The secret of Israel’s Power

by Uzi Eilam

  We forged a good relationship with the Germans through Hans Hilger Haunschild, director-general of the German Ministry of Research and Technology, who was responsible for the field of nuclear energy. Haunschild‘s high standing within the IAEA stemmed not only from Germany’s influence within the agency, but also because of his captivating personality. The Germans were particularly active in the construction of nuclear power plants and even managed to think up new designs. The annual IAEA conferences were important events, and we spent a significant amount of time preparing for each one. Preparations were made in conjunction with our permanent envoy to the organization and the IAEC foreign relations team. I also consulted with Freier who consistently provided me with wise advice. I was to read the plenary speech we used each year to convey the messages we had decided were important. As a rule, the representatives of the Arab and Muslim countries would leave the room in protest each year as I made my way to the podium, which I found somewhat amusing.

  The bombing of the Tammuz–Osirak reactor shocked Dr. Eklund. The usually friendly aging man, whose main priority had been to peacefully finish his two decades in office, unexpectedly found himself in stormy waters. He felt as if Israel had betrayed him and was deeply hurt. In addition, his agency, which he believed was responsibly and professionally carrying out its supervisory functions, was portrayed as incapable of supervising a country that was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As far as Eklund was concerned, the Osirak reactor had been legitimately supplied by one member country (France) to another member country (Iraq) and was under the close supervision of his inspectors. For him, the Israeli attack was a blatant violation of the rules in which he had such great faith. Even before the annual conference he sent me a sharply worded letter to express his anger, and the troubling voices coming out of Vienna after the Board of Governors meeting immediately following the attack were also cause for concern. There was even talk of expelling Israel from the organization and stripping it of its rights to research funding and to engaging in cooperative efforts with member countries.

  Before I left for Vienna we drafted a speech for the IAEA General Assembly, which I continued to polish after our arrival. I requested and was granted a meeting with Dr. Eklund. It was scheduled for early in the morning, and I arrived at the office wing of IAEA headquarters with time to sit down for a cup of coffee and quietly go over my speech yet another time. When I finally met with Eklund he was a different man, closed and reserved with a sad look on his face that seemed to ask: “Uzi, how could you do that to me?” Of course, I was unable to tell him that I had actually opposed the air strike. Instead, I passionately recited the main points outlined in our policy paper, with its details on the Iraqi nuclear program and the justifications for bombing the reactor.

  Dr. Eklund told me that tempers were flaring within the UN in general and within the IAEA in particular, and that he could not promise that he would be able to help me in any way. Although I expected this reaction I left the meeting with a heavy heart. Early in the afternoon on the third day of the conference, the time came to deliver my speech. I knew that a resolution expressing stern condemnation was in the works behind the scenes, but I also knew that such a condemnation would not be a binding decision to expel Israel from the IAEA. I skipped lunch because of the tension, and my heart skipped a beat when the chairperson said: “And now the floor goes to the Israeli delegate.” I made my way to the podium, trying my best to give my walk a relaxed bounce. As I approached the dais, the delegates of the Arab countries and the Muslim bloc filed passed me on their way out of the hall with expressionless faces. As usual, one representative remained in the proceedings to listen, and in some cases to interrupt my speech with loud responses known in parliamentary language as “points of order”. This time, it was the Malaysian delegate who remained in the hall.

  I have stood before many audiences in my life, but I cannot remember ever being in such a tense situation. I did not make the slightest deviation from my text, not out of fear of saying the wrong thing, but because the text was the only anchor I had to help me get through the ordeal. My voice trembled as I read the first sentences, and I mustered all my strength and courage in order to speak smoothly. Gradually, however, I was able to relax and began reading the text, paragraph after paragraph, in an increasingly stronger and more confident voice. My speech touched on the Iran–Iraq war and the fact that Iraq had initiated the hostilities. This crossed a line for the Malaysian delegate, who sprang to his feet and demanded to make a point of order. After receiving the chairman’s permission, the Malaysian delegate launched into a short but passionate speech — which had undoubtedly been prepared ahead of time — that contained mostly contemptuous words and may have actually been an attempt to undermine my confidence. However, it had precisely the opposite effect. I suddenly felt calm and relaxed, and I answered the Malaysian delegate quickly and directly. I felt my words getting through to all the delegates who were sitting attentively and watching the exchange. I finished reading the final paragraph, which expressed both Israel’s commitment to continue supporting nuclear energy for peaceful uses and its intention to remain a loyal member of the IAEA.

  Full of adrenalin, I hopped off the stage in a daze which I snapped out of when my feet hit the ground. Delegates from friendly countries stood up and shook my hand as I walked down the central aisle on the way back to my seat. Only then, once I was seated with my colleagues and friends from the Israeli delegation, was I able to breathe easy and reflect upon what has taken place. My work, however, was not yet over, as the men and women of the media encircled our team requesting interviews. We had decided ahead of time that it would be worthwhile to make use of the opportunity to convey our message, and interviews were granted to the European and American media.

