21 lines
No EOL
1.7 KiB
Markdown
21 lines
No EOL
1.7 KiB
Markdown
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category: "Nuclear Scientists & Programs"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Nuclear
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- Israel
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summary: "Bertrand Goldschmidt was a French nuclear chemist who served during World War II with American nuclear researchers, becoming an expert in the chemistry of plutonium and plutonium extraction."
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born: 1912-11-02
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died: 2002-06-11
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location: "Paris, France"
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---
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Bertrand Goldschmidt was a French nuclear chemist who served during World War II with American nuclear researchers, becoming an expert in the chemistry of plutonium and plutonium extraction. He chose to return to [[France]] after the war and joined its [[Atomic Energy Commission]]. Goldschmidt was among the few outsiders permitted to visit the completed reactor at [[Dimona]] in the 1960s.[^1]
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Goldschmidt had strong emotional ties to [[Israel]], heightened by his marriage into the [[Rothschild]] banking family, known for their contributions to Israeli and Jewish causes. He and his wife visited [[Israel]] in the early 1950s and met [[David Ben-Gurion]] through [[Ernst David Bergmann]]. As director of chemistry for [[France]]'s Atomic Energy Commission, he later became a respected spokesman on nonproliferation issues.[^1]
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Goldschmidt vividly recalled a meeting of the French Atomic Energy Commission where [[Ernst David Bergmann]] and [[Shimon Peres]] requested to buy a heavy-water research reactor similar to the one [[Canada]] was building in [[India]]. He remained convinced that the basic decision to help [[Israel]] get the bomb was made during these meetings in mid-September, before the [[Suez Crisis]].[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3. |