Israel South African Nuke Deal


REVEALED: HOW ISRAEL OFFERED TO SELL
SOUTH AFRICA NUCLEAR WEAPONS Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official
evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons The Guardian, Sunday 23 May 2010 The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president
of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa. Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear
warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary
evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.


The "top secret" minutes of
meetings between senior officials
from the two countries in 1975
show that South Africa's defence
minister, PW Botha, asked for the
warheads and Shimon Peres, then
Israel's defence minister and now
its president, responded by offering
them "in three sizes". The two men
also signed a broad-ranging agreement
governing military ties between the
two countries that included a clause
declaring that "the very existence of
this agreement" was to remain secret.
Click To Enlarge


The documents, uncovered by an
American academic, Sasha
Polakow-Suransky, in research for
a book on the close relationship
between the two countries, provide
evidence that Israel has nuclear
weapons despite its policy of
"ambiguity" in neither confirming
nor denying their existence.
Click To Enlarge





The Israeli authorities tried to stop
South Africa's post-apartheid
government declassifying the documents
at Polakow-Suransky's request and the
revelations will be an embarrassment,
particularly as this week's nuclear
non-proliferation talks in New York
focus on the Middle East. They will also undermine Israel's attempts
to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons,
it is a "responsible" power that would not
misuse them, whereas countries such as
Iran cannot be trusted. Click To Enlarge
A spokeswoman for Peres today said
the report was baseless and there
were "never any negotiations" between
the two countries. She did not
comment on the authenticity of the
documents.
South African documents show that
the apartheid-era military wanted the
missiles as a deterrent and for potential
strikes against neighbouring states.
Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.
The memo, marked "top secret" and dated the same day as the meeting with the Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: "In considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere." But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the Jericho project had the codename Chalet. The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest
in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available."
The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in
three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for
advice." The "three sizes" are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and
nuclear weapons.
The use of a euphemism, the
"correct payload", reflects Israeli
sensitivity over the nuclear issue and
would not have been used had it been
referring to conventional weapons.
It can also only have meant nuclear
warheads as Armstrong's memorandum
makes clear South Africa was interested
in the Jericho missiles solely as a means
of delivering nuclear weapons.


In addition, the only payload the South
Africans would have needed to obtain
from Israel was nuclear. The South
Africans were capable of putting
together other warheads. Botha did not go ahead with the deal in
part because of the cost. In addition,
any deal would have to have had final
approval by Israel's prime minister and
it is uncertain it would have been
forthcoming. Click To Enlarge NOTE: Date Of Document (22 November, 1974)
11 Years Exactly After Mossad (Jack Ruby) Assassination Of U.S. President
John Fitzgerald Kennedy. MI5 \ MI6 Assassination Of J.F.K. And Robert Nesta Marley:
http://www.exorcist.org.nz/blackwell.html
South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli
assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the
following years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium
that Israel required to develop its weapons. The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander,
Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his
release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement
between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the
Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". Gerhardt
said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary
evidence of the offer. Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the
two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance
known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence:
"It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement...
shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party". The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.
Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after
the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in
developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation
Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads. Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify
documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry
tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was
sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he said. "
The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and
handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting
the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies." SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons


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