  The difficult part of the conference was behind us. Indeed, the vote that took place the following day — coordinated and orchestrated through endless negotiations among the various groups — approved a resolution that froze Israel’s research funding for an undefined period of time but did not call for Israel’s expulsion from the IAEA. This clearly did not bring an end to the pressure or to the hatred that many countries felt toward us, and we knew that Israel’s nuclear policy would remain in the spotlight for many years to come. Still, the massive initial backlash had passed, and we could now prepare more calmly for the future.

  The Israel Atomic Energy Commission during Begin’s Term in Office

  Menachem Begin’s election in 1977 was a momentous event and marked the first time Israel had a prime minister who was not a member of the Labor Party in its various incarnations. Within the IAEC we were concerned about what this meant for us in the future and deliberated about how to prepare for the new political stage. We were most concerned by the prime minister-elect’s lack of knowledge and experience, as well as the fact that most of the new ministers would be holding such positions for the first time. During the weeks between the elections and the formation of Begin’s government we prepared a thick file with clear and detailed surveys of each of the areas for which the IAEC was responsible. We called it the “transfer of power file” and for those of us who mourned the Labor Party’s electoral defeat, it was another painful milestone in the transition to new times. The file awaited the incoming prime minister in his office, but the transfer of the atomic baton took place during a meeting between Begin and outgoing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which was also attended by Ephraim Poran, the PM’s military secretary. Rabin had been provided with a carefully prepared two-page summary to guide him through the meeting.

  At my first meeting with Menachem Begin, I realized that I was dealing with a unique man who was different from all the other politicians I had ever met. His hair had already started to thin, and, when seen from close up, his body was thin and almost ascetic. The new prime minister examined me with wise, penetrating eyes from behind his thick, black horned rimmed-glasses. During conversations he never broke eye contact
with his interlocutors, and this was a change I had to get used to. Rabin was introverted and closed, he avoided direct eye contact; Begin’s direct gaze, in contrast, was almost hypnotic.

  The new finance minister was Simha Ehrlich, a leader of the Likud’s General Zionist wing and one of Begin’s most faithful and devoted partners. I sensed that it would be wise to cultivate a closer relationship with him, which I did through instructive and informative meetings on nuclear-related issues. Ehrlich was a seasoned politician, and during our meetings he also proved to be a curious and intelligent man with Polish–European cultural traits and an exceptional sense of humor. I liked visiting his office, and I came to regard him as a reliable source of support and assistance.

  Another minister from the General Zionist wing of the Likud party was Yitzhak Moda’i, for whom Begin established a new ministry: the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure. The new ministry was charged with overseeing the Israel Electric Corporation, as well as the National Council for Research and Development, which was headed by Director-General Dr. Eliezer Tal.

  Once again differences of opinion regarding nuclear power plants arose, and we had to meet with the prime minister to have him decide. Unwilling to leave the outcome to luck, I began prepping Begin during our weekly working meeting with an account of the problem and the positions of the two opposing sides. The meeting was scheduled to take place in the afternoon and was attended by Moda’i himself. My deputy David Peleg and I represented the IAEC. Moda’i looked calm enough, but his eyes betrayed a sense of tension. Aware that it was a charged issue, Begin decided to meet in the sitting area of his office in hopes that the more casual atmosphere would reduce the discord.

  Moda’i began the meeting by presenting his arguments, and when my turn came I too presented my position to the PM. Peleg and I decided not only to present counter-arguments but to actively demonstrate that we were also willing to reach a compromise, more in the formal sense than in matters of substance. After listening to the discussion and asking questions, Begin told Moda’i that he thought that our proposal sounded reasonable and addressed the needs of the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure. Although Moda’i was left with very little room to maneuver after Begin spoke, he nonetheless tried to do so. “But what will happen if these gentlemen fail to do what they just said they would?” he asked.

  The prime minister’s response was the well-crafted, carefully formulated answer of a seasoned leader: “Why Mr. Moda’i,” said Begin politely, “you yourself said they are gentlemen. Can you imagine gentlemen not living up to an agreement?” Moda’i had been reprimanded, and we were elated but dared not crack a smile at the PM’s response.

  The creation of the Ministry of Science and Technology was another interesting chapter in the history of the struggles that the IAEC had to wage to maintain its standing and freedom of operation. In 1979, Likud breakaway Knesset Members Geula Cohen and Moshe Shamir established the Techiya party based on their resolute opposition to the Israeli–Egyptian peace treaty and the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. Ne’eman ran as a candidate for Techiya in the Knesset elections of 1981, and on June 30 he was elected at the head of the party’s new three-person Knesset faction. During his political career, Ne’eman joined members of Gush Emunim, and others from the Israeli political right wing, in taking up the cause of Greater Israel, although not for religious reasons. With the outbreak of the first Lebanon war, Ne’eman and Cohen joined Begin’s government.

  As a result of Techiya’s entry into the governing coalition, Begin established the new Ministry of Science and Technology especially for Ne’eman. This new ministry would soon come to occupy a great deal of my time. During our first weekly meeting after the end of the fighting in the first Lebanon War, PM Begin asked me with his characteristic directness and honesty: “Uzi — the Techiya party is joining the coalition and I have decided to establish a Ministry of Science and Technology to be headed by Yuval Ne’eman. What can we give him?”

