One of the nicest things about relocating to Monterey is that Avner Cohen, a colleague from my days at the University of Maryland, has relocated too. Avner, like me, is a lapsed philosopher with a deep interest in nuclear weapons — there is probably no one who knows more about the Israeli nuclear weapons program. Well, no one who can talk, anyway.

Avner’s knowledge is based on decades of research. Now, that material is available to other scholars. Avner donated to the Woodrow Wilson Center his research materials — tens of thousands of pages of copies of archival documents, countless press clippings, and hundreds of hours of oral history interviews — that form the basis for his books, Israel and the Bomb and The Worst Kept Secret. Some of these materials are now online.

As part of the announcement process, Avner wrote an op-ed for the New York Times.

I am pleased to note that Avner also accepted my suggestion to collect all the wonky bits that might not interest a general reader in a long-form piece for the blog. You are in for a real treat.

How Nuclear Was It? New Testimony on the 1973 Yom Kippur War

Avner Cohen[1]

Two weeks ago the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP), which is housed at the History and Public Policy Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C., released the first installment from my personal archival collection, known now as the “Avner Cohen Collection,” on its digital nuclear archive web site.

The key item in this release is a video interview (as well as a written transcript) which I made in 2008 with the late Azarayahu ‘Sini’ Arnan, a former senior advisor in the Israeli government, who provides a dramatic eyewitness description of a closed-door ministerial consultation in which Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir overruled Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, halting preparations to ready the country’s nuclear weapons for a possible demonstration during the 1973 War.[2] This interview upends conventional assumptions that Israel was very close to using nuclear weapons in this conflict (or even threatened to use nuclear weapons) and provides unique insight into how the Israeli government came to this decision.

On the day of the release, which coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, the New York Times published an op-ed piece I authored about the Sini interview.[3] It was in this context that my colleague Jeffrey Lewis suggested that I should write something for this blog that will go beyond what I already said in the New York Times and elsewhere. Almost with no hesitation I told Jeffrey, sure, I’ll do something. That something will try to discuss the nuclear dimension of the 1973 War beyond what was discussed before, and it will also be homage to this great blog that for some time I have had the desire to be a contributor.

So here it is and I hope it will stir some further discussion.

***

Ever since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, for some four-odd decades, there have been outstanding and lingering questions on the war’s nuclear dimension. What exactly happened in Israel on that front during the war? How close really was Israel to the nuclear brink? If indeed Israel conducted nuclear-related activities on the ground, as is commonly believed, what was the purpose and the target of those activities?

Then there is a higher layer of questions, more historiographical in nature: What is the place of the 1973 Yom Kippur War in the context of the nuclear age? Can we plausibly compare the nuclear situation in 1973 with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962? Which was more dangerous?

Over the last four decades a certain “mythology” has been built over the issue. Soon after the war, rumors started to spread that Israel had indeed come close to the nuclear abyss. There were anonymous tales about bomb or bomb components being rushed to Israeli air bases as well about missile alerts.

Time magazine was the first to elevate those rumors to the level of published claims. According to an unsigned story on April 12, 1976, in the early phases of the war Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered the assembly and arming of 13 nuclear bombs. The story suggested that it was that specter of nuclear escalation that led U.S Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to act firm and fast to provide Israel with the most massive weapons airlift in history. A few years later American playwright William Gibson used this alleged episode in developing his 1988 one-actress Broadway play Golda’s Balcony. [The play was turned into a film in 2007, with Valerie Harper—who in the 1970s played Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show—portraying Golda Meir. Here’s the trailer:

[Avner, this movie looks terrible — Ed.]

