---
category: Private Organization
location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
start: 1861
summary: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a prestigious research
  university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose professor Jack P. Ruina directed its
  Defense and Arms Control Studies Program and chaired the expert panel that analyzed
  the 1979 VELA satellite data from the suspected South Atlantic nuclear explosion.
tags:
- Organization
- Academic
- USA
---

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a prestigious research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [Jack P. Ruina](/people/jack-p-ruina/) was a professor of electrical engineering at MIT and a director of its Defense and Arms Control Studies Program. In late 1979, Ruina was involved in the preparation of a federally funded MIT report that assessed the foreign availability of critical components for the assembly of short-range ballistic missiles.[^1]

[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20.