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INTRODUCTION
DISCUSSION OF ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR INITIATIVE between 1947 and 1957 inevitably involves analysis of the relationship with France that moved from congenial ambivalence to unwritten alliance, and then rose to far-reaching cooperation and exclusive friendship in some of the most sensitive areas of national interest. This "nuclear connection" was initially forged during the early the 1950s and peaked in 1956-1957.
This article will first examine France's development of nuclear research during the Fourth Republic (1946-1958) and its motives for embarking on high-level cooperation with a small fledgling country like Israel, even before France had developed its own nuclear weapons system. Second, the status of Israel's nuclear policy will be traced from its beginning in order to gain an appreciation of the importance of Israel's "French orientation" in its foreign and security policy, as well as in its own ultra-sensitive field of strategic nuclear research. Finally, in light of the vast quantity of material available to historians, the stages of French-Israeli nuclear cooperation will be explored against the commonly voiced charge that France's interest stemmed from its need to include Israel in an anti-Nasser coalition. That is, France's "nuclear" gift was to be a form of reimbursement for Israel's participation in the Suez War.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE'S NUCLEAR POLICY
In the beginning, nuclear research in France was closely associated with two distinguished scientists: Frederick Joliot-Curie and his wife Irene who was the daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie, the discoverers of artificial radioactivity. In March 1939 Joliot-Curie, together with Hans von Halban and the Russian Jew, Lev (Leon) Kowarski, demonstrated the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction. In the same year, this team was joined by Jean-Francis Perrin, the man who would play the main role in the development of French nuclear research. Perrin, the son of Jean-Baptiste Perrin (1870-1942) a Noble Prize winner for physics, was appointed professor of nuclear physics at the prestigious College de France in 1946(1).
On 16 June 1940, as France was about to fall under Nazi occupation, Halban and Kowarski were sent to Great Britain to safeguard the secrets of heavy water (both a coolant and moderator in nuclear reactors) that had been developed in France on the basis of a 1932 American discovery.(2) Other French nuclear scientists, such...