Avner Cohen: "Israel crossed the nuclear threshold as early as 1966"

A new book, entitled Israel And The Bomb, gives a detailed account of how Israel developed nuclear weapons and tried to prevent its closest ally, the United States, from finding out.

When Israeli scholar Avner Cohen tried to publish some of his work in Israel, he ran up against a brick wall of military censorship. So he has published his book in New York, and even plans to start up a website this week to make available some of the documents he has discovered.

New revelations

Part of the story has been known or suspected for some time. But Cohen has some revelations - notably that on the eve of the June War of 1967, Israel put two nuclear devices on alert.

Cohen thinks that when Israel started building a nuclear reactor - with French help - in the late 1950s, President Eisenhower probably knew but chose to do nothing.

The only American president who tried to act was Kennedy, who was deeply concerned about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Kennedy made the Israeli leader Ben-Gurion agree to inspections, but nothing came of them.

Cohen insists he has done nothing to harm Israel's security. He says he is motivated not by the zeal of the anti-nuclear campaigner, but by a passion for openness, and a belief that it is time for Israel to re-think its nuclear strategy.