actor, but they found no hard evidence of weapons-related activities
such as the existence of the plutonium-reprocessing plant.
In 1968, however, based on information from Edward Teller, father
of the U.S. hydrogen bomb, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) concluded that Israel had started producing nuclear weapons.
Teller had heard this, he said, from Israeli friends in the scientific and
defense establishment. He counseled the CIA to make a final assess-
ment without waiting for an Israeli nuclear test, because one would
never be conducted. In 1981 the United States embargoed further
shipments of highly enriched uranium fuel to the Nahal Soreq reactor.
After the opening of the Dimona reactor in 1964, it started pro-
ducing plutonium. During the 1967 Six-Day War, the first two de-
veloped bombs may have been armed. It was also reported that, fear-
ing defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli army readied 13
bombs of 20 kilotons each for use. Missiles and aircraft were armed
with the bombs for an attack on Egypt and Syrian targets. During the
1991 Gulf War, Israel went on full-scale nuclear alert when seven
Iraqi Scud missiles were fired at Israeli cities. Only three missiles,
conventionally armed, hit Tel Aviv and Haifa, with only minor dam-
age. But the Israeli government warned Iraq of a counterstrike if the
Iraqis used chemical warheads; this clearly meant that Israel intended
to launch a nuclear strike if gas attacks occurred.
In 1986, former Dimona worker Mordechai Vanunurevealed de-
tails of the Dimona plant to the London Sunday Times. His descrip-
tions and the photographs he took during his employment supported
the conclusion that Israel had a stockpile of 100–200 nuclear war-
heads. Following his revelations, Vanunu fell into a trap by the
Mossadand was kidnapped. In a closed-door trial, he was convicted
and given an 18-year prison term (to be spent in isolation).
In the late 1990s, U.S. intelligence organizations estimated that Is-
rael possessed between 75 and 130 nuclear warheads, which, they be-
lieved, could be used in Jericho missiles and as bombs in aircraft. Is-
rael has never conducted a weapons test of its own, apart from the
probable joint test with South Africa in 1979. However a subcritical
test (with no real nuclear explosion) may have been carried out in
November 1966 at Al-Naqab in the Negev Desert.
Israel conducted several acts of sabotage against Iraq out of con-
cern about that country’s nuclear weapons development. In AprilNUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM• 21906-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 219