Subsequently, others have followed and elaborated further on that nuclear lore. Seymour Hersh is probably the author who provided this mythology its loudest voice. In his 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, in a chapter entitled “Nuclear Blackmail,” Hersh added further details and extra drama to this mythology. He made a reference to an unnamed “Israeli official,” someone who served in the prime minister’s office, who confided to him that the decision “to arm the weapons…was reached easily.” That someone also told him that the nuclear issue dominated Golda Meir’s war cabinet meeting on the late morning of October 8.[4]

According to Hersh, following a briefing by the nation’s nuclear chief, Shalheveth Freier, the ministerial forum decided to “arm and target the nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse” and also to “inform Washington of its unprecedented action,” demanding that Washington initiate an “emergency airlift” to supply Israel with the arms and ammunition required to continue waging an “all-out war effort.” According to Hersh, Israel used the nuclear alert approved on October 8th as “nuclear blackmail.” [5]

Since the publication of Hersh’s book, other [non-Israeli] authors have followed that general narrative, academics and journalists alike, such as Martin van Creveld, Walter Boyne, Walter Isaacson, Richard Sale, and others. Like Hersh, these authors rely either on unnamed sources or appeal to rumors. One exception was William Quandt, the NSC point man for Middle East issues during the 1973 War, who confirmed openly in 1991 that the United States government did pick up “something” during the war that indicated that Israel had placed its Jericho missiles on some sort of alert.

Over the four decades since the war, the nuclear lore about 1973 has turned into an urban legend: nobody knows how exactly it originated and who the real sources were, but it is commonly believed as true or near-true. I call this lore (rumors/claims/conjectures) a “mythology” because they could not be traced to any identifiable source, Israeli or otherwise, who could directly and openly confirm any of those reports. Mind you, Quandt’s testimony, vague as it was, was not about nukes but rather about missiles.[6]

***

Not only are there no positive identifiable confirmations to any of those allegations, but at least two prominent Israelis, figures who were in a position to know, took the effort to openly and firmly deny Hersh or other Hersh-like claims. The first was the late Shalheveth Freier (1920-1994), Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission head during the 1973 War, and the official who was mentioned by name in Hersh’s account. After the publication of The Samson Option, Freier sought vigorously and publicly to discredit Hersh’s narrative in any possible platform, especially those factual claims that were about him. While Freier refused to provide a positive account of his own, and was even unwilling to detail his specific reservations, he was adamant that Hersh’s account was false. I saw Freier in action on this crusade at least twice.

The second Israeli to deny openly Hersh’s account was the late Professor Yuval Ne’eman. Ne’eman was a former Israeli Minister of Science and Acting Chair of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (both positions were held under Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the early 80s), who served during the war as Moshe Dayan’s personal liaison in strategic communications with the United States. In an article titled “The USA-Israel Connection in the Yom Kippur War” that was published in a Center for National Security Negotiations (CNSN) Occasional Paper (based on a lecture that Ne’eman gave in a small CNSM meeting which I helped to arrange in Washington D.C. in February 1996), Ne’eman made a point to totally discredit Hersh’s “nuclear blackmail” narrative and provided a very vague and partial account of his own on the Israeli nuclear dimension of the 1973 War.

Against this background of absence and denial the interview which I conducted in 2008 with my friend, the late Arnan “Sini” Azaryahu, just ten months prior to his passing, stands up as distinct, revealing, and intriguing. None of what Sini told me during that interview was new to me. In fact, I had heard it all from him before and sometimes more than once, including his testimony on Dayan’s nuclear proposal in the 1973 War. When I arrived in Israel in January 2008 and learned that Sini’s physical health had deteriorated, I hired a videographer and rushed to his home in order to preserve those precious memoirs. Sini understood my interest and cooperated. My purpose on that day was simple: to record those extraordinary testimonies that I otherwise feared would be lost forever. I knew that on those nuclear-related incidents Sini might have been the last surviving individual who had witnessed that history in its making.[7]

In particular, I was interested in saving Sini’s testimony on two key historical events, this 1973 war nuclear encounter and a key nuclear decision by Ben Gurion in 1962. Both episodes involve fateful moments in Israel’s nuclear history that have otherwise left almost no trace in the public record, either in documents or in other oral testimonies. This particular 12-minute interview segment concerns one such episode: the story of the small ministerial consultation that took place in Prime Minister Golda Meir’s office on the early afternoon of the second day of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The content of the interview is now in the public domain, so I will not repeat it here one more time. Instead, in line with Jeffrey’s invitation, I use this space to address some of the open and intriguing issues involving this testimony. I start with the two broad issues—overall significance and the fundamental limitations of oral history—and then I move to some particular issues:

The Overall Significance

Minister Yisrael Galili’s first words to Sini as he sees him when the ministerial meeting adjourned, “something like that never happened to me before,” reveal how unprecedented and extraordinary that encounter was. Never before were Israeli leaders asked to activate the nation’s nuclear weapons for a possible demonstration. Never before had the minister of defense believed that Israel was fighting for its life as a nation and fast approaching an apocalyptic moment. This is a testimony about that kind of extraordinary moment.

