Israel's Nuclear Option: Behind the Scenes Diplomacy Between Dimona and Washington

ISBN-13: 9781845190149 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 220 str.

Zaki Shalom

Opis

Recounting the dialogue and related diplomatic activity that took place during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and the Ben-Gurion and Eshkol premierships, this work recalls how, in the early 1950s, Israel secretly launched a project designed to achieve a nuclear option. It discusses how France initially supported the daring project and the attempt stood to engineer a dramatic change in Israel s strategic position vis-a-vis its neighboring Arab states and the wider international community. It recalls how Israel was adamantly opposed to the United States request to allow external supervision of its nuclear activity and how Israel labored to avert a potentially disastrous rift with its one superpower ally. The intense and often difficult discussions that followed, which pitted Israel s security concerns against the United States determined goal to stem nuclear proliferation, eventually produced a set of formal and informal strategic understandings regarding Israel s nuclear deterrence."