After analyzing photographs taken of the Israeli nuclear facility at Dimona, J. Koop, a career intelligence analyst at Canada's Defence Research Board, concluded in March 1964 that Dimona had all of the "prerequisites for commencing a modest nuclear weapons development project." When the Dimona reactor went critical, it could produce enough plutonium for at least one implosion device by the end of 1965 and increase its operating level to produce one to two per year by 1966. Arthur Kellas, a British diplomat in Israel, wrote in his forwarding letter that they were highly impressed by the analysis.

This memorandum from Executive Secretary Benjamin Read of the Department of State to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy provides a valuable chronology of the US discovery of the nuclear reactor project at Dimona and the pledges made by the Israelis in response to requests from the United States. Included in the chronology is an item about a meeting on 25 May 1963 where senior French diplomat Charles Lucet told CIA director John McCone that even though the French had helped build the Dimona reactor, “there might be a nuclear complex not known the French.” Lucet further stated that the Israelis had tried to purchase “safeguard-free” uranium from Gabon but that the French government stopped the sale through preemptive purchases.

This is an excerpt of a conversation which appears in full at BA-SAPMO J IV 2/201/1416. The conversation opens with the issue of French-Israeli relations. France plans to deliver a nuclear reactor to Israel to the opposition of the Arab world. Also mentioned are the deliveries of arms from the GDR to the PLO. Arafat reports on the use of chemical weapons by Israel in Lebanon. These weapons were reportedly delivered by the FRG. Israel also seems to use biological weapons. Final topics of discussion are the role of the Pope in Poland, the question of Jerusalem, and the Islamic movement in Afghanistan.