John L. Hadden served as the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] station chief in [[Tel Aviv]], [[Israel]], in the mid-1960s. He viewed Ambassador [[Walworth Barbour]] as a professional and encouraged his staff to find out what they could about [[Dimona]]. Hadden worked closely with [[Robert T. Webber]], the embassy's scientific attaché, in clear violation of a [[State Department]] decree forbidding scientific attachés from engaging in intelligence work.[^1] Hadden sent [[Colonel Carmelo V. Alba]] to [[Beersheba]] to conduct a census of French names on mailboxes in the city's apartment complexes, as part of an ongoing effort to determine who was working at [[Dimona]]. Hadden also inadvertently got into trouble with the Israeli foreign office when his American license plates were put on a jeep used by Alba for a weekend trip to the [[Negev]], leading to a stiff protest from the Israelis who suspected the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] station chief was sneaking around.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 12.