Hedrick Smith was a Washington correspondent for the *New York Times*. In July 1970, he wrote a front-page story that provided the American public with its first account of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s assessment of the Israeli nuclear arsenal. The article stated that the U.S. government had been conducting its [[Middle East]] policy on the assumption that [[Israel]] either possessed an atomic bomb or had component parts available for quick assembly. Smith's story also described [[Israel]]'s progress in developing its [[Jericho I]] missile system and revealed a manufacturing plant near [[Tel Aviv]] for solid propellants and engines.[^1] Smith had tried for two years to get the article published, and succeeded after [[Stuart Symington]] acknowledged on a Sunday television interview show that there was "no question that [[Israel]] is doing its best to develop nuclear weapons." Despite the significance of the article, it attracted little attention from other media or Congress, which astonished Smith.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 16.