The_Info_Web/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INTELLIGENCE/VELA Satellite.md at 706d8820a2df7ee175df7395cfabc7c1916e51ae - disinfozone/The_Info_Web

vault backup: 2026-10-09 22:00:52

2026-10-09 22:00:52 -04:00

34 KiB

Raw Blame History

Program and launch history

The Advanced Research Projects Agency's Vela program developed sensors to detect nuclear explosions in space, the upper atmosphere and underwater in support of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, and the first two Vela satellites were launched in 1963.¹³ Vela 6911 was launched on May 23, 1969.¹ Each satellite carried two bhangmeters, sensors that trigger when light intensity changes rapidly, together with detectors for gamma rays, x-rays and neutrons. The satellites flew at an altitude of about 67,000 miles, and the area in view of the bhangmeters was about 3,000 miles in diameter. In September 1979 that area included the southern tip of Africa, the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic and part of Antarctica.¹

On September 21, 1979, technicians from the Air Force Technical Applications Center conducted a routine late-evening readout of Vela 6911 at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida.¹ The satellite recorded the double flash at 00:53 UTC on September 22.² The bhangmeter readings did not show the ratio between the first and second pulses that earlier nuclear detections had produced.¹ Two Defense Support Program satellites with the South Atlantic in their view did not register the event. A Los Alamos analysis attributed this to either the event lying outside their fields of view or cloud cover weakening the signal.⁴

Jimmy Carter wrote in his diary on September 22, 1979 that there was "indication of a nuclear explosion in the region of South Africa," followed by the alternatives "either South Africa, Israel using a ship at sea, or nothing."⁵ A mini-Special Coordination Committee meeting on the evening of September 22 and another on September 23 under Henry Owen took up the event. The September 23 summary of conclusions stated that limited satellite detection information suggested that a nuclear explosion of one to three kilotons "probably occurred early Saturday morning in the south Atlantic, southern Indian Ocean, southern Africa, or Antarctica," and that "South Africa is the most likely candidate." Carter wrote at the bottom of the page: "Do not let any allegation leak to public until we are sure of facts."⁶

The outside panel review and the Ruina panel

On October 10, 1979, Ross E. Cowey, director of Strategic Affairs in the Office of Intelligence and Research of the Department of State, filed a memorandum for the files that synopsized the judgments of an outside panel of experts convened to consider the event. The panel was composed of Harold M. Agnew, formerly director of Los Alamos, Richard Garwin of IBM, and Stephen Lukasik, a former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The memorandum recorded their conclusions that the signals "were consistent with detection of a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere" and that no other sensors "should clearly have 'seen' this event," and recorded their notes that the Vela sensor outputs were less "self-consistent" than usual, that night-time testing was unusual, and that the 1.5 to 2 kiloton yield was probably lower than the design yield.⁷

Garwin wrote to Agnew and Lukasik on October 18, 1979 that "on the basis of the information which we obtained and the analysis we were able to do, I would bet 2 to 1 in favor of the hypothesis," and that it would be worthwhile for a larger group of technical experts to take somewhat longer to examine the possibility that a combination of real phenomena produced the data. He called for "another one- or two-day meeting of a group of skeptical critical experts," said he would be willing to serve, and named Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Richard Muller, Luis Alvarez and Burton Richter as others used to evaluating anomalies. On October 19, Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr., deputy director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, sent the letter to Ambassador-at-Large Henry Owen with a note that he continued to believe there was merit in a more detailed review of the technical data "by a group of senior scientists of the type suggested by Garwin."⁸

Frank Press, the president's science adviser, appointed an outside panel in late October 1979. Jack P. Ruina, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, chaired it, and its work began on November 1, 1979.⁹ Keeny told Leonard Weiss in a 2004 interview that the idea for the outside panel was his.¹⁰ The report, dated May 23, 1980, lists nine names in its appendix: Ruina and eight members, among them Luis Alvarez, William Donn, Richard Garwin, Riccardo Giacconi, Richard Muller, Wolfgang Panofsky, Allen Peterson and F. Williams Sarles.¹¹

