Michael Piper and Final Judgment

[Mark Stapleton]

So let's look at this HARSH letter: would you please HIGHLIGHT what within this letter you find most "harsh" and cause for "consternation"
which in turn would give rise to the assasination of the man at the behest of the harsly treated Ben-Gurion?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...18_63.html

Verbatim text. You should deliver following letter from President to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion:

"Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

"I welcome your letter of May 12 and am giving it careful
study.

"Meanwhile, I have received from Ambassador Barbour a report of
his conversation with you on May 14 regarding the arrangements for visiting the
Dimona reactor. I should like to add some personal comments on that subject.

"I am sure you will agree that there is no more urgent business
for the whole world than the control of nuclear weapons. We both recognized this
when we talked together two years ago, and I emphasized it again when I met with
Mrs. Meir just after Christmas. The dangers in the proliferation of national
nuclear weapons systems are so obvious that I am sure I need not repeat them
here.

"It is because of our preoccupation with this problem that my
Government has sought to arrange with you for periodic visits to Dimona. When we
spoke together in May 1961 you said that we might make whatever use we wished of
the information resulting from the first visit of American scientists to Dimona
and that you would agree to further visits by neutrals as well. I had assumed
from Mrs. Meir's comment that there would be no problem between us on this.

"We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world
stability which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability
by Israel. I cannot imagine that the Arabs would refrain from turning to the
Soviet Union for assistance if Israel were to develop a nuclear weapons
capability--with all the consequences this would hold. But the problem is much
larger than its impact on the Middle East. Development of a nuclear weapons
capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that
have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow
suit.

"As I made clear in my press conference of May 8, we have a
deep commitment to the security of Israel. In addition this country supports
Israel in a wide variety of other ways which are well known to both of us.
[4-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]

"I can well appreciate your concern for developments in the
UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel from there. I am
assured that our intelligence on this question is good and that the Egyptians do
not presently have any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities
potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of course, if you have
information that would support a contrary conclusion, I should like to receive
it from you through Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it.

"I trust this message will convey the sense of urgency and the
perspective in which I view your Government's early assent to the proposal first
put to you by Ambassador Barbour on April 2.

"Sincerely,

"John F. Kennedy"

Rusk

David, you just can't seem to get it right in your long, rambling posts, can you.

The harsh part of JFK's May 18 letter is contained in the 4 lines that were classified.

Right after Kennedy reiterates his commitment to the security of Israel, he added: "This commitment and this support would be seriously jeopardised in the public opinion in this country and in the West, if it should be thought that this Government was unable to obtain reliable information on a subject as vital to peace as the question of Israel's efforts in the nuclear field."

This comes from p.128 of Cohen's 1998 book "Israel and the Bomb". The footnotes state that these four lines are still classified on the American side and they do not appear in the FRUS 1961-1963 version of the letter. The letter can be found in full at ISA 7233/5/A.

(FRUS stands for Foreign Relations of the US. ISA stands for Israel Security Agency, their equivalent of the FBI, I assume.)

The copy of the letter you linked from the Jewish Virtual Library site may be verbatim, but it still omits the explicit threat Kennedy made to Ben-Gurion. Why the Jewish Virtual Library would quote the version of that letter with the missing text rather than the version with the full text is a mystery. Maybe you should refrain from sourcing them so frequently.