---
born: 1924-10-24
category: Intelligence & Government
died: 2012-08-10
location: New York City, New York, USA
summary: Deputy director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency who was troubled
  by what he saw as deliberate manipulation of the 1979 Vela nuclear test assessment.
tags:
- Person
- Israel
---

Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr. was the deputy director of the [ACDA](/organizations/arms-control-and-disarmament-agency/). He was a senior bureaucrat involved in high-level scientific issues since the [Eisenhower](/people/dwight-d-eisenhower/) administration. Keeny realized that he and his colleagues needed to "buy some time" after a [VELA Satellite](/concepts/vela-satellite/) recorded probable evidence of a nuclear explosion on September 22, 1979. He was troubled by the intelligence community's assurance that its assessment was 90 percent accurate, believing that middle-level bureaucrats could not know all the facts. Keeny claimed it was his idea to set up an outside panel to study the VELA data and ensure the satellite had not made an error with enormous political consequences.[^1]

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