15 lines
No EOL
1.3 KiB
Markdown
15 lines
No EOL
1.3 KiB
Markdown
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category: "Authors & Journalists"
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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: "Hedrick Smith was a Washington correspondent for the *New York Times*."
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---
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Hedrick Smith was a Washington correspondent for the *New York Times*. In July 1970, he wrote a front-page story that provided the American public with its first account of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s assessment of the Israeli nuclear arsenal. The article stated that the U.S. government had been conducting its [[Middle East]] policy on the assumption that [[Israel]] either possessed an atomic bomb or had component parts available for quick assembly. Smith's story also described [[Israel]]'s progress in developing its [[Jericho I]] missile system and revealed a manufacturing plant near [[Tel Aviv]] for solid propellants and engines.[^1]
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Smith had tried for two years to get the article published, and succeeded after [[Stuart Symington]] acknowledged on a Sunday television interview show that there was "no question that [[Israel]] is doing its best to develop nuclear weapons." Despite the significance of the article, it attracted little attention from other media or Congress, which astonished Smith.[^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 16. |