---
category: "Nuclear Scientists & Programs"
tags:
  - Person
  - Nuclear
  - Israel
summary: "Nuclear Intelligence Panel member who concluded the 1979 Vela satellite event was a South African-Israeli nuclear test and accused the White House of suppressing the finding."
---

Louis H. Roddis, Jr. played a major role in [[America]]'s postwar nuclear weapons development. He was a member of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel (NIP). Roddis concluded that the 1979 [[South Africa]]n-Israeli nuclear test had taken place on a barge or on one of the islands in the South Indian Ocean archipelago. He expressed anger at [[Frank Press]] and the White House for what he saw as a deliberate effort to downplay and manipulate the facts surrounding the event.[^1]

### Footnotes

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