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Donald M. Kerr, Jr.

Acting director of defense programs at the Department of Energy who directed the Nuclear Intelligence Panel study of the 1979 Vela satellite flash, concluding it was a nuclear bomb.

Donald M. Kerr, Jr. served in the Carter administration as acting director of the defense programs at the Department of Energy, making him responsible for America's nuclear bombs. He directed the secret Nuclear Intelligence Panel (NIP) study into the 1979 VELA Satellite sighting. Kerr stated that the NIP had no doubt it was a nuclear bomb and believed the Ruina panel's mandate was driven by politics "to find a different explanation."1

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

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