John F. Kennedy Pushed for Inspection of Israel Nuclear Facilities

[Paul Rigby]

Oh dear.

Neff's so childishly dishonest it almost feels unkind to expose his wretched attempts to deceive. But I simply can't deny myself the pleasure.

Anyone interested in a quick, honest and reasonably detailed guide to De Gaulle's attempts to rebalance France's relations with the Middle East, not excluding his moves to curtail Franco-Israeli nuclear collaboration- which had additional motivations, of course - might usefully read Michael Curtis' introduction to the 2004 Transaction edition of Raymond Aron's De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews, a book originally published in 1969 (or thereabouts). Pages xxiv-xxvii of Curtis' intro, reproduced in his 2013 book, Jews, Antisemitism, and the Middle East (pp104-106, also Transaction) contains a good beginner's guide to the changes in policy and personnel that De Gaulle initiated upon his return to power in 1958. The big push to break with Israel over Dimona commenced two years later, in mid-1960. It's easy enough to find online, and demolishes the nonsense posted above.

Avner Cohen's Israel and the Bomb adds a piece to the jigsaw by telling us: "Under Charles De Gaulle, however, French policy changed, and it appears that by 1963, when the reactor was near completion, France imposed major constraints on supplying uranium to Dimona."

Michael Karpin's The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and what that Means for the World (2006), contains a chapter with the title "De Gaulle Throws a Monkey Wrench in the Works".

Or try this:

Israel used many subterfuges to conceal activity at Dimona. It called the plant a manganese plant, and rarely, a textile plant. The United States by the end of 1958 had taken pictures of the project from U-2 spy planes, and identified the site as a probable reactor complex. The concentration of Frenchmen was also impossible to hide from ground observers. In 1960, before the reactor was operating, France, now under the leadership of de Gaulle, reconsidered and decided to suspend the project. After several months of negotiation, they reached an agreement in November that allowed the reactor to proceed if Israel promised not to make nuclear weapons and to announce the project to the world. Work on the plutonium reprocessing plant halted.

Source: THE THIRD TEMPLE'S HOLY OF HOLIES: ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Warner D. Farr, LTC, U.S. Army

The Counterproliferation Papers, Future Warfare Series No. 2

USAF Counterproliferation Center

Air War College, Air University

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

September 1999

http://fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr.htm

De Gaulle had an additional, and distinctly personal, reason for bringing a halt to close co-ordination with Israel: attempts to overthrow and assassinate the General were aided and abetted by Israeli intelligence - using Stern and Etzel gang members or sympathisers - and Zionist networks in America.

As early as March 1961, prior to the Generals' revolt in Algeria, the arrest of Jean Ghenassia, an Algerian Jew and suspected OAS member, prompted charges that he had worked in close liaison with Israeli intelligence officers smuggled into Algeria by submarine in December 1960.

A rash of French newspaper reports in 1961 and 1962 accused Israeli intelligence of support for OAS terrorism, with additional focus on the backing enjoyed by Jacques Soustelle, the head of the political wing of the OAS, allegedly with the blessing of Ben Gurion. Soustelle's Committee of Democratic Defense included a number of prominent members of Herut in France. In New York, meanwhile, an anti-De Gaulle, pro-Soustelle, and pro-Israel newsletter was published with funds provided by Abe Spanel, the former head of the International Latex Corporation.

So much for the proposition that all was sweetness and light between De Gaulle and Israel in the period 1958-1967.

I strongly suspect that wherever we find Herut/Stern/Etzel gang members at work in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, we are likely to find Angleton not a million miles away.