In 1963, President Kennedy sent Israel's Prime Minister an ultimatum: allow full nuclear inspections at Dimona nuclear facility or lose American support. Twenty-four hours later, Ben-Gurion mysteriously resigned.
Five months later, Kennedy was dead. This is the declassified story of how Israel defied an American president, built atomic bombs in secret, and changed the Middle East forever.
Based on recently released documents from the National Security Archive and JFK Presidential Library showing Kennedy's desperate attempts to prevent Israeli nuclear weapons.
Sources:
- National Security Archive (George Washington University): Declassified Kennedy-Ben-Gurion-Eshkol correspondence, 1961-1963
- JFK Presidential Library: Letters between Kennedy and Israeli leaders, White House records
- Wilson Center: "Kennedy, Dimona and the Nuclear Proliferation Problem: 1961-1962"
- U.S. State Department: Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XVIII (Near East 1961-1963)
- Atomic Energy Commission: Inspection reports from Dimona visits (1961, 1962, 1965-1967)
- Avner Cohen: "Israel and the Bomb" and various scholarly articles on Israeli nuclear history
- CIA declassified assessments of Israeli nuclear capabilities
- Seymour Hersh: "The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy"
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