The panel's summary stated that the signal "contains sufficient internal inconsistency to cast serious doubt whether that signal originated from a nuclear explosion or in fact from any light source not in the proximity of the VELA satellite." It continued: "Although we cannot rule out the possibility that this signal was of nuclear origin, the panel considers it more likely that the signal was one of the zoo events," possibly a consequence of the impact of a small meteoroid on the satellite. The concluding judgment read: "it is our collective judgment that the September 22 signal was probably not from a nuclear explosion."¹¹ The report went to the government in May 1980, and a declassified version appeared a few weeks later, in July 1980.¹² According to the National Security Archive's account, the White House released an only mildly redacted copy after news of the Defense Intelligence Agency study of June 1980 appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post.¹³

An Office of Science and Technology Policy paper of January 7, 1980, attached to a memorandum for the president, set out the panel's earlier findings: "Despite extensive analysis of all data available, the Panel cannot determine whether or not the light signal that was recorded by one VELA satellite (No. 6911) over the South Atlantic on September 22, 1979 was generated by a nuclear explosion." It stated that the panel had ruled out other natural sources "with one exception, and that is reflection of sunlight from a small meteoroid (or a small piece of satellite debris) passing near the satellite sensors," and that it was "unable to assign relative probabilities" to a nuclear or natural origin.¹⁴

Panofsky later described the verdict as a "scotch verdict," meaning that a nuclear event had not been proven.⁷ Weiss, a Senate staff official at the time, has written that Alan Berman, a former director of the Naval Research Laboratory, said the laboratory produced a 300-page report that was unequivocal in concluding that the signal was a nuclear test. Weiss wrote that the Ruina report was released about a month before the laboratory's report reached the White House.¹⁰ The Naval Research Laboratory report has not been declassified.¹

Intelligence assessments

A December 1979 interagency study titled "The 22 September 1979 Event" began from the assumption that the event was a nuclear detonation. Its three main possibilities were a secret test by South Africa, a secret test by Israel, and a joint South African-Israeli test.¹⁵

The Nuclear Intelligence Panel met on February 11 to 13, 1980 to review the data. The February 14, 1980 memorandum from the chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee to the director of central intelligence, Stansfield Turner, states that the attached summary of the panel's views "was prepared by the Panel Chairman, Mr. Louis H. Roddis, Jr."; the attached judgments are completely redacted.¹⁶ The National Security Archive's editors and Weiss each describe the panel as chaired or headed by Donald M. Kerr, who had been acting director of defense programs at the Department of Energy.¹¹⁰ Seymour Hersh wrote that Kerr said, "We had no doubt it was a bomb," and that Agnew and other members of the panel were dismayed by White House interference in the review.¹⁷

A study by two Defense Intelligence Agency analysts, John E. Mansfield and Houston T. Hawkins, dated June 26, 1980, disputed the Ruina panel. It stated that much of the search for corroborating evidence had failed. It calculated that a northward ionospheric disturbance coinciding with the Vela event had a probability of no more than 0.02, and, citing a Stanford Research Institute calculation, that a single meteoroid causing the Vela signal had a probability of less than one in one hundred billion.¹³

A June 10, 1980 memorandum by Frances Cook, director of public affairs in the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs, recorded that Jack Varona, head of science and technology at the Defense Intelligence Agency, had told a Foreign Service Institute course that the White House (Press) report was a whitewash due to political considerations, that his laboratory had calculated the probability of lightning or comets producing a nuclear-like Vela signature as something "like the age of the universe," and that recent seismic work by the Naval Research Laboratory had traced the location to two islands in South African territorial waters. Robert A. Martin of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research's Political-Military Affairs office contacted Varona to verify those statements, and on June 17, 1980 recorded that Varona said the Ruina panel report was indeed a "white-wash, due to political considerations," that the panel used "flimsy" evidence and analysis to arrive at a "probable" non-nuclear explanation, and that analysis of hydroacoustic data by the Naval Research Laboratory had traced the location of the possible nuclear event to relatively shallow waters between the Prince Edward Islands and Marion Island, south of South Africa. The hydroacoustic signals, at 1.5 Hz, were thought by the laboratory to be "unique to nuclear shots in a maritime environment," and were received at Ascension Island and at Argentia, Newfoundland, the latter after reflection from a point in Antarctica. Martin's memorandum recorded Varona's statement that the data were not fully available to the Ruina panel or to the director of central intelligence's Nuclear Intelligence Panel.¹⁸

