494 Kissinger MEMO to Nixon on Israel's Nukes gives the lie to Chomsky depiction of Israel as mere Regional Sheriff

Kissinger MEMO to Nixon on Israel's Nukes gives the lie to Chomsky
depiction of Israel as mere Regional Sheriff

This material is at http://mailstar.net/chomsky-lobby.html

Kissinger's Memo is transcribed here for the first time.

(1) In 1967 War, France refused to supply parts for Mirage jets. So
Israel sought Phantoms from US
(2) Israel more likely to use its Nukes - Memo From Kissinger to Nixon,
July 19, 1969
(3) Kissinger MEMO to Nixon on Israel's Nuclear Weapons - July 19, 1969
(4) Kissinger Memo gives the lie to Chomsky depiction of Israel as mere
Regional Sheriff
- Peter Myers, February 22, 2012
(5) Israel may possess 400 nuclear warheads
(6) Israel recruited Jewish nuclear scientists from Soviet Union in its
last years

(1) In 1967 War, France refused to supply parts for Mirage jets. So
Israel sought Phantoms from US

http://moreyaltman.blogspot.com.au/2009/11/going-nuclear-part-ii.html

Going Nuclear: Part II

Morey Altman

Monday, November 16, 2009

[...] As the Six-Day War began, France reneged on arms deals with Israel
and declared a weapons boycott, refusing to supply parts for Israel's
French-made Mirage jets. Following the war, Israel was anxious to
replace the Mirage, especially in light of the USSR's rapid re-arming of
Egypt and Syria. Israel was pushed by need directly into the US sphere
of influence.

In January 1968, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol met with President Johnson
to urgently request military aid, especially the Phantoms. Johnson, who
was a longstanding supporter of Zionism, assured Eshkol that the US
would stand by Israel. But, as the negotiations for the jets proceeded
over the next few months, opposition – namely linkage between the
aircraft sale and the nuclear issue – emerged.

But, it was likely the State Department that was doing the pushing and
Israel pushed back. Attempts by Paul Warnke, Assistant Secretary of
Defense for International Security Affairs, to verify Israel's Dimona
promises obligated Israel to request that the White House intervene.
Secretary of Defense Clarke Clifford told Warnke to end the talks and
not press the matter of verification.

In lieu of a formal agreement, Israel provided the US with a promissory
letter, signed by Israel's Ambassador to the US Yitzhak Rabin, that
Israel would not introduce nuclear weapons into the conflict. Israel
reaffirmed "its long-standing policy as laid down in...1965 that it will
not be the first power in the Middle East to introduce nuclear weapons
and [agreed] not to use any aircraft supplied by the US and a nuclear
weapons carrier. Israel and the US, however, continued to have a very
different understanding as to the meaning of the concept of
"introduction" of weapons. Israel's position was that as long as no
weapons had been tested and publicly announced no "introduction" had
been made. The issue was still outstanding as Johnson's term ended in 1969.

At the start of his administration, Nixon assembled a 'special group' -
Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard, Under Secretary of State
Elliott Richardson, CIA Director Richard Helms, Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman General Earle Wheeler, and Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger - to "consider the status of
the Israeli nuclear program and [US] responses to it." ...

(2) Israel more likely to use its Nukes - Memo From Kissinger to Nixon,
July 19, 1969

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/world/middleeast/29nixon.html

Israel's Nuclear Arsenal Vexed Nixon

By DAVID STOUT

Published: November 29, 2007
Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — In July 1969, as the world was spellbound by the
Apollo 11 mission to the moon, President Richard M. Nixon and his close
advisers were quietly fretting about a nuclear arms race in the Middle
East. Their main worry was not a potential enemy of the United States,
but one of America's closest friends.

Memo From Kissinger to Nixon on the Israeli Nuclear Program (July 19, 1969)

"The Israelis, who are one of the few peoples whose survival is
genuinely threatened, are probably more likely than almost any other
country to actually use their nuclear weapons," Henry A. Kissinger, the
national security adviser, warned Mr. Nixon in a memorandum dated July
19, 1969 — part of a newly released trove of documents.

Israel's nuclear arms program, which Israel has never officially
conceded exists, was believed to have begun at least several years
before, but it was causing special problems for the young Nixon
administration. For one thing, the president was preparing for a visit
by its prime minister, Golda Meir, who was also in her first year in
office and whose toughness was already legendary.

