In early 1960, a group of American diplomats traveling in an Israeli helicopter over the Negev desert noticed a sprawling construction site about 20 miles west of the Dead Sea. When the American team, including US Ambassador to Israel Ogden Reid, asked their escort, Addy Cohen from the Israeli Finance Ministry, about the facility, he famously dismissed it as a “textile factory.” The site was actually the Dimona nuclear facility, which would become the birthplace of the Middle East’s sole nuclear arsenal. It would be several months before Ogden demanded a meeting with Cohen after US intelligence had deciphered the true nature of the construction site. Meanwhile, a nuclear cooperation agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia is pending before Congress. And a group of Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups has been arguing in recent years that it’s time for the US to stop pretending about Israel’s bombs. There also “was no question even among the scientists about Israel’s need to develop them,” the memo said.
Declassified diplomatic documents reveal that while Cohen initially presented this explanation with levity, the impression remained that he understood the reactor could eventually be utilized for military purposes. This encounter launched what historian Avner Cohen describes as the world’s “worst kept secret.” For 60 years, the United States and Israel have maintained a policy of deliberate ambiguity, with both nations avoiding formal acknowledgement of Israel’s nuclear capabilities. Israeli officials occasionally use the “textile factory” anecdote as a euphemism, a reference recently invoked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a July 14 speech. The US and Israel have played coy, neither acknowledging the development of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, for the 60 years since. According to “Cohen at first treated the matter with levity, (but the) impression came through that he believed (the) reactor could be used eventually for weapons purposes,”, A secret US diplomatic telegram, part of a trove of declassified documents collected by the National Security Archive that also include details of the helicopter ride. The Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, referred inquiry to the prime minister’s office, which did not provide a response. He would assume the role of national security advisor in the Nixon administration less than four years later in 1969. US officials were gravely concerned that a public Israeli arsenal would cause Arab countries — many of which were smarting from their defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War — to actively seek nuclear weapons or security assuranc. Transparency could also further undermine US credibility as it continues to argue against countries joining the nuclear club. Rubio, who after Henry Kissinger is only the second American to serve simultaneously as top diplomat and national security adviser, provided perhaps the frankest public assessment that any US diplomat ever has on the matter.
Concerns surrounding the program intensified five years after the Dimona site was spotted, when US officials discovered that a Pennsylvania uranium plant was missing hundreds of pounds of weapons-grade material. Some intelligence officials have suggested this supply was diverted to the Israeli program. Furthermore, a 2024 Hebrew-language documentaryThe Atom and Mealleged that Israeli officials frequently concealed the facility’s underground elevator system to evade detection by international inspectors. US inspectors never found the secret underground facility beneath Dimona that was used to create bomb-grade plutonium — Israeli officials would wall off its elevator before inspectors arrived, according to a 2024 Hebrew-language TV documentary, The Atom and Me, that included posthumously released interviews with the former head of an Israeli intelligence agency tasked with supporting the weapons program.
The era of strategic silence is now being tested. President Donald Trump indicated on Tuesday that the US might terminate nearly $4 billion in military aid to Israel, arguing the country no longer requires such support. Meanwhile, Representative Joaquin Castro, a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees, has challenged the utility of the ambiguity policy. During a June congressional hearing, Castro pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the matter. Rubio provided a rare, candid assessment, stating that while the world largely assumes Israel possesses nuclear weapons, the country has never publicly acknowledged it—a feature he noted is essential to the current diplomatic arrangement. According to on Tuesday, President Donald Trump, The US may cut off nearly $4 billion in military aid to Israel at the end of the year because “they no longer need it. But never formally confirming, Israel’s nukes, the policy observed by the US and Israel is now one of opacity or ambiguity — hinting at. The once ironclad support for Israel’s military ambitions may be starting to corrode in the US.
The policy of secrecy originated during the Cold War to prevent a nuclear arms race in the region, particularly to dissuade Soviet-aligned Arab nations from pursuing their own programs. During a visit to Tel Aviv, Henry Kissinger expressed a strong belief that Israel was committed to developing weapons, noting that Israeli officials, including then-deputy defense minister Shimon Peres, were supportive of the effort. However, Kissinger also recognized that Israel was eager to avoid being seen as the party that introduced nuclear arms to the Middle East, leading both nations to blur the definition of “introduction” to maintain the status quo. It would force a reckoning over the roots of Israel’s nuclear technology and the years of cat and mouse games meant to prevent definitive proof of the weapons program from emerging, if the facade of deniability is disposed of. Israel believed that a weapon needed to be tested and publicly declared before it could be considered “introduced,” Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin told US officials in a November 1968 conversation during negotiations o.
Today, the landscape has shifted significantly. Despite the conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran, Tehran still retains roughly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Nonproliferation expert James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warned that there is a 50-50 chance Iran could acquire a nuclear weapon within the next few years. Experts like Matthew Kroenig suggest that if Iran progresses toward a bomb, Israel might be forced to abandon its long-standing ambiguity in favor of public military posturing to maintain a credible deterrent. “If Israel were to come out and announce that it were a nuclear power, that may increase pressures on other countries in the region to follow suit,” argued Matthew Kroenig, a nuclear strategist and political science prof. It might also trigger economic sanctions or arms sale embargoes designed to punish countries seeking the bomb.
Officials acknowledge the risks of abandoning this policy, noting it could trigger regional pressure for other nations to acquire similar technology. The State Department maintains that it does not comment on the specific nuclear capabilities of individual nations. As US officials weigh the potential for military engagement in the region, questions regarding Israel’s nuclear “red lines” and the contingency plans for US troops remain at the forefront of the debate.
