U.S. Nuclear Nonproliferation 2, Part II: The Nixon-Ford Years, 1969-1976 is complemented by thousands of records included in five previous DNSA collections on U.S. nuclear history and other sets covering a range of related topics, such as Henry Kissinger’s telephone transcripts and records of his meetings with foreign leaders, the U.S. intelligence community, presidential decision directives on national security, and much more, all of which is available to DNSA subscribers.
THE DOCUMENTS
Document 1
Nov 30, 1960
Source
National Archives, Record Group 59, State Department records, Central Files 1960-1963, 884a.1901/11-3060, MDR release
Henry J. Gomberg, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan, provided information to the State Department and other agencies that helped them connect the dots about the purposes of Israel’s secret Dimona nuclear reactor.[1] With the support of the International Cooperation Administration (a forerunner of USAID), he had been in Israel to work at the Technion on a training program to familiarize students of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Before Gomberg left Israel, he briefed U.S. Ambassador Ogden Reid and Embassy staffers on his concerns about the Israeli atomic project. He had developed suspicions when he discovered that the Israelis were working on projects that they would not discuss with him. Gomberg learned that Israeli scientists were seeking to produce gram amounts of plutonium, which was “significant” because “amounts of this size could conceivably find use in weapons.” Responding to a question from Reid, Gomberg “thought it was conceivable that Israel could have weapon capability in this field in less than 10 years.” As it turned out, seven years later the Israelis had a workable bomb.
Document 2
Aug 14, 1969
Source
MDR Release by Department of Energy
Since the early 1960s, the U.S. government had closely monitored Western European efforts to develop gas centrifuge technology for producing highly enriched uranium as reactor fuel. Because of the gas centrifuge’s relevance to weapons proliferation, Washington had persuaded the Dutch, West Germans, and the British to apply secrecy controls to the technology to prevent its further dissemination. By the close of the decade, the three countries were working to combine their resources to use the gas centrifuge for producing enriched uranium on an industrial scale. The U.S. government was moderately supportive of the tripartite project, seeing it as compatible with the NPT and as a worthy example of West European cooperation, although it would produce a new competitor in world enriched uranium markets.