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Recently unearthed US government documents have shed some light on how the White House repeatedly missed an opportunity to disclose the Israeli secret nuclear weapons program.
The creation of the Israeli Dimona nuclear site has long been shrouded in secrecy, however, recently disclosed US government documents show that Washington either missed or deliberately turned a blind eye to warning signs about Jerusalem’s nuclear program.
In 1955, under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s rule, Israel launched a secret program aimed at producing nuclear explosives. In 1958 and 1959 the United States’ officials received the first warning signs about Israel’s secret project. Richard Kerry (the father of US Secretary of State John Kerry), who was working at the US embassy in Norway, found out that the country provided Israel with 20 tons of heavy water, a key ingredient for a nuclear reactor. A year earlier in Tel Aviv another American diplomat learned that Jerusalem was working on a nuclear project.
Eventually, in December 1960, Ben-Gurion officially admitted that Israel was building a nuclear reactor, and asserted that the reactor was for peaceful purposes. Remarkably, the US State Department bought into this idea, welcoming the statement of the Israeli prime minister.
Full article at: Sputnik International
Against the Grain 