Shimon Yiftach was the director of scientific programs for the Israeli defense ministry. He was trained at the [[Argonne National Laboratory]] in [[Illinois]] and was one of [[Israel]]'s leading experts in the chemistry of plutonium. In December 1963, he publicly stated that the advanced reactor at [[Dimona]] would produce plutonium as a by-product, but insisted that the Israeli government had no plans to build a separate plant for chemically reprocessing plutonium. Yiftach knew this was false, as French construction companies had already restarted work on the underground reprocessing plant at [[Dimona]].[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 10.