  This was a development I had not anticipated, and I asked Begin for some time to check into it and to propose a suitable solution. My fear was that Ne’eman, who left the defense ministry in frustration in 1974 after not having been offered the job of deputy defense minister under Shimon Peres, would try to compensate himself by building a nuclear science empire.

  I began a round of consultations, but one thing was clear: the direct connection between the prime minister and the IAEC must not be broken and the PM must remain the chairperson of the agency. It was also clear that the budgetary and administrative independence of the research centers had to be preserved and could not be transferred to a new ministry. We gradually succeeded in formulating a document that would provide Ne’eman with sufficient titles and respect without bringing the IAEC and its research centers under the authority his ministry. The two weeks allocated by the prime minister had passed, and I was still uneasy about the development. Begin raised the issue again at our weekly meeting: “When will I receive the document you promised me about the Ministry of Science?” he asked gently but forcefully. “It should already be on my desk, and the Ministry of Science was already supposed to be established.” Squirming in my seat, I told him that the issue was complicated and too important to be rushed and asked for a week’s extension. By the end of the week I had drafted a three-page paper that awarded Professor Ne’eman the title of Chairman of the Assembly of the Atomic Energy Council, a body that was convened by prime ministers once every year. It consisted of scientists, including many who had served in senior positions in the field of nuclear development. I explained to the PM that this did not supersede his responsibility for all our activities. For Ne’eman the title sounded sufficiently important, and he seemed not to understand that it was primarily honorary and gave him little real authority.

  In the course of my work with Ne’eman I realized that he was still much more a physicist than a politician. Each time I raised a question related to particle physics, he seemed to forget everything else and would launch into a fascinating scientific lecture. I always prepared myself for my meetings with Ne’eman and made it a point to raise scientific issues. This ensured that, for the more than three years that we worked together until I concluded my term as director-general in 1986, I received a series of intriguing and instructive lectures on various aspects of physics. At the same time, of course, we were left with less time for weekly reports and updates, which did not trouble me a great deal.

  Energy Producing Systems — Reality and Fantasy

  One of our efforts to find an alternative to oil dependency was the Riggatron project, which supposedly offered an effective means to produce power from nuclear fusion. The Riggatron project involved a star-studded cast of well-known personalities including: American physicist Dr. Robert Bussard; Dr. Yaakov Shani, an Israeli engineer who was living in the United States; Penthouse magazine founder and owner Bob Guccioni; businessman (and former military attaché to the Israeli delegation in Iran) Yaakov Nimrodi; former Israel Aeronautics Industries Director Al Schwimmer; Jacques Attali, advisor to French President François Mitterand; Shimon Peres Arik Sharo; Prof. Yuval Ne’eman; and even Prof. Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb.

  Nuclear fusion processes take place naturally in stars, which generate energy through the fusion of nuclei of light elements into heavier elements. Carrying out fusion on earth requires a way to confine the extremely hot ionized plasma involved in the process. A method for doing so was discovered in 1950 by Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov, who developed a giant magnetic ring that could confine the plasma of the nuclear fusion substances within a magnetic field. Sakharov’s apparatus was known as the “Tokamak,” a Russian acronym standing for “toroidal chamber with magnetic coils.”

  A Tokamak — which resembles a giant bagel, or, in scientific terminology, a ‘torus’ — generates a powerful magnetic field capable of confining nuclear fusion processes. In 1982 Princeton University began operating an expe
rimental Tokamak that facilitated energy production based on the fusion of deuterium nuclei into tritium, a hydrogen isotope whose nucleus contains two neutrons in addition to its proton, and whose weight is three times that of regular hydrogen. Over the years, similar facilities for the study of the magnetic confinement of nuclear fusion were built in Japan, China, the Soviet Union, Italy, Germany, France, Britain, Switzerland, and the US. As a guest of the nuclear research institutes in the United States, Japan, Italy, and Germany, I was able to visit these Tokamak facilities. I was surprised by the technological accomplishments they had achieved in order to magnetically confine fusion.

  One day in the late summer of 1982, Yaakov Nimrodi and Al Schwimmer stopped by my office at the IAEC. Nimrodi was a wealthy businessman with a commercial network around the world. Schwimmer, the former director of IAI who transformed the company from a few garages for aircraft maintenance into a full-fledged aerospace company, was looking for new challenges. Elkana Gali, a former member of IAI management, was the organizational engine of the project. Dr. Robert Bussard of the US and Dr. Yaakov Shani, an Israeli immigrant to the US, were working on developing a small Tokamak apparatus for one-time use. The basic idea of the project was to sidestep the major problems caused by the effect of intense heat on the substances that had to withstand it, and to find a way of working without investing a fortune in a facility designed to operate for many years. The Riggatron, or the poor man’s Tokamak, argued Dr. Bussard persuasively, could bring us to the point of producing energy more quickly than larger facilities that were still in various stages of research and development. Bussard managed to convince Penthouse magazine’s Bob Guccioni to invest in the project. Al Schwimmer was also fascinated by the idea, and became the moving force behind the engineering of the project.