The United States and Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program, 1961–1973

Chapter 3 posits that the overriding objective of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations was to avoid containment failure in the Middle East. Thwarting the Israeli nuclear weapons program was a secondary objective. As Soviet arms sales to Egypt and Syria accelerated in the mid-1960s, the regional power distribution became unfavorable and the time horizons of threats to US interests grew shorter. The Johnson administration abandoned Kennedy’s demands for inspections of the Dimona reactor and instead sold M-48 tanks, A-4 Skyhawks, and later F-12 Phantoms to bolster Israel’s defenses. Congress, however, made it difficult for the Johnson and the Nixon administrations to link arms transfers to Israeli concessions on the nuclear issue. Chapter 3 examines the evolution of the US-Israeli strategic relationship against the backdrop of the Cold War from Kennedy’s demands for inspections in 1961 through the October 1973 Middle East War.