ISRAEL’S POLICY of “ambiguity” in relation to its undeclared nuclear arsenal has come under renewed scrutiny following reports that it offered nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa in the 1970s.
Israeli president Shimon Peres yesterday denied a report by the Guardianthat as defence minister in 1975 he discussed selling nuclear warheads with his South African counterpart PW Botha.
The report was based on previously secret documents released by South Africa’s post-apartheid government in response to a request from US academic Sasha Polakow-Suransky, whose book examining the close relationship between the two countries is about to be published. The Guardian says the declassified papers offer the first documentary evidence of Israel’s secretive nuclear programme.
Arms-control specialists estimate that Israel has built up to 200 nuclear warheads at its Dimona reactor in the Negev desert, but Israeli officials have always refused to confirm or deny their existence.
The Guardianreport included partially censored documents showing a formal request from the South Africans for nuclear-capable warheads some months before the meeting between Mr Peres and Mr Botha took place.
According to the minutes of that meeting, the two men did not specifically mention nuclear weapons, but instead used euphemisms that could be construed as references to nuclear warheads.
The minutes say Mr Botha asked for “a limited number of units of Chalet [allegedly a codeword for Israel’s Jericho missile] subject to the correct payload being available”.
Mr Peres apparently responded by saying the "correct payload was available in three sizes". The Guardianclaimed that "correct payload" is a reference to a nuclear warhead, and that the "three sizes" imply the availability of conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.
One Israeli official rejected this interpretation, arguing that the "three sizes" referred to the different ranges of the Jericho missile. In the end, the sale to South Africa did not go ahead, partly because of the cost, the Guardianreported.
Mr Peres issued a strongly worded statement denying any such discussions about the transfer of nuclear weapons took place. “Israel has never negotiated the exchange of nuclear weapons with South Africa. There exists no Israeli document or Israeli signature on a document that such negotiations took place,” he said.
Mr Peres argued there was "no basis in reality for the claims" and he said the Guardian'sconclusions were "based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts".
Speculation about nuclear co-operation between Israel and apartheid South Africa is not new. Previous claims have centred on Israel’s alleged role in helping develop South Africa’s own small nuclear programme which was dismantled in 1990.
In 1979, an explosion over the Indian Ocean prompted reports that it was the result of a joint nuclear test carried out by the two countries.
The documents contained in yesterday’s report corroborate accounts by former South African naval commander Dieter Gerhardt, who was jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release, Cmdr Gerhardt claimed there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved a proposal by Israel to fit eight Jericho missiles with “special warheads”. Cmdr Gerhardt claimed these were nuclear bombs.
According to Dr Polakow-Suransky, Israel put pressure on South Africa’s current government not to release the documents. “The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access . . . on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date,” he said.
“The South Africans didn’t seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime’s old allies.”