Marcellus
08-03-2005, 23:12
How Britain helped Israel to get the bomb
The secret history of how Britain helped Israel develop its nuclear capability. Michael Crick and his producer Meirion Jones have uncovered the story of how Britain decided to supply Israel with the heavy water it needed for its programme. Amazingly, it did so without insisting on safeguards prohibiting its use for weapons - "it would be somewhat overzealous for us to insist on safeguards," a civil servant explained.
Nor, bizarrely, did they inform America, who had already refused to supply heavy water without stringent safeguards. John F Kennedy made it one of the priorities for his defence secretary Robert McNamara to stop Israel getting the bomb. Tonight, we'll be asking Mr McNamara how surprised he is by the revelation and get his views on how we should be dealing with the nuclear proliferation problems we face today.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4743493.stm
Wow. This is quite surprising to me. What does everyone think of this?
The secret history of how Britain helped Israel develop its nuclear capability. Michael Crick and his producer Meirion Jones have uncovered the story of how Britain decided to supply Israel with the heavy water it needed for its programme. Amazingly, it did so without insisting on safeguards prohibiting its use for weapons - "it would be somewhat overzealous for us to insist on safeguards," a civil servant explained.
Nor, bizarrely, did they inform America, who had already refused to supply heavy water without stringent safeguards. John F Kennedy made it one of the priorities for his defence secretary Robert McNamara to stop Israel getting the bomb. Tonight, we'll be asking Mr McNamara how surprised he is by the revelation and get his views on how we should be dealing with the nuclear proliferation problems we face today.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4743493.stm
Wow. This is quite surprising to me. What does everyone think of this?