Its significance ties in with the issue of credibility. It is the first and only testimony made by a credible, identifiable source regarding a discussion of the nuclear issue at the level of the Israeli war cabinet. As such the testimony challenges the nearly four-decade old “mythology” cited earlier alleging that Israel “almost” reached the nuclear brink during the 1973 War. At the very least it questions the Hersh-inspired narrative by which Israel was very close to actually using nuclear weapons, or that Israel used its nuclear assets as a strategic tool to pressure or even “blackmail” the United States to begin an airlift to Israel with a massive amount of military supplies. This mythology, which was never backed up by direct evidence and is considered by many as true, is now seriously questioned.

Not only does Sini’s testimony question the old narrative, but it suggests a new narrative, a narrative that acknowledges the nuclear dimension but colors it with the hue of nuclear restraint. In essence, even during the darkest hours of the 1973 War, when Israel’s hold on the Golan Heights appeared to be slipping away, the Israeli national leadership, and most significantly Prime Minister Golda Meir, were not willing to consider even a modest proposal to take action and prepare the nation’s doomsday weapons for a possible demonstration.

Oral History and the Fragility of Human Memory

As dramatic and powerful as it is, this is one oral testimony from one human source. Even if the core of the testimony is historically accurate and sound—and I believe it is—it is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive. At best, it is a snapshot of one particular historical encounter. We do not know really what preceded it or what followed, nor do we know about relevant decisions and activities that took place at other, lower-level but nuclear-relevant junctions.

I interviewed Sini in 2008, when he was 91 years of age and thirty-five years after the events in question. I was aware of that. As is common in oral history, there is an epistemic gap between the testimony’s core and periphery: while the core—e.g., an encounter, an event, etc.,—tends to remain vivid and sharp years later, the periphery—context, background, etc.—tends to be foggy, often reincorporated with and embedded into other personal recollections and/or pieces of public knowledge. These are standard features of human memory. Oral testimony, at its best, is a snapshot of one dramatic moment, not more.

This is so true about Sini’s testimony. While the core is in focus—Dayan’s nuclear proposal, substance and style—the periphery is blurry and personal. Sini could not nail down the exact day and the time that the event took place. It was I, not Sini, who concluded that the encounter must have taken place on the second day of the war, Sunday, October 7, in the afternoon. He wasn’t specific about the content of the meeting as a whole, and some of what he said was untrue.

Indeed, since the interview I’ve gained access to the original minutes of the ministerial meeting that preceded his testimony (those minutes were formally declassified and released in 2010 by the Israel State Archive), and they show that in the meeting, contrary to Sini’s recollection, there was no discussion about sending Minister Chaim Barlev to the Northern command; that discussion took place in another meeting.

The General Context

Though Sini’s knowledge (and/or memory) of the preceding memory is fragmentary and even inaccurate on some peripheral aspects of the situation, ultimately those minutes provide fantastic background which help us understand Dayan’s proposal. As expected, the encounter that Sini describes is not included. One can safely surmise that neither Dayan nor the other ministers would have dared to discuss the nuclear issue while the minutes were being recorded.

The background of the meeting, particularly Dayan’s state of mind, is the key to understanding his nuclear proposal.[8] On the previous morning, Moshe Dayan, Israel’s “Mr. Security” and hero of the 1967 Six-Day War had been so confident of Israel’s military ability to defend itself that he opposed mobilizing the entirety of the nation’s reserve force, despite intelligence reports indicating an imminent Arab military assault. Less than a day later, after visiting both front-lines, Dayan had been transformed into a prophet of doom. In a number of well-documented episodes earlier that day, Dayan murmured about the demise of the “Third Temple,” a reference to the modern state of Israel.

