Final_Judgment

729 Final Word?
By the middle 1960s, the game was fixed:
President Johnson and his advisers would pretend that
the American inspections [of the Dimona nuclear arms
plant in Israel] amounted to proof that Israel was not
building the bomb, leaving unblemished America's
newly reaffirmed support for nuclear nonproliferation.
On pages 188-189 Hersh also provides an enlightening account which
illustrates much about Johnson's determined effort to avoid facing the issue.
Hersh describes how CIA analyst Carl Duckett had concluded that Israel
had finally constructed a nuclear bomb and brought this fact to the attention
of CIA Director Richard Helms who told Duckett that he would personally
deliver the information to President Johnson. According to Hersh:
Helms walked the Duckett information into the
Oval Office and gave it to the President. Johnson
exploded, as Helms later recounted to Duckett, and
demanded that the document be buried: "Don't tell
anyone else, even [Secretary of State] Dean Rusk and
[Defense Secretary] Robert McNamara." Helms did as
he was told, but not without trepidation: "Helms knew
that he would get in trouble with Rusk and
McNamara if they learned that he had withheld it."
Johnson's purpose in chasing Helms—and his
intelligence—away was clear: he did not want to know
what the CIA was trying to tell him, for once he
accepted that information, he would have to act on it.
By 1968, the President had no intention of doing
anything to stop the Israeli bomb, as Helms, Duckett . .
. and a very few others in the U.S. government came to
understand.
President Johnson obviously knew how inflammatory the subject of
Israel's nuclear bomb program was—and he did not want to be forced into
taking any action that would put himself in the same position that his
predecessor, JFK, had placed himself. According to Hersh, Johnson
"exploded" over the subject and demanded that it be kept secret from even
two top cabinet members.
LBJ was the ultimate political dealmaker, the politician's politician, but
he was clearly afraid of the issue of confronting Israel over the nuclear bomb.
While Israel's nuclear bomb program was a major concern (as it should
have been) the U.S. administration under Johnson never took any substantive
action to block Israel from pursuing its longtime goal of creating a
weapon of mass destruction. Certainly there was private rhetoric—but NO
ACTION. Based upon what we know that has been presented in Final
Judgment, we can certainly understand why.