---
category: Nuclear Scientists & Programs
summary: Shimon Yiftach was the director of scientific programs for the Israeli defense
  ministry.
tags:
- Person
- Nuclear
- Israel
---

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](/places/israel/)'s leading experts in the chemistry of plutonium. In December 1963, he publicly stated that the advanced reactor at [Dimona](/places/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](/places/dimona/).[^1]

[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 10.