Final_Judgment

723 Final Word? [625]
Ben-Gurion's biographer suggested that there was
no one specific political reason, but that it was his
general mental state—manifested by a series of
panicky, even paranoid, actions—of the previous ten
weeks that led the seventy-six year-old leader to
resign.
The very fact that Cohen writes—as I did in Final Judgment—of Ben-
Gurion's apparent paranoia is interesting. Paranoid people do inexplicable
things. They even commit murder.
We should note, at this juncture, that (based upon what we have just
considered) Avner Cohen made it quite clear that the construction of a
nuclear bomb for Israel was, actually, a very personal issue with David
Ben-Gurion for many years.
Ben-Gurion believed that Israel's access to atomic weapons was critical
to Israel's survival—and Ben-Gurion was the "Grand Old Man" of Israel.
Cohen notes that several in Ben-Gurion's inner circle felt that the
resignation had nothing to do with the nuclear issue. But Cohen goes on to
point out that:
Others, however, including ministers in Ben-
Gurion's cabinet . . . believed that Ben-Gurion's
decision was, in part, connected to Kennedy's pressure
on Dimona. Israel Galili, the leader of Achdut Ha-
Avodah [Israel's "Unity of Labor" faction], was
convinced that Ben-Gurion's sense of failure and
frustration in dealings with Kennedy on the matter of
Dimona was among the reasons that led to his
resignation.
This is also the view of [top Israeli nuclear
scientist] Yuval Ne'eman, who, in 1963, was . . .
involved in the consultations involving the replies to
Kennedy's demands. Ambassador Barbour also hints
that Kennedy's letters and Ben-Gurion's resignation
might have been linked. In his telegram on Ben-
Gurion's resignation, he noted: "while probably not a
major cause of dissension, this issue was itself not
without controversy when Ben-Gurion presented it to
his colleagues before dispatching his letter May 27.
Cohen added on page 136 that Ben-Gurion had "concluded that he
could not tell the truth about Dimona to American leaders, not even in
private." And this is saying a lot, considering the effort by critics of Final
Judgment to say that Israel and the United States are such "close allies" that
the Israelis would never ever think of doing something nasty to an
American president—even one who was adamantly determined to stop