The Battle over the NPT: The Warnke-Rabin Dialogue

The advent of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) set the stage for the most direct confrontation between the United States and Israel over the nuclear issue during the Johnson-Eshkol period. The two had crafted the nuclear issue with political ambiguity, and the NPT threatened to shatter that ambiguity. It forced Israel to take a position on issue on which it preferred to be ambiguous.

For U.S. non-proliferation policy, Israel's signature on the NPT was an important objective. It meant that Israel renounced its nuclear weapons option. Israel however could not sign the treaty because of this implication. Because of the public and private assurances Israel had given the United States since 1960s, Israel found it difficult to defy the United States. The coming into being of the two issues-the Phantoms deal and the NPT-made the battle over the linkage inevitable.

The first time the two issues were raised at the highest level was during Prime Minister Eshkol visit to Washington in January 1968. There was no formal linkage between the two issues, and no formal decision on the Phantoms sale was made. The confrontation was put on hold for another ten months later when a decision on the Phantoms had to be made.

The main protagonists in that battle were the two chief negotiators: Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Secretary Paul Warnke. The record of the negotiation between Rabin and Warnke is presented here for the first time.

Documents

Document 1. A background paper on the nuclear issue prepared by the State Department as part of a larger briefing book for Prime Minister Eshkol's visit ranch in January 1968. While elements in the CIA had recognized since 1966 that Israel had acquired a full nuclear weapons capability, it is evident that this information was not made official and not shared with the State Department. Still, the document strikes in its skeptical tone. The paper states that "on the basis of our irregular visits we are reasonably, though not entirely, confident that Israel has not embarked on a program to produce a nuclear weapons." The author of the paper urged Johnson to express to Eshkol American non-compromising position on nuclear proliferation and its wish to continue with regular visits to Dimona.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages, 295-97.

Document 2. A memorandum for the president that was written by his national security advisor, Walt Rostow, on the eve of Eshkol's visit. The memorandum expresses the view prevailed at the time that Israel would eventually sign the NPT.

Source: Lyndon B Johnson Presidential Library
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages 295-97.

Document 3. A telegram about the meeting between Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon and Secretary of State Dean Rusk on 10 September in which the Phantoms issue was at the center. It is evident that Secretary Rusk (who was not in the loop as to the CIA view that Israel already obtained full nuclear weapons capability) pressed Allon hard on both the matter of non-introduction of new types of advanced weapons-nuclear weapons and surface to surface missiles-and the importance that Israel would sign the NPT. While Rusk made no formal linkage between these two issues and the Phantoms issue, such a linkage appeared implicit. Indeed, the existence of such a linkage was at the core of Allon's report to the Israeli cabinet upon his arrival.

Even more significant are the views Allon expressed about the issues of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile. Not only that Allon made efforts to reassure Rusk categorically that Israel was not going to introduce such new and advanced weaponry, but the opinions he expressed implied that he personally minimized the importance of these projects and would oppose to such deployment. Allon told Rusk that Israel had no nuclear weapons and he reiterated Eshkol's pledge that Israel would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons. By linking the two issues Allon appeared equating non-introduction with non-possession of nuclear weapons. On the matter of the NPT, while Allon gave no formal promises to Rusk he expressed his own view "that sooner or later" Israel would sign the treaty. On the matter of the French missiles (MD-620), Allon described the Israeli-French project as dead and denied that Israel was making them in Israel itself. Both assertions were misleading, at least, perhaps more self-deception than deliberate deception.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages 303-310.

Document 4. A note to Secretary of State Dean Rusk about the strategy under which the United States would negotiate with Israel the sale of the Phantoms. It is evident from this document that the linkage between the sale and the nuclear issue was planned to be at the core of the negotiations. Both the Defense Department (under Clark Clifford) and the State Department agreed on this strategy in order to get Israel sign the NPT.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages 303-310.

Document 5. A memorandum prepared for President Johnson by the Secretary of State Office prior to the President's meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban on 22 October 1968. Rusk briefed the President on the Israeli ambiguous position on the NPT and suggested that the President would use the sale of the Phantoms as a leverage for Israeli signature. Rusk apparently did not know what Johnson had learnt from the CIA in the summer, that is, that Israel had already crossed the nuclear threshold.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages 303-310.

Document 6. A cable to Ambassador Barbour in Tel Aviv, dated 24 October 1968, provides full account of the Rusk-Eban talk. It depicts the positions of both the United States and Israel on the matter of the NPT on the eve of the formal negotiations of the Phantoms. While Rusk did not make a formal linkage between the two issues, the Israeli Foreign Minister got a clear signal that that linkage would be at the core formal negotiations.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages 303-310.

Document 7. A cable from Ambassador Barbour, dated October 28, which contained a message from Prime Minister Eshkol. Eshkol clearly understood the message Eban brought with him from Washington-that there will be a linkage between the Phantom deal and the NPT-and urged the administration not to insist on such a linkage.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages 303-310.

Document 8. A cable to Ambassador Barbour in Tel Aviv, dated 31 October 1968, provides account of the opening meeting between Ambassador Rabin and Ambassador Parker Hart of the State Department. The meeting was not about substance, but about procedures: Hart asked Rabin to prepare a draft of agreement for the sale of the F-4s; Rabin responded that such a draft should be similar to the agreement signed in 1966 concerning the Skyhawks. Shortly after that it was decided that the actual negotiations should be under the responsibility of the Pentagon. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Paul Warnke was now in charge of the negotiations on the American side. (Warnke believes that Israel opposed Hart for being known as "pro-Arab").

