---
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
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."
born: 1918-09-09
died: 1991-09-15
location: "United States"
updated: 2026-10-09
relations:
  - type: investigated
    with: "[[VELA Satellite]]"
    start: 1980-02-11
    end: 1980-02-14
    role: "chairman of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel review of the September 22, 1979 event, per the February 14, 1980 memorandum"
    fn: 2
---
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 of an archipelago between the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans. 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]

A February 14, 1980 memorandum from the chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee to the Director of Central Intelligence, [[Stansfield Turner]], names Roddis as chairman of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel for its meeting of February 11 to 13, 1980 on the September 22, 1979 [[VELA Satellite|Vela]] event; it states that the attached summary of the panel's views "was prepared by the Panel Chairman, Mr. Louis H. Roddis, Jr." and the attached judgments are completely redacted.[^2]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20.
[^2]: Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Judgments of the DCI's Nuclear Intelligence Panel on the 22 September 1979 Event," February 14, 1980, Secret. Document 6 in NSAEBB 190, with the attached judgments completely redacted. The memorandum names Roddis as panel chairman and gives the meeting dates as February 11-13; Richelson's narrative in the same briefing book names Kerr as chairman. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/06.pdf