Peres Persuaded France To Backdate 1957 Nuclear Deal With Israel

Author: Shimon Peres Persuaded France To Backdate 1957 Nuclear Deal With Israel

Canadian Press
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007
BrandonSun

NEW YORK (AP) - A French prime minister who had just lost power backdated his signature on a 1957 document that committed his country to aiding Israel's construction of a nuclear reactor, a new book about Shimon Peres says. Some experts say the move helped Israel acquire atomic weapons.

"Shimon Peres: The Biography" also says an earlier, secret agreement between the two countries pledged French co-operation on Israeli research and development of nuclear weapons, even before the French government formally decided to build its own atomic bombs.

The two countries agreed in 1961 to end the co-operation agreements, but France helped Israel finish work on the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert.

The book's author, Michael Bar-Zohar, writes that the backdating of the final agreement detailing French help was done by Maurice Bourges-Maunoury at the request of Shimon Peres, the current Israeli deputy prime minister, who was then director general of Israel's Defence Ministry.

Peres persuaded Bourges-Maunoury to sign the co-operation pact on Oct. 1, 1957, a day after the French prime minister's government collapsed, but to date the document the previous day, Sept. 30, the book says. It says Peres knew the new French government wouldn't be as friendly to Israel.

"Actually, Bourges wasn't allowed to sign the letter, as his government had already fallen," the book says. "But he did it out of friendship for Peres and Israel. If that fact had become known at the time, the agreement would have been annulled."

The agreement previously was discussed in a 1982 book on Peres by Matti Golan and by Peres himself in his 1995 book "Battling for Peace," but both stopped short of saying the pact was backdated, said Avner Cohen, author of "Israel and the Bomb" and a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland's school of public affairs.

Cohen said the backdated agreement was the framework for the entire Dimona deal.

"Without that agreement the whole Dimona deal probably wouldn't go through," he said.

Dimona is home to Israel's nuclear research and it is widely believed atomic weapons were developed at the plant.

Israel neither admits nor denies having nuclear arms, following a policy of ambiguity designed to keep its neighbours unsure of its military capability.

According to the book, France said in an initial agreement, signed in December 1956, that it would supply Israel with a nuclear reactor, assist in its construction and supply Israel with nearly 363 tonnes of uranium fuel, which would be returned to France as radiated uranium.

France also gave Israel a nearly US$10 million credit line to purchase the equipment needed to build the reactor, the book says.

The backdated agreement, signed in the fall of 1957, covered all aspects of building the Dimona reactor for plutonium separation, the book says. Plutonium can be used to build nuclear warheads.

The separate, secret agreement was signed by Peres and Bourges-Maunoury in August 1957 apparently without the knowledge of the French cabinet, the book says.

It says that pact committed the two countries to co-operate in the research and production of nuclear weapons.

France's Foreign Ministry declined to comment, saying details about the nuclear agreements are classified.

The prime minister who succeeded Bourges-Maunoury, Felix Gaillard, did not assume the post until over a month later, according to the government's website.

The biography says Peres secured preliminary approval for nuclear co-operation from Christian Pineau, the French foreign minister.

The book says Pineau initially was dubious about the deal and destroyed his own copies of the letter informing Bourges-Maunoury of his consent.

Bar-Zohar, a former Labour party campaign official and one-time member of Israel's parliament, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that he discovered the details of the nuclear deal among documents in the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"I found indeed all of the material, including the letter of approval by Pineau, the detailed sequence of events, and the confirmation by Peres that the story is accurate," Bar-Zohar said in an e-mail to AP. "All this is published here for the first time."

He said he verified the backdating by independently confirming with witnesses to the agreement and then took his findings to Peres, who confirmed the event.

"Such a date, another date, what difference does it make?" the book quotes Peres as saying years later. "What is such a thing between friends?"

Peres' spokesman, Yoram Dori, said Peres did not have any comment.

An official close to Peres confirmed on condition of anonymity that the facts in the book are correct but would not comment on the specifics of the nuclear program.

Bar-Zohar portrays Peres, who also has been Israeli prime minister twice, as the architect and prime mover behind efforts to build the country's nuclear program and details the construction of the Dimona nuclear reactor.

Details disclosed by a former Dimona technician, Mordechai Vanunu, in 1986 led experts to conclude that Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds of warheads.