Israel's Nuclear Weapon Capability: An Overview
The Risk Report
Volume 2 Number 4 (July-August 1996).
"Today, Israel is the world's sixth most powerful nuclear state, with a stockpile of more than 100 nuclear weapons and with the components and ability to build atomic, neutron and hydrogen bombs. Israel's nuclear program began and still operates under tight secrecy, but in the 1980s a series of revelations showed the crucial role played by foreign suppliers.
France launched Israel on the nuclear path in the late 1950s by building the Dimona reactor, which is still the source of Israel's plutonium--its main nuclear weapon fuel. The reactor's heavy water, essential to achieve a chain reaction, was supplied by Norway in 1959. In 1963, when the reactor started operation, the United States supplied four more tons of heavy water.
Israel got other nuclear help from the United States, which also supplied a small 5-megawatt (thermal) research reactor at Nahal Soreq. The reactor started in 1960, but cannot produce significant quantities of plutonium. Instead, the reactor offered an early training ground for Israeli nuclear technicians. Later in the 1960s, Israel was widely thought to have smuggled more than 100 kilograms of highly enriched uranium out of a nuclear materials plant in Pennsylvania."
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in 1968 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported to President Lyndon Johnson its conclusion that Israel had already made an atomic bomb. In 1969, Israel limited inspection visits by U.S. scientists to such an extent that the Americans complained in writing. Without explanation, the Nixon administration ended the visits the following year.
The CIA continued to report on Israel's nuclear weapon progress during the 1970s. In a September 1974 memorandum, "Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," the CIA cited "Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium, partly by clandestine means" as further evidence that "Israel already has produced nuclear weapons." The CIA also cited Israeli missile development as evidence that Israel had made nuclear weapons--the CIA said the Jericho made little sense as a conventional missile and was "designed to accommodate nuclear warheads."
In a February 1976 report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett reported that Israel was already making bombs with plutonium produced in its Dimona reactor."
Israel's Nuclear Weapon Capability: An Overview
