Final_Judgment

[52] Final Judgment 113
According to Hersh, "Ben-Gurion took no chances: the American
inspectors—most of them experts in nuclear reprocessing—would be
provided with a Potemkin Village and never know it." 127
Ben-Gurion's deception—however successful it may have been—still did
not convince JFK that Israel was indeed fully committed to peaceful nuclear
development. Kennedy, of course, knew better.
A standoff between Kennedy and Israel was already in place and it did not
bode well for the future.
THE 'LAST AMERICAN PRESIDENT'
John Hadden, the former CIA station chief in Tel Aviv at the time
believes that John F. Kennedy was the last American president to have
really tried to stop the advent of the Israeli atomic bomb. "Kennedy really
wanted to stop it," said Hadden, "and he offered them conventional weapons
[for example, the Hawk missiles] as an inducement.
"But the Israelis were way ahead of us. They saw that if we were going
to offer them arms to go easy on the bomb, once they had it, we were going
to send them a lot more, for fear that they would use it." 128
`THE TURBULENT YEAR'
By the fateful year of 1963, John F. Kennedy and Israel were decidedly on
two different sides, and not only in the realm of the secret—and critical—
nuclear controversy.
In fact, it went much deeper than that. Overall Kennedy administration
policy toward the Middle East left Israel and its American lobby most
dissatisfied. In his memoirs, I. L. Kenan of the pro-Israel American-Israel
Public Affairs Committee, a registered lobby for Israel, described 1963 as
“the turbulent year" between John F. Kennedy and Israel. In a chapter in
those memoirs, entitled "A Multitude of Promises"—Kennedy presumably
the promiser—Kenan scored Kennedy's Middle East policies:
"Kennedy's neutralist strategy, his hope to please both sides in every
troubled area, plunged him into a multitude of predicaments in the turbulent
year of 1963. His pursuit of former enemies whom he sought to befriend
alarmed our allies, whose fears he constantly sought to ally by strong but
quiet commitments." 129
The "enemies" whom Kenan referred to were those Arab leaders—Nasser
of Egypt most especially—to whom JFK offered peace. Those "allies"—at
least in Kenan's context—really meant just one country—Kenan's foreign
principal, Israel.
Kennedy's "strong but quiet commitments," however, were apparently
not enough as relations between Israel and the Arab states were strained. War
appeared imminent, at least in the eyes of the Israeli leadership.
By the end of April, 1963 Israel's David Ben-Gurion sensed that the
Arabs were going to attack the Jewish State, but John F. Kennedy did not