A January 23, 1980 memorandum from Gerald G. Oplinger of the National Security Council staff to Henry Owen recorded that he had told the State Department to put the press release and congressional consultations on hold. It stated that the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and technical people within the intelligence community had "sufficient doubts about the Press panel report to make it very dangerous to proceed without another look," with specific questions on the reliability of the Vela signal, the ionospheric signals picked up at Arecibo, new hydroacoustic data that the panel had not had, and the absence of fallout. According to Oplinger, John Deutch and Dan Murphy still felt that the public bottom line should be that there was no conclusive case for a nuclear source, but felt strongly that unless the questions were given "a further airing, there will be continued internal dissent and an appearance that policy people (including the White House) did a whitewash for political reasons."¹⁹

In a December 1, 1980 evening report, the national security adviser's intelligence staff reported receiving a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency of "an abnormally high level of Iodine 131" in the thyroids of sheep in Melbourne, Australia, which had grazed in an area that received rain between September 26 and 27, 1979. The Defense Intelligence Agency was continuing to investigate whether industrial or pharmaceutical causes could account for the iodine.²⁰

Early handling by the Carter administration

On September 27, 1979, the staff of Gerard C. Smith, the U.S. special presidential representative for nonproliferation matters, prepared actions for the case that a test had occurred and had not yet become public.²¹ On October 22, 1979, the National Security Council staff circulated a memorandum on the nonproliferation stakes, the effect on negotiations with South Africa, and the possible role of United Nations sanctions.²² In an October 23, 1979 memorandum to David D. Newsom, Smith recommended consultations with Congress, with allies and with South Africa, writing that the subject should be raised with Prime Minister P.W. Botha as soon as practicable without explicit linkage to the nuclear negotiations. An attached discussion paper stated that an approach should be to the prime minister, "who without question knows whether South Africa has tested."²³

A September 25, 1979 memorandum for the record by Richard M. Moose records that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance would raise the matter at a scheduled dinner of the Quadripartite Group of the United States, United Kingdom, France and West Germany, and that Under Secretary Newsom would inform the French before then.²⁴ On October 26, 1979 Ambassador Thomas Watson in Moscow sent a restricted "Nodis Cherokee" message, "meant for Secretary Vance and his close associates only," recommending discussions with the Soviet Union about the Vela incident and the provision of as much information as possible to encourage Soviet reciprocity.²⁵ In a follow-up message Watson expressed surprise that Washington had not briefed Moscow "long before [the story] leaked to the press"; Vance instructed the Department to reply that this did not represent a policy change, that Washington had delayed because the "initial information was highly inconclusive," and that U.S. "allies were concerned that precipitate action might complicate other important issues" such as the Rhodesia and Zimbabwe talks.²⁶

A "Nite Note" of November 19, 1979, prepared in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs for either Vance or President Jimmy Carter, summarized a message from New Zealand expressing "considerable doubts" about the rainwater results.²⁷ On January 9, 1980, after the Ruina panel report was completed, Vance's special assistant Arnold Raphel told Smith's deputy Allen Locke that the secretary agreed with Smith that the report's conclusions should be made public and shared with allies to the extent possible, and that Vance supported "some kind of UN sanctions if there is no progress with South Africa on the nuclear issue."²⁸

The story leaked in late October 1979. On October 26 Smith briefed Representatives Zablocki, Bingham, Broomfield and Solarz of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He wrote that he had tried to make clear that even if a nuclear explosion were determined, "we had no evidence that South Africa was responsible," and that he "suggested that we had an equal amount of evidence that Israel was responsible, i.e., none."²⁹ South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha publicly denied any knowledge of a test.³⁰ On October 27 the South African embassy relayed an official statement that the South African Navy had been instructed to investigate whether the event might have been caused by an accident aboard a Soviet or other nuclear submarine; the State Department's evening reading item for the president stated that the intelligence community had concluded the signal was not consistent with a reactor accident and that, after consultation with the Defense Department, it believed no nuclear submarine of any nation was in the area on September 22.³¹ On October 31, 1979, Secretary for Foreign Affairs Brand Fourie told the American ambassador in Pretoria that the chairman of the South African Atomic Energy Board, De Villiers, had said that the board's daily radioactivity samples had never been lower, "so your people should know that there has been no explosion, that the idea is nonsense."³⁰