Should Washington insist that Israel rein in its development of nuclear
weapons? What would the United States do if Israel refused? Perhaps the
solution lay in deliberate ambiguity, or simply pretending that America
did not know what Israel was up to. These were some of the options that
Mr. Kissinger laid out for Mr. Nixon on that day before men first walked
on the moon.

The Nixon White House's concerns over Israel's weapons were detailed in
documents from the Nixon Presidential Library that were released on
Wednesday as the result of declassification requests by researchers at
the National Security Archive of George Washington University and elsewhere.

The documents provide insights into America's close, but by no means
problem-free, relationship with Israel. They also serve as a reminder
that concerns over nuclear arms proliferation in the Middle East, now
focused on Iran, are decades old.

The papers also allude to a 1972 campaign by friends of W. Mark Felt,
then the second-ranking F.B.I. official, to have him named director of
the bureau after the death of J. Edgar Hoover in May of that year. Mr.
Nixon, of course, did not take the advice, instead naming L. Patrick
Gray. Mr. Felt later became the famous anonymous source "Deep Throat,"
whose revelations during Watergate helped topple the president.

There are also snippets about Washington's desire to manipulate
relations with Saudi Arabia, so that the Saudis might help to broker a
Middle East peace deal; discussion of possibly supporting a Kurdish
uprising in Iraq; and a 1970 clash in which four Israeli fighters shot
down four Russian MIG-21s over eastern Egypt, even though the Israelis
were outnumbered by two-to-one.

But perhaps the most interesting material, and the most pertinent given
the just-completed peace conference in Annapolis, Md., concerns Israel
and its relations with its neighbors, as well as with the United States.

"There is circumstantial evidence that some fissionable material
available for Israel's weapons development was illegally obtained from
the United States about 1965," Mr. Kissinger noted in his long memorandum.

He also said that one problem with trying to persuade Israel to freeze
its nuclear program was that inspections would be useless, conceding
that "we could never cover all conceivable Israeli hiding places."

"This is one program on which the Israelis have persistently deceived
us," Mr. Kissinger said, "and may even have stolen from us."

Although Israel has never publicly acknowledged possessing nuclear
weapons, scientists and arms experts have no doubt that it has them, and
the United States' reluctance to pressure Israel to disarm has made
America vulnerable to accusations that it has a double standard when it
comes to stopping the spread of weapons in the Middle East.

Mr. Kissinger's memo, written barely two years after the 1967 Middle
East war and while memories of the Holocaust were still vivid among the
first Israelis, implicitly acknowledged Israel's right to defend itself,
as subsequent American administrations have done.

But Mr. Kissinger reflected at length on the quandary faced by the
United States. "Israel will not take us seriously on the nuclear issue
unless they believe we are prepared to withhold something they very much
need," he wrote, referring to a pending sale of Phantom fighter jets to
Israel.

"On the other hand, if we withhold the Phantoms and they make this fact
public in the United States, enormous political pressure will be mounted
on us," Mr. Kissinger went on. "We will be in an indefensible position
if we cannot state why we are withholding the planes. Yet if we explain
our position publicly, we will be the ones to make Israel's possession
of nuclear weapons public with all the international consequences this
entails."

One of those consequences might be to "spark a Soviet nuclear guarantee
for the Arabs, tighten the Soviet hold on the Arabs and increase the
danger of our involvement," Mr. Kissinger wrote at another point.

After he met with Mrs. Meir at the White House in late September 1969,
Mr. Nixon said: "The problems in the Mideast go back centuries. They are
not susceptible to easy solution. We do not expect them to be
susceptible to instant diplomacy."

But Avner Cohen, the author of "Israel and the Bomb," (Columbia
University Press, 1998) who is a senior fellow at the United States
Institute of Peace, said on Wednesday that there was enough historical
evidence to indicate that the president and the prime minister had
reached a secret understanding on at least one issue: Israel would keep
its nuclear devices out of sight and not test them, and the United
States would tolerate the situation and not press Israel to sign the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that has been embraced by scores of
countries around the world.

"That understanding remains to this day," Mr. Cohen said.