With this state of mind, Dayan entered the conference room at the prime minister’s office, where Meir was anxiously waiting his arrival from Sinai to hear his assessment of the military situation. According to the official minutes, ten people attended the meeting: Golda Meir, the three senior ministers constituting Meir’s war cabinet (Dayan, Allon, and Galili), and six other senior staff and personal aides. Contrary to Sini’s testimony, Chief of Staff General David Elazar was not present when the meeting started; he joined towards the very end.

The meeting began at 2:50 PM as Dayan started with his assessment of the military situation. He began by noting that overnight Israel had lost its lines on both frontiers. Israel could not hold its few isolated posts along the canal and it must cut its losses by retreating to new defensive lines on both the Golan and in the Sinai. “Those posts that we can evacuate, we should evacuate; those who we cannot evacuate, they will stay, even surrender. We should tell them: we cannot reach you out; try to break out [to us] or surrender.”

Dayan also predicted that Jordan would soon join the battle against Israel. He read the situation as an all-out war in which the invading Arabs forces would not stop. “The fight is over the entire land of Israel. Even if we withdraw from the Golan Heights, this would not solve anything.” There were already hundreds of casualties and he expected many more.

Neither Dayan, nor anyone else in the room understood the situation beyond knowing that it was national nightmare. Prime Minister Meir said at one point, “there is no reason why they [the Arabs] would stop . . . they already tasted blood,” and Dayan continued her thought, stating that the Arab forces intended “to conquer Israel, to eliminate the Jews.” Minister Allon continued, “Moshe is right. In this situation there is no other way.” This exchange highlights that Dayan was not the only one who believed at that point that this was a war of survival; they all fell into that kind of outlook.

When Prime Minister Meir reminded the forum that the full government was about to convene for a formal session in less than in an hour, Ministers Galili and Dayan proposed to postpone that meeting to 9 PM. Prime Minister Meir adopted the suggestion and announced that until then they would continue with informal consultation. At that point (4:20 PM) the formal meeting ends, the forum was adjourned, and the minutes stop. Chief of Staff Elazar and non-essential staff left the room, leaving the prime minister with her three senior ministers. There is no one to take the minutes of the rest of the conversation. It is now that Sini’s encounter takes place, an encounter that probably was deliberately designed not to be included in the regular minutes of the meeting.

The Nuclear Context

Probably the major difficulty in interpreting Sini’s testimony is the lack of knowledge and clarity on the Israeli nuclear situation at the time. This applies to both the size and status of the nuclear inventory, as well as on the organizational structure and the command and control procedures that governed the system.

On the former issue, the size and the status of the arsenal, it is plausible that on the eve of the 1973 War Israel had a small nuclear inventory of weapons, say, between ten to twenty first-generation fission (PU) weapons (roughly, Nagasaki-type). One could speculate further that most of the inventory was in the form of aerial bombs (probably configured for the Mirage) and some were early prototypes of missile warheads for the Jericho I (which in October 1973 was apparently not yet operational). One could also assume that Israel probably kept its atomic stockpiles unassembled, where the nuclear cores were probably kept separated in a special facility run by the civilian nuclear agency (IAEC and not by the IDF). Hence, to assemble and arm the aerial bomb safely would be probably a lengthy, complex operation that required a small group of dedicated and trained personnel. To get the personnel and to conduct the operation is something that could easily have taken over half a day, possibly longer.

On the latter issue, while it is commonly known that the nuclear agency is under the command of the prime minister, it is less known what the exact role of the Minister of Defense is in running and overseeing the nuclear system, either at times of peace or war. Presumably Israel developed a version of its own of the “dual key” command and control system (which apparently was in rudimentary form prior to 1973) that requires the active participation of both functionaries in mobilizing and activating nuclear weapons. The fact that nuclear weapons infrastructure must include non-nuclear organizational entities under the control of the Ministry of Defense makes the situation even more complex. While some fundamental documents and procedures relating to the principles of command and control must have been in existence in 1973, it is unclear how detailed or vague they might have been. In any case, we do not know what kind of authorities the prime minister and the minister of defense need to have in order to activate the system on their own, individually or jointly, and to what extent they were required to bring such requests to the higher ministerial forum.

