Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

[Juno Beach]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Seems countries will sell weapons including nukes to make money! In addition, this would confirm that Israel has nukes!

[Affentitten]

Israel has nukes? Lucky that Mordechai Vanunu hasn't been doing time for nothing.

[daisy]

Came as no surprise, IDF and SADF had close ties as from the beginning when Israel came into being.

Many South Africans that fought in WW2 assisted the fledgeling state in its difficult first few years. IIRC one of SA's (later) High Court Judges was instrumental in the formation of the IAF.

During the years 1948 - 1990 SA and Israel had a common enemy, that waged war on them by means of proxy so it was quite normal for them to have had close ties.

As for the question of money - France sold SA subs and other hardware including the Crotale (sp?) missile system. Attack helicopter designs were bought from USA and strangely enough machine tools for the maufacture of AFV's and mortars were obtained from East Germany. To name but just a few.

[Michael Emrys]

In addition, this would confirm that Israel has nukes!

And where have you been for the last 40+ years? Almost as soon as Israel built its nuclear facility in the Negev, there were signs that it was working on acquiring a bomb as quickly as possible. The Johnson administration chose to look the other way. There were hints at least from the '70s that Israel and SA were cooperating and even suspicions that they had set one off in the Indian Ocean in a joint venture. Both countries issued denials on that last point and it was never publicly confirmed SFAIK, but it's not especially unlikely.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

Come on guys its been denied!

A spokeswoman for Peres today said the report was baseless and there were "never any negotiations" between the two countries. She did not comment on the authenticity of the documents.

Sheesh just bashing Israel again.

[Lt Belenko]

And where have you been for the last 40+ years? Almost as soon as Israel built its nuclear facility in the Negev, there were signs that it was working on acquiring a bomb as quickly as possible. The Johnson administration chose to look the other way. There were hints at least from the '70s that Israel and SA were cooperating and even suspicions that they had set one off in the Indian Ocean in a joint venture. Both countries issued denials on that last point and it was never publicly confirmed SFAIK, but it's not especially unlikely.

Michael

I remember seeing a satellite photo, in the paper (San Diego Union), of what was thought to be a nuke blast off the coast of SA back in that time frame. Perfectly round cloud (top down view) over an otherwise cloudless IO. They didn't have a side view, but I bet that one was mushroom shaped.

[JonS]

Seems countries will sell weapons ... to make money!

OMG! No!

It's just lucky they don't have a convention, or anything.

[Michael Emrys]

I remember seeing a satellite photo, in the paper (San Diego Union), of what was thought to be a nuke blast off the coast of SA back in that time frame. Perfectly round cloud (top down view) over an otherwise cloudless IO. They didn't have a side view, but I bet that one was mushroom shaped.

Yeah, I think that is the one I was referring to. The claim put forth by the SA government was that the satellite happened to catch an especially bright meteor. Yeah, right.

Later satellite photos caught what appeared to be towers under construction in the Kalahari Dessert of a type thought to be suitable for testing A-bombs. Once again the government issued denials, but IIRC correctly, under pressure from the international community dismantled them.

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

Wiki, of course, has something to say about it

And afterwards the Yarpies continued with some development - and built 6 relatively simple weapons ......dismantling them in 1989 ans scrapping them a bit later when they signed the NPT.

[dieseltaylor]

From reading the Wiki link I get to the spy and in that article we get this:

During the Falklands War, Gerhardt was able to use his position to supply the Russians with detailed information about the locations of British ships in the south Atlantic that the South African Navy intercepted via its sophisticated listening post at Silvermine, near Cape Town.[4] This information was subsequently passed on to the Argentines by the Russians.

Well I did not know that. I assumed they had satellites. Well done the US in nabbing him .... one might think somebody in Argentina was working for the US.