Last month, the United States released documentation from 1987 of its assessment of Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities at the time, required to do so by law after receiving a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The document, formally titled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations,” was written by Leading Technologies Incorporated for the Institute for Defense Analyses, and commissioned by the Department of Defense. Its contents are based on visits by US experts, in coordination with the US embassy in Tel Aviv and with the guidance of the Pentagon, to various facilities and laboratories across Israel.
While Israel has never publicly declared itself a nuclear weapons state, its arsenal is widely acknowledged by the international community. Israel is not a signatory of the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This document, however, summarizes in detail Washington’s understanding of the nature and purpose of that program as it stood in the 1980s.