’s purpose was peaceful. As to Kennedy’s request, Eshkol wrote that given the special relationship between the two countries, he had decided to allow regular visits of U.S. representatives to the Dimona site. On the specific issue of the schedule, Eshkol suggested – as Ben-Gurion had in his last letter to Kennedy – that late 1963 would be the time for the first visit: By then, he wrote, “the French group will have handed the reactor over to us and it will be undertaking general tests and measurements of its physical parameters at zero power.”

Eshkol was vague on the proposed frequency of visits. Eshkol disregarded Kennedy’s demand for biannual tours, while avoiding a frontal challenge to Kennedy’s request. “Having considered this request, I believe we shall be able to reach agreement on the future schedule of visits,” Eshkol wrote. In sum, the prime minister split the difference: To end the confrontation, he assented to “regular visits” by U.S. scientists, but he did not accept the idea of the prompt visit that Kennedy wanted and avoided making an explicit commitment to biannual inspections. Kennedy’s appreciative reply did not mention these divergences, but assumed a basic agreement on “regular visits.”

Standoff ends

The ambiguities of Eshkol’s reply were understood in Washington, but played down. In a detailed memo that the acting secretary of state, George Ball, wrote to Kennedy, the overall assessment was positive: Eshkol’s reply, “although not entirely what we wanted, probably represents the most we can hope.” Eshkol’s vagueness about Kennedy’s most important demand, twice-yearly visits to Dimona, was well recognized, but “we prefer to give him [Eshkol] the benefit of the doubt, relying on our interpretation, the prime minister’s oral statement that future agreement ‘will give no trouble.’” It turned out that Kennedy’s insistence of biannual visits was never accepted, although it remained on the U.S. agenda.

Third US inspection of Dimona Nuclear Facility

In the wake of Eshkol’s letter, the first of the long-sought regular inspection visits to Dimona took place in mid-January 1964, two months after Kennedy’s assassination. The Israelis told the American visitors that the reactor had gone critical only a few weeks earlier, but that claim was not accurate. Israel acknowledged years later that the Dimona reactor became operational in mid-1963, as the Kennedy administration had originally assumed.

Both the U.S. and the Israelis kept the visit secret, with leaks to the press effectively contained for over a year. The inspection took place over the course of a single day instead of the two days sought by the inspectors. The shorter time line meant that some buildings and parts of buildings were not seen, although the inspectors reported that the visit was “as comprehensive and thorough as the time permitted.” Their findings raised no suspicions of weapons-related activities, but it was “the impression of the team that the Dimona site and the equipment located there represented an ambitious project for a country of Israel’s capabilities.” The issue of Israel’s possible reprocessing of spent fuel for plutonium continued to bedevil U.S. intelligence throughout the 1960s. No one was sure whether Israel already had a secret reprocessing site or had yet to build one.

Aftermath

President Johnson greets Levi Eshkol, 1968. The president never pressed the Israeli leader hard for biannual U.S. visits to Dimona, the way Kennedy did with Ben-Gurion

It turned out that Kennedy’s insistence on biannual visits to Dimona was not implemented after his death. U.S. government officials remained interested in such a schedule, and President Lyndon B. Johnson did raise the issue with Eshkol, but he never pressed hard on the subject the way that Kennedy had. In the end, the confrontation between President Kennedy and two Israeli prime ministers resulted in a series of six American inspections of the Dimona nuclear complex, once a year between 1964 and 1969. They were never conducted under the strict conditions Kennedy laid out in his letters. While Kennedy’s successor remained committed to the cause of nuclear nonproliferation and supported American inspection visits at Dimona, he was much less concerned about holding the Israelis to Kennedy’s terms. In retrospect, this change of attitude may have saved the Israeli nuclear program.

According to Edwin E. Kintner, because Israel knew the schedule of the inspectors' visits, it was able to hide the manufacture of nuclear weapons, thereby deceiving the inspectors, by installing temporary false walls and other devices before each inspection. The inspectors eventually informed the U.S. government that their inspections were useless, due to Israeli restrictions on what areas of the facility they could inspect. By 1969 the U.S. believed that Israel might have a nuclear weapon, and terminated inspections that year.

Israel's first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967, and is estimated to possess between 80–400 nuclear warheads as of 2019.

Conspiracy theories

In 2004, Mordechai Vanunu, the prime whistleblower of Israeli nuclear weapons program, claimed that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was Israel's response to "pressure [Kennedy] exerted on...Ben-Gurion, to shed light on Dimona's nuclear reactor in Israel". In 2009, this claim was supported by former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. During his United Nations General Assembly speech, Gaddafi said that "Israel had ordered the killing of President Kennedy because Kennedy had wanted to investigate the Negev Nuclear Plant".

See also

• Israel–United States relations