A January 7, 1980 discussion paper for a "mini" meeting of the Special Coordination Committee set out options on what to say publicly and privately about the Vela analysis, whether to continue negotiations with South Africa, and whether to support nuclear sanctions against it.³² On January 12, 1980 Secretary of State Cyrus Vance instructed the embassy in South Africa to resume nuclear talks, in a message that also carried the panel's conclusions.³³ On January 17, 1980 Press wrote to Owen and Smith, describing "the panel that I brought together at your request," that "we cannot exclude the possibility that this continuing data gathering and analysis may turn up some corroborative evidence in the future if a nuclear explosion had actually taken place."³⁴

Carter wrote in his diary on February 27, 1980 that "We have a growing belief among our scientists that the Israelis did indeed conduct a nuclear test explosion in the ocean near the southern end of South Africa."³⁵

Israel, South Africa and the 1977 record

On August 24, 1977 Israeli Foreign Ministry director general Ephraim Evron conveyed to U.S. ambassador Samuel Lewis in Tel Aviv a statement from Prime Minister Menachem Begin: "his government has no contact nor has it ever cooperated with the Government of South Africa in developing or producing nuclear weapons," and "his government does not cooperate with South Africa in the production of nuclear explosives of any kind." Lewis wrote that the statement did not answer the question on broader Israeli-South African cooperation in the nuclear field, and Evron replied that he had given the total response conveyed to him by Begin.³⁶ In September 1977 national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote to the secretary of state that, in response to Lewis' cable, the president "stated that it is obvious that past cooperation is excluded, and that we shouldn't push it any more for now." Smith wrote to Brzezinski on September 17, 1977 that the response was confined to the present, and that should awkward past connections or future relations develop, "we could find it difficult to explain why we had accepted so reserved a response."³⁷ Later South African sources are reported to have confirmed that Israel received natural uranium from South Africa and provided it a small amount of tritium.³⁸

Hersh wrote that an Israeli missile expert, then a visiting fellow at MIT, told Ruina that the flash was an Israeli-South African operation, and that Ruina forwarded the account to Keeny in a report. Hersh did not name the visitor. The expert is identified as Anselm Yaron, a senior missile engineer who headed Israel's Jericho missile program in the 1970s, on the basis of MIT project publications.³⁹ A State Department telegram of February 1980 described the information as one that "appears to be quite speculative." Keeny and John Marcum, executive secretary to Press, were dismissive of it.⁴⁰

On February 21, 1980 the CBS Evening News broadcast a report by correspondent Dan Raviv that cited an unpublished Israeli manuscript by Eli Teicher and Ami Dor-On, and a former Knesset member, Eliyahu Speiser, as saying the Vela event was an Israeli test "with the assistance and cooperation of South Africa." On the instructions of Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, the Government Press Office revoked Raviv's press credentials. The American embassy in Tel Aviv wrote that "while not in possession of all the scientific evidence, we believe it would be the height of folly for Israel to indulge in any form of nuclear weapons testing, in particular in conjunction with South Africa."⁴¹

At the close of the 1980s Smith said, "I have never been able to get rid of the thought that [the 22nd September event] was some sort of joint operation between Israel and South Africa."⁴² Stansfield Turner told Avner Cohen during the 1990s that he had never taken the Ruina panel seriously and had supported the prevailing view among CIA analysts that the flash was a nuclear test, most likely conducted by Israel.⁵

Christopher M. Wright and Lars-Erik De Geer wrote in 2017 that "a meteoroid collision appears much less likely than previously assumed" and that "The double flash is instead consistent with a nuclear explosion, albeit detected by an aged satellite for which background modulation was abnormal and/or commenced earlier, also seen in post-event SYSTEM tests."² Their companion paper, published in 2018, presents radionuclide and hydroacoustic evidence.²