Correction: December 7, 2007

  An article on Nov. 29 about the Nixon administration's alarm over
Israel's nuclear weapons program described incorrectly the process that
prompted the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum to release
previously classified documents. The release was the result of
declassification requests by researchers at the National Security
Archive of George Washington University and elsewhere; it was not
because of a regulation requiring review and possible declassification
of documents after 25 years.

(3) Kissinger MEMO to Nixon on Israel's Nuclear Weapons

July 19, 1969

Transcribed by Peter Myers, February 22, 2012.

The original uses uppercase and underlining for emphasis. That is
retained; in addition, bold emphasis is added here.

http://nixon.archives.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/mr/071969_israel.pdf

SANITIZED COPY

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT

FROM: Henry A. Kissinger

SUBJECT: Israeli Nuclear Program

You will recall that you created a special group -- because of the
sensitivity of the issue -- to consider the status of the Israeli
nuclear program and our possible responses to it. We have met twice at
the top level (Packard, Richardson, Helms, Wheeler, Kissinger) to
consider analyses drawn up by a small working group under us.

The paper at Tab A is my summary of the situation as our group sees it
after reviewing the intelligence and of our discussion of the issues
which that situation raises. This is long, but I believe you will want
to read through it because this is a complex problem.

THE SITUATION

{one sentence blacked out} We judge that the introduction of nuclear
weapons into the Near East would increase the dangers in an already
dangerous situation and therefore not be in our interest.

Israel has 12 surface-to-surface missiles delivered from France. It has
set up a production line and plans by the end of 1970 to have a total
force of 24-30, ten of which are prograrnrned for nuclear warheads.

When the Israelis signed the contract buying the Phantom aircraft last
November, they committed themselves "not to be the first to introduce
nuclear weapons into the Near East." But it was plain from the
discussion that they interpreted that to mean they could possess nuclear
weapons as long as they did not test, deploy, or make them public. In
signing the contract, we wrote Rabin saying that we believe mere
"possession' constitutes "introduction" and that Israel's introduction
of nuclear weapons by our definition would be cause for us to cancel the
contract.

Delivery of the Phantoms is scheduled to begin in September. But some of
the aircraIt will be ready at the factory in August, and the Israelis
have asked to begin taking delivery then.

WHAT WE WANT

There was general agreement in our group that we must recognize one
important distinction to begin with:

1. Israel's secret possession of nuclear weapons would increase the
potential danger in the Middle East, and we do not desire complicity in it.

2. In this case, public knowledge is almost as dangerous as possession
itself. This is what might spark a Soviet nuclear guarantee for the
Arabs, tighten the Soviet hold on the Arabs and increase the danger of
our involvement. Indeed, the Soviets might have an incentive not to know.

What this means is that, while we might ideally like to halt actual
Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep
Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact.

In our discussions, the following positions were taken:

1. Everyone agreed that, as a minimun, we want Israel to sign the NPT.
This is not because signing will make any difference in Israel's actual
nuclear program because Israel could produce warheads clandestinely.
Israel's signature would, however, give us a publicly feasible issue to
raise with the Israeli government -- a way of opening the discussion. It
would also publicly commit Israel not to acquire nuclear weapons.

2. Everyone agreed that, in addition, we should try to get from Israel a
bilateral understanding on Israel's nuclear intentions because the NPT
is not precise enough and because the Phantom aircraft are potential
nuclear weapons carriers.

3. Opinion was divided on the nature of the assurances we should seek
and on the tactics of seeking them:

-- The JCS felt that if Israel's program becomes known, we should be in
a position to say we did everything in our power to prevent Israel from
going nuclear. JCS felt that we should try to stop Israel's missile
production and use the Phantoms as leverage.

-- Defense felt that we could live with the existence of Israeli nuclear
weapons provided they were not deployed. Defense agreed that we should
try to stop missile production and that we should use the Phantoms as
leverage to get the assurances we want.

-- State believed that we should try to keep Israel from going any
further with its nuclear weapons program -- it may be so close to
completion that Israel would be willing -- and make a record for
ourselves of having tried. State has joined in suggesting asking the
Israelis to halt production of the missiles. State would not threaten to
withhold the Phantoms in the first approach to the Israelis but would be
prepared to imply that threat if they were unresponsive to our first
approach.