The result is that a great deal of the governance context to understand Dayan’s proposal is unclear. Can the prime minister instruct her nuclear chief to take steps to prepare for a nuclear demonstration? It is very probable. Indeed, one can assume that Prime Minister Golda Meir, being ex-officio in charge of the nuclear agency, had already been in touch with Shalheveth Freier, her nuclear chief, on key issues requiring her approval or knowledge after the war had broken out, the day before. For example, as Ne’eeman noted, the prime minister must have approved earlier a decision to shut down the country’s nuclear reactors. Additionally, the prime minister had likely received some kind of a status report in written or oral form on the readiness of the nation’s nuclear inventory. But the early afternoon of the 7th was probably the first time that Freier was summoned to the war ministerial forum with the expectation that he would or could receive Meir’s approval to Dayan’s request, and would possibly brief the prime minister and her senior ministers on the operational aspects of the proposal.

It is clear from the testimony that the proposal was Dayan’s idea, and that he arranged for Freier’s attendance, but many other procedural issues about Freier’s attendance remain unclear. What was the exact purpose of Freier’s summoning? Who formally summoned Freier to attend the meeting, given the fact that Dayan had returned from the Sinai just minutes earlier? In any case, it is implausible that Dayan could or would have summoned Freier on his own without approval or consultation with Meir.

Furthermore, it remains unclear when and how Prime Minister Meir first learned about Dayan’s nuclear ideas, what her initial reaction to his proposal was, and whether Meir personally asked Freier to attend the meeting. It is also unknown what kind of communication, if any, took place between Freier and Dayan (and/or their respective offices) prior to the meeting.

As Sini suggests, Meir had probably been aware of Dayan’s thinking, perhaps from meeting face to face just prior to the formal meeting. Yet her original reaction to his nuclear proposal is unclear. It seems that she could have approved the proposal on her own authority—it appears as though she had the authority to do so—but she did not want to, and instead left Dayan’s request to the ministerial forum. Was the role of the forum merely consultative, with the ultimate decision lying with the prime minister? Alternatively, one would think that Meir could have endorsed Minister of Defense Dayan’s proposal and presented it as her own request—this would have made a huge difference to the members of the war cabinet—but apparently Meir did not endorse Dayan’s proposal, and left it to him to present it as his own idea. Indeed, it is not clear from the testimony whether Dayan asked only for the prime minister’s approval or whether he actually asked for the forum’s approval.

Furthermore, we know almost nothing about how the Israeli nuclear command and control system worked in 1973, if indeed Israel had any rigid formal procedures. It is unclear to what extent decision-making on the nuclear question was covered by well-defined procedures that articulated the division of labor and authority among the prime minister, the minister of defense and the cabinet. Sini does make a brief reference in his testimony to a “double key system,” a command and control system requiring approval from both the minister of defense and the prime minister in order to activate nuclear weapons. In any case, we have neither factual nor procedural clarity on any of these issues.

Dayan’s Nuclear Proposal

So what did Dayan actually have in mind when he proposed to the prime minister that Israel should prepare for a “nuclear demonstration”? There are many outstanding questions involving the specifics of Dayan’s proposal and its underlying technical and strategic context. Analytically, one could divide those questions into two groups: first, the specifics of Dayan’s proposal (what exactly he proposed to do); and second, the state of Israel’s actual nuclear capabilities, that is, the capabilities required making Dayan’s proposal feasible.

