---
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
tags:
  - Person
  - Nuclear
  - Israel
summary: "President Kennedy's science adviser who was deliberately excluded from intelligence about Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor at David Ben-Gurion's request."
born: 1915-05-30
died: 1994-10-21
location: "Detroit, Michigan"
---

Jerome B. Wiesner was President [[John F. Kennedy]]'s science adviser. He was Jewish, but was totally cut out of the intelligence about [[Dimona]], and assumed that [[David Ben-Gurion]] had requested that he not deal with that issue in the [[White House]]. Wiesner played a major role on disarmament issues for the [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] administration and had served as a board member of the [[Weizmann Institute of Science]]. He frequently ran into Ben-Gurion on visits to [[Israel]], who would always ask him two questions: "Can computers think? And should we build a nuclear weapon?" Wiesner consistently answered "no" to the latter, which he believed marked him as a liberal in Ben-Gurion's eyes and limited his access.[^1]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 8.