Weiss has argued that the flash was an Israeli test with logistical help from South Africa. In a 2015 article he described an Israeli student at MIT who, according to Ruina's account to Keeny, indicated that he had personal knowledge of an Israeli operation. He also described a South African naval officer, identified only by a pseudonym, whose diary of a voyage to the test site was partly transcribed by the writer Stacy Hardy. Weiss states that Hardy has declined to reveal the diary's whereabouts or the officer's real name.⁴³

Records still closed

The Naval Research Laboratory report has not been declassified, and the judgments of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel are redacted in the released memorandum. The December 1979 interagency study and the June 1980 Defense Intelligence Agency study have been released only in excised versions.¹⁶ As of 2016, sixteen documents in the papers of Gerard C. Smith at the National Archives remained classified, and two major files at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library on the September 22 event were pending declassification review.⁷

Footnotes

Richelson, Jeffrey T., ed. "The Vela Incident: Nuclear Test or Meteoroid?" National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, May 5, 2006. Narrative, with notes 1 to 3 (Note 3 on the Naval Research Laboratory report). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/index.htm ↩︎
Wright, Christopher M., and Lars-Erik De Geer. "The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident: The Detected Double-Flash." Science & Global Security, vol. 25, no. 3 (2017), pp. 95-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/08929882.2017.1394047. Companion paper: De Geer, Lars-Erik, and Christopher M. Wright, "The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident: Radionuclide and Hydroacoustic Evidence for a Nuclear Explosion," vol. 26, no. 1 (2018), pp. 20-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/08929882.2018.1451050 ↩︎
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, "Vela: Nuclear explosion detection," Innovation Timeline. https://www.darpa.mil/about/innovation-timeline/vela-nuclear-explosion-detection ↩︎
Horak, Henry G. "Vela Event Alert 747." LA-8364-MS, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1980. Document 7 in NSAEBB 190. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/07.pdf ↩︎
Carter, Jimmy. White House Diary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, p. 357 (September 22, 1979 entry). Quoted in Burr, William, and Avner Cohen, "The Vela Incident: South Atlantic Mystery Flash in September 1979 Raised Questions about Nuclear Test," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 570, December 6, 2016, note 1 and narrative. The Turner account appears in the narrative. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-12-06/vela-incident-south-atlantic-mystery-flash-september-1979-raised-questions-about-nuclear-test ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XVI, Southern Africa, Document 361 (Summary of Conclusions of a Mini-Special Coordination Committee Meeting, September 22, 1979) and Document 362 (September 23, 1979). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v16/d362 ↩︎
Cowey, Ross E., memorandum for the files, October 10, 1979, Secret. Document 10 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). The memorandum describes the three scientists as the outside panel of experts convened to consider the event; Burr and Cohen describe the review as CIA-sponsored. The Panofsky remark and the note on the closed Carter Library files appear in the posting's narrative. ↩︎
Garwin, Richard L., letter to Harold M. Agnew and Stephen J. Lukasik, October 18, 1979, transmitted by Spurgeon Keeny to Henry Owen, October 19, 1979, Secret. Document 11 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-12-06/vela-incident-south-atlantic-mystery-flash-september-1979-raised-questions-about-nuclear-test ↩︎
Burr and Cohen (note 5), Document 14, "Nuclear Explosion Panel: Charter," circa November 1, 1979, and the narrative on the panel's appointment and first meeting. ↩︎
Weiss, Leonard. "Flash from the Past: Why an Apparent Israeli Nuclear Test in 1979 Matters Today." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 8, 2015. Keeny's 2004 interview, the Berman account of the Naval Research Laboratory report, and the release timing are as reported in this article.. https://thebulletin.org/2015/09/flash-from-the-past-why-an-apparent-israeli-nuclear-test-in-1979-matters-today/ ↩︎
