Hedrick Smith
Hedrick Smith was a Washington correspondent for the *New York Times*.
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 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
Sources
- Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 16. ↩
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