Final_Judgment

[48] Final Judgment 109
However, the CIA did not make known its concerns about Israel's
determination to produce a nuclear bomb. According to Green, "It is perhaps
significant that the memorandum was not drafted as a formal national
intelligence estimate (NIE), which would have involved distribution to
several other agencies of the government. No formal NIE was issued by CIA
on the Israeli nuclear weapons program until 1968." 112
That the CIA—or at the very least, elements within the CIA—would be
interested in protecting Israel's interests is no surprise. As we shall see in
Chapter 8, the ties between Israel and the CIA were quite intimate—perhaps
too intimate in too many, many ways.
KENNEDY AND BEN-GURION
In the meantime, President Kennedy was well aware that Israel's nuclear
project at Dimona would enable Israel to produce at least one bomb per
year—and that was enough to start a world war.
Although Israel's nuclear program was ostensibly "peaceful" in nature, the
fact is that the project was entirely controlled by Israel's Ministry of Defense.
This alone made the project controversial, even in Israel. It was for this reason
that it was critical for Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to neutralize
JFK's opposition.
There was enough domestic opposition to the program in Israel itself
that Kennedy's own steadfast refusal to support Israeli nuclear development
could have killed the project altogether.
In the early months of his administration, Kennedy maintained regular
contact with Ben-Gurion in an effort to stop the nuclear development. The
two leaders had an ongoing private correspondence over the issue.
A POISONED RELATIONSHIP
According to Seymour Hersh, "Israel's bomb program, and the
continuing exchange of letters about it, would complicate, and eventually
poison, Kennedy's relationship with David Ben-Gurion." 113
Ben-Gurion sought to have a private meeting with Kennedy—in the
course of an official state visit to Washington—but the president refused to
provide a formal invitation.
It was then that, in May 1961, Ben-Gurion pulled his strings at the
White House and contrived a meeting with Kennedy through the
intervention of New York financier Abe Feinberg.
It was Feinberg, as we have seen in Chapter 4, who had initially
smoothed over Kennedy's relations with the American Jewish community
during the 1960 presidential campaign and arranged for a massive infusion of
Jewish money into JFK's campaign.
(It was this experience, as noted previously, that soured Kennedy's
attitude toward Israel and its powerful lobby to a significant extent.)
Feinberg arranged for the American president and the Israeli leader to
meet during Ben-Gurion's unofficial visit to the United States where he was