At the end of our discussions, State, Defense, and JCS agreed to
describe a course of action which represented as nearly as possible the
consensus of our group. Despite the different shades of opinion
expressed in our discussions, the State, Defense and JCS members have
concurred in the paper at Tab B which proposes asking the Israelis to:

1. Sign the NPT at an early date (by the end of this year) and ratify it
soon thereafter.

2. Reaffirm to the US in writing the assurance that Israel will not be
the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Near East, specifying
that "introduction" shall mean possession of nuclear explosive devices.
[For our own internal purposes, we would decide that we could tolerate
Israeli activity short of assembly of a completed nuclear device.]

3. Give us assurances in writing that it will stop production and will
not deploy "Jericho" missiles or any other nuclear-capable strategic
missiles. [NOTE: I do not believe we can ask Israel not to produce
missiles. Israel is sovereign in this decision, and I do not see how we
can ask it not to produce a weapon just because we do not see it as an
effective weapon without nuclear warheads. We might persuade them not to
deploy what they produce on grounds that the rest of the world will
believe that the missiles must have nuclear warheads.]

This paper recommends approaching the Israelis in two steps:

1. First step. Richardson and Packard call in Rabin and say that, in
connection with Israel's request to advance the delivery date for the
first Phantoms to August, we want to tie up the ends left by the
exchange of letters surrounding that contract (i.e., the difference over
what would constitute "introduction" of nuclear weapons). They would
stress the importance of Israel's signature of the NPT and ask for
Israel's confirmation that "possession" of nuclear weapons as well as
testing and deployment would constitute "introduction". They would also
say that Israel's development and deployment of missiles -- a nuclear
weapons delivery system -- would cast doubt on its nuclear assurances.
They would not in this first meeting explicitly link delivery of the
Phantoms with Israel's response.

2. Second step. If Rabin tried to stonewall, Richardson and Packard
would state exactly what we want and make clear that Israeli
unresponsiveness would raise a question about our ability to continue
meeting Israel's arms request.

THE DILEMNA WE FACE

Our problem is that Israel will not take us seriously on the nuclear
issue unless they believe we are prepared to withhold something they
very much need -- the Phantoms or, even more, their whole military
supply relationship with us.

On the other hand, if we withhold the Phantoms and they make this fact
public in the United States, enormous political pressure will be mounted
on us. We will be in an indefensible position if we cannot state why we
are withholding the planes. Yet if we explain our position publicly, we
will be the ones to make Israel's possession of nuclear weapons public
with all the international consequences this entails.

THE OPTIONS

In the end, we have these broad options:

1. Initiate discussion now and try to reach an understanding before
delivery of the Phantoms becomes an active issue in September.

2. Initiate discussion of the nuclear issue in September when Mrs. Meir
comes, letting delivery of the Phantoms begin.

3. Initiate discussion of the issue in September and not let delivery
begin until we have a satisfactory response to our request for assurances.

4. Not raise the issue.

I recommend the first. I would propose that:

1. Richardson and Packard call in Rabin and go through the first step as
outlined in their paper -- express our desire to tie up loose ends on
Israel's nuclear assurances to us but not explicitly link delivery of
the Phantoms to their reply.

2. If Rabin's reaction is negative, I call Rabin in and stress your
concern that they sign the NPT, confirm that they will not "introduce"
(defined as '"possess") nuclear weapons, and agree not to deploy their
missiles.

3. We then take stock before committing ourselves on withholding the
Phantoms.

The rationale for this approach is that:

1. It raises the question with the Israelis before delivery of the
Phantoms becomes an active issue. We shall have to find an excuse for
not delivering in August, but the scheduled delivery would begin in
September. By raising the question now, we at least have a chance to
keep the Phantom delivery from becoming an issue.

2. By relating our discussion to the contract, it implies -without
committing us -- that we are questioning the Phantom delivery and
thereby encourage the Israelis to take us seriously.

3. It maintains your control over the point at which we do or do not
introduce the threat of withholding the Phantoms.

Approve Disapprove Other

I recommend that you read through the papers that follow before you
decide, because this is a complex issue. They are written to help you,
work your way in more detail through the pros and cons of the major
issues (Tab A), to enable you to see how the consensus of the group
would play itself out in a course of action (Tab B), and to present to
you systematically the principal issues for decision (Tab C). The two
remaining papers are background: at Tab D, the exchange of letters
consummating the Phantom sale for your reference; at Tab E, the basic
working group papers that our group started from.