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, pages 310-11.

Document 9. This document is the minutes of the first round of negotiation between Rabin and Warnke that took place on 4 November 1968. The document was declassified in 1984 and it includes a few long deletions. This was still a preliminary stage of the negotiations but Warnke laid the grounds for the battle over the NPT by stressing that these negotiations are much more serious and consequential that the negotiations over the sale of the 48 Skyhawks in 1966. This required discussing sensitive issues that Israel and the United States had hardly discussed before, nuclear weapons and missiles. On these issues the United States would need cleared and more explicit Israeli assurances. Such assurances should be incorporated into of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the sale of the Phantoms. From Rabin's perspective, the first shot in the battle over the NPT was just fired.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, page 312.

Document 10. Unfortunately, the minutes of the second session (5 November) are still largely sanitized (the document was processed for declassification in 1984 which probably explains why so much of its contents are deleted). It appears that in that session Warnke submitted to Ambassador Rabin an American draft of the MOU. Of course, Rabin needed to consult about this document with his government, which explains why that session was so brief and lasted only thirty minutes.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details: Israel and the Bomb, page 312.

Document 11. These are the complete minutes of the third session of the Phantoms negotiations that took place on November 8, 1968 (they were originally classified "Top-Secret/Sensitive" and were declassifed only in 1997). Evidently, it was a tough session and the prime issue of discussion was the MOU that Warnke submitted to Rabin earlier. The draft MOU could not be found in the united States national Archives, but there is enough information in these minutes and elsewhere to reconstruct much of the discussion. Article 3 was the most troubling to the Israeli government-it concerned the means to verify Israel's non-introduction pledge, apparently extending the system of American visits to Dimona to other R&D sites. This article was totally unacceptable to the Israelis. Israel was not ready to allow any verifications beyond its verbal pledge. This session, also a brief one, brought the entire negotiations into a state of impasse.

Shortly after the 8 November session, Israeli representatives petitioned the White House to intervene in the negotiations. Within days Warnke was instructed by his boss, Secretary of Defense Clifford, to end the discussion on the MOU at the request of the White House. Yet the battle was not over yet.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details (including citations from Rabin Memoirs): Israel and the Bomb, page 311-315.

Document 12. These are the complete minutes of the fourth session of the Phantom negotiations that took place on November 12, 1968 (they were originally classified "Top-Secret/Sensitive" and were declassifed only in 1997). By now Warnke realized that the idea of the MOU was hopeless but he still wanted to use the negotiations to get better assurances and clarifications from Israel on the nuclear issue. In particular, he wanted to define operationally what the Israeli non-introduction pledge actually meant. This strategy led to an extraordinary Talmudic-like discussion about the definition of both "introduction" and "nuclear weapons."

At the end it was clear that both sides had different definitions and understandings of these terms. It became evident that for Rabin nuclear weapons meant a weapons system that had been tested; without testing no product could be considered a deployable weapon-system. Hence, a defining feature of "introduction" is the very act of testing. Warnke did not accept that, and pointed out that the Hiroshima bomb was never tested before it was used.

However, by the end of that session Warnke understood what the CIA had not told him and Rusk: the pressure on Israel was futile: Israel was already a nuclear weapons state. She must have untested nuclear devices. Still, the battle was not over.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details (including citations from Rabin Memoirs): Israel and the Bomb, page 316-318.

Document 13. These are the complete minutes of the fifth session of the Phantom negotiations that took place on November 22, 1968 (they were originally classified "Top-Secret/Sensitive" and were declassifed only in 1997). In that session the Israeli delegation raised more objections about the wording of the MOU. So it was agreed to scrap the idea of a joint one political document, an MOU, and to replace it with an offical exchange of letters between Rabin and Warnke. In such an exchange neither party has to endorse or condone the other's terms or definitions.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details (including citations from Rabin Memoirs): Israel and the Bomb, page 318.

Document 14. This is Rabin's letter to Warnke, as part of the agreed settlement of the Phantoms deal, dated 22 November 1968. In his letter Rabin does not provide any new assurances on the nuclear issue. He only reiterated the old non-introduction pledge that Israel had used since 1965; Israel also agreed not to use any aircraft supplied by the United States as a nuclear weapon carrier.

Source: United States National Archives
For more details (including citations from Rabin Memoirs): Israel and the Bomb, page 318-19

Document 15. This is Warnke's letter to Rabin, as part of the agreed settlement of the Phantoms deal, dated 27 November 1968. In his letter Warnke expressed the position of the United States about what would constitute the introduction of nuclear weapons. Specifically, physical possession and control of nuclear arms would constitute such introduction.

Document 16. This is the memorandum of the final telephone conversation between Rabin and Warnke in the context of these negotiations. Rabin was concerned from the Warnke's language that might imply that Israel agreed to the American interpretation of the non-introduction pledge and this was not the case. Warnke assured Rabin that he understood the Israeli position, and accordingly was ready to change the last sentence in his letter to avoid misunderstanding on this matter.

By now the battle over the NPT and the Phantoms was over. Israel won.


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