On the former subject, all that we know from Sini’s testimony is that Dayan proposed that Meir would order Shalheveth Freier, the nation’s nuclear chief, to initiate “preparations” towards a “nuclear demonstration”—explicitly a demonstration, not to use against any targets—to save precious time (“half a day”) should the need become imminent and necessary. Beyond this, we know nothing; all else is mere speculation. Still, it is interesting to consider what a “nuclear demonstration” might have involved and whether the suggested timeframe of 6–12 hours was realistic. Israel was presumably capable of conducting an underground detonation of a weapon with a yield on the order of Hiroshima or Nagasaki (~20kt). However, even with a pre-drilled testing facility, the setup time required would have probably exceeded the half-day timeframe, without even considering the political uncertainties involved in conducting an underground test in time of war. Moreover, even if an underground demonstration could have been carried out, there would be serious doubts about its effectiveness on the Egyptian and Syrian governments and little to no indication that it would have applied sufficient pressure to cause a cessation of hostilities. Such a demonstration makes very little strategic, logistic or political sense.

A far more effective demonstration within Israel’s technical capabilities and the suggested timeframe would have been one or more high altitude bursts over unpopulated areas of Syria, Egypt or both. Such blasts would be conducted at a time (probably shortly after dark) to make the demonstration visible in the capital cities of Cairo and Damascus, thereby avoiding any debates that might have been associated with an underground demonstration and ensuring extreme public pressure on the Syrian and Egyptian governments.

Furthermore, it is highly likely that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) had a small group of pilots pre-trained on nuclear missions in French Mirage aircraft (used to avoid conflict with the commitment Israel had given that its US-supplied aircraft were not to be used for nuclear weapons missions) and the necessary adaption kits for nuclear payloads ready to install very quickly. The IAF presumably would have been able to rapidly move weapons, configure the Mirage aircraft for nuclear strike missions, assemble pilots pre-qualified for nuclear missions, organize escorts, and brief and launch such demonstration missions within 6 to 12 hours.

Given the situation, one can safely suggest that Dayan’s idea was probably to prepare logistically and organizationally for a high altitude aerial burst over a desolate area. It would require the IAF and the Israel Atomic Energy Commission working closely with one another to assemble a handful of weapons for the demonstration. Presumably, all those issues should have been explained to the forum in Freier’s briefing, but that presentation was never authorized, and was consequently never delivered. Dayan’s proposal was killed before it even had a chance to be discussed.

In the final analysis, Dayan’s nuclear idea was a declaration of despair. Had Israel conducted a nuclear demonstration in the middle of the war, would it have been understood by all as an anguished decision of last resort? Although it could be argued that such a demonstration strategy might have forced Egypt and Syria to pause hostilities, Israel would have been seen as weak and effectively defeated by resorting to the use of nuclear weapons. Would it have been in the Israeli interest to convey such a message? Could a military situation be envisioned where such a move would make sense? Furthermore, such a demonstration would have unleashed an immediate nuclear arms race in the region, in addition to the inevitable near-term international condemnation and demands for Israeli disarmament.

While we do not know what exactly triggered Dayan’s nuclear proposal or how much time and thought he put into it, we do know that Dayan was in a state of acute shock by the afternoon of the second day of the war; some even describe it as near breakdown. It is evident that his nuclear proposal reflects a gloom and doom state of mind.

Final Thoughts

It is important to recognize that Sini’s testimony is so far the only direct and credible Israeli eyewitness testimony on the nuclear dimension of that war. There is still a great deal unknown.

One primary reason for the general obscurity of the subject is Israel’s code of silence on all nuclear matters. Given the culture of secrecy and the institutional censorship in Israel on all nuclear issues, it is not surprising that the nuclear dimension of the war has remained undocumented.

Sini’s testimony is novel. It contradicts, if not flatly refutes, the Hersh narrative and instead offers a much more nuanced and restrained story. It acknowledges that the 1973 war had a nuclear dimension, but that dimension was much more minor and contained than previously believed. Even a “just in case” preparatory proposal was ultimately ruled out by Prime Minister Meir and her trusted political advisors. Dayan’s nuclear proposal went nowhere.

Sini’s testimony reveals that the Israeli leadership, with the notable exception of Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan, recognized the danger of the nuclear brink during the1973 war and refused to approach it. In that meeting, Israel discovered its own commitment to the nuclear taboo.