Attachments

(4) Kissinger Memo gives the lie to Chomsky depiction of Israel as mere
Regional Sheriff
- Peter Myers, February 22, 2012

Noam Chomsky is the expert on the US Media who did not notice its Jewish
ownership or control.

The world's leading intellectual has consistently denied that the Jewish
lobby manipulates Presidents and Congress.

Instead, he puts the line that Israel is a mere Regional Outpost of the
Empire - a Sheriff implementing US policy in the Middle East.

Kissinger's Memo to Nixon gives the lie to Chomsky's line.

It shows that the highest level of the US Government was unable to
impose its will on Israel as regards development of Nuclear Weapons, and
was aware of its inability to rein Israel in because "enormous political
pressure will be mounted".

That "enormous political pressure" is a reference to the Lobby which
Chomsky insists does not exist.

(5) Israel may possess 400 nuclear warheads

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel

Nuclear weapons and Israel

[...] Israel is currently believed to possess between 75 and 400 nuclear
warheads with the ability to deliver them by intercontinental ballistic
missile, aircraft, and submarine.[2] ...

In 1991 alone, as the Soviet Union dissolved, nearly 20 top Jewish
Soviet scientists reportedly emigrated to Israel, some of whom had been
involved in operating nuclear power plants and planning for the next
generation of Soviet reactors. In September 1992, German intelligence
was quoted in the press as estimating that 40 top Jewish Soviet nuclear
scientists had emigrated to Israel since 1989.[55] ...

References

2.^ a b c d e f g Israel – Nuclear Weapons , Federation of American
Scientists. Retrieved 1 July 2007.

55.^ Israel's Nuclear Shopping List , The Risk Report, Volume 2 Number
4, July–August 1996.
<http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/Israel-nuclear-shopping.html>

This page was last modified on 15 February 2012 at 21:50.

(6) Israel recruited Jewish nuclear scientists from Soviet Union in its
last years

{What about that discrimination against Jews, that Soviets are accused of?}

http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/Israel-nuclear-shopping.html

Israel's Nuclear Shopping List

The Risk Report

Volume 2 Number 4 (July-August 1996)

Despite Israel's impressive achievements in nuclear weaponry, it still
need imports to maintain and develop its existing arsenal. According to
a 1992 Pentagon study, "The Militarily Critical Technologies List,"
Israel's strongest capabilities lie in processing nuclear materials and
in developing high explosives for nuclear weapon detonation. Israel is
less capable in enriching fissile material, building power reactors and
mastering thermonuclear fusion.

One of Israel's most important recent imports has been people. Following
the breakup of the Soviet Union, Israel began recruiting Soviet nuclear
scientists. In 1991 alone, nearly 20 top Soviet scientists reportedly
emigrated to Israel, some of whom were involved in operating nuclear
power plants and planning for the next generation of Russian reactors.
In September 1992, German intelligence was quoted in the press as
estimating that 40 Soviet nuclear scientists had emigrated to Israel
since 1989.

The biggest challenge for Israel's nuclear weapon program has been its
inability to openly conduct explosive tests. To compensate for this
limitation, Israel must rely on imported high-speed computers.
Supercomputers can simulate what goes on inside both fission and fusion
weapons. Israel will also have a continuing need for other diagnostic
and development tools such as vibrational test equipment, flash X-ray
machines and multistage light gas guns.

To continue enriching uranium with gas centrifuges, Israel will need to
replace worn-out centrifuges and their parts. This, in turn, will
require continued access to high-speed balancing equipment,
high-strength rotor materials such as fibrous and filamentary materials,
to filament winding machines, and to frequency changers and inverters.
Israel also needs a steady supply of tritium to boost the yield of its
existing nuclear bombs. Tritium decays at the rate of approximately 5
percent per year, so existing supplies must be constantly replenished.
This means that Israel must continue to run the Dimona reactor to
irradiate lithium, Israel's only means of producing tritium. In
addition, Israel will continue to need tritium storage containers, oil
and rubber-free mechanical vacuum pumps, and palladium and palladium
alloy diffusers for separating tritium from helium-3 and other gases.
Cryogenic distillation equipment will also be needed to handle tritium.