Office of Science and Technology Policy, "Ad Hoc Panel Report on the September 22 Event," May 23, 1980, Secret, partially declassified. Summary of Conclusions (p. 2), Comments on the Nature of the Problem and Our Conclusions (pp. 18-19), and Appendix (p. 20). Document 9 in NSAEBB 190. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/09.pdf ↩︎
Wright and De Geer (note 2), citing the declassified version of the Ad Hoc Panel report dated July 17, 1980. ↩︎
Mansfield, John E., and Houston T. Hawkins, Defense Intelligence Agency, "The South Atlantic Mystery Flash: Nuclear or Not?" June 26, 1980, Secret. Document 10 in NSAEBB 190, citing a Stanford Research Institute calculation (Document 5). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/10.pdf ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XVI, Southern Africa, Document 368, Tab A, "Possible Nuclear Explosion Panel Findings and Conclusions," Office of Science and Technology Policy, January 7, 1980, Secret. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v16/d368 ↩︎
Director of Central Intelligence, "The 22 September 1979 Event," December 1979, Secret. Document 3 in NSAEBB 190, released in redacted form. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/03.pdf ↩︎
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 ↩︎
Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. New York: Random House, 1991, pp. 280-281 (Kerr quotation) and chapter 20. ↩︎
Martin, Robert A., memorandum on the Naval Research Laboratory analysis of data relevant to the September 22, 1979 event, June 17, 1980, Secret. Document 39 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). The Varona statements are reported in this memorandum, not quoted from a document of his own. Cook, Frances D., memorandum of June 10, 1980, and Paul Hare, memorandum of June 12, 1980, are attached to it. ↩︎
Oplinger, Gerald G., memorandum to Henry D. Owen, "South Atlantic Event," January 23, 1980, Secret, excised copy. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC 28-32-4-16-5. Document 33 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). The memorandum refers to John Deutch and Dan Murphy by name only. ↩︎
Intelligence Coordination staff, memorandum to Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Evening Report," December 1, 1980, Secret. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC 10-33-4-4-6. Document 41 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). ↩︎
Locke, Allen W., "Things to Do for the Second Contingency," with attachments, September 27, 1979, Secret. Document 8 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). ↩︎
Dodson, Christine, Staff Secretary, National Security Council, memorandum for the Secretary of State, "South Atlantic Nuclear Event," October 22, 1979, Secret. Document 1 in NSAEBB 190. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/01.pdf ↩︎
Smith, Gerard C., memorandum to David Newsom, "South Atlantic Problem," October 23, 1979, Secret. Document 13 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). The "without question" language is in the attached discussion paper. ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The Vela Incident: South Atlantic Mystery Flash in September 1979 Raised Questions about Nuclear Test," posted December 6, 2016, document 6 (Richard M. Moose, memorandum for the record, "Current Nuke Event Actions," September 25, 1979, Secret; dated 1969 on its face). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-12-06/vela-incident-south-atlantic-mystery-flash-september-1979 ↩︎
Same posting, document 19 (U.S. Embassy Moscow telegram 24665 to the Department of State, "Reported Nuclear Explosion Off South Africa," October 26, 1979, Confidential). ↩︎
Same posting, document 22 (Dick Combs, S/MS, to Allen Locke, William G. Bowdler and Leslie H. Brown, "Attached cable to Amb. Watson," October 31, 1979, Confidential). ↩︎
Same posting, document 27 ("Nite Note," Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, November 19, 1979, Secret). ↩︎
Same posting, document 30 (Allen W. Locke to Thomas Pickering et al., "Secretary's Views on South African Nuclear Situation," January 9, 1980, Secret). ↩︎
Smith, Gerard C., memorandum to the Secretary, "Congressional Briefing on South Atlantic Incident," October 26, 1979, Confidential. Document 15 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). Smith names the four representatives by surname. ↩︎
Edmundson, William, U.S. Embassy Pretoria telegram 09920, "Suspected Nuclear Event: Still No Meeting with Prime Minister," October 31, 1979, Secret (Document 17). The remark is quoted by Fourie from the Atomic Energy Board chairman, as reported by the ambassador. The statement that Pik Botha publicly denied any knowledge is from the narrative of Burr and Cohen (note 5). ↩︎
Evening Reading Item for the President, "South African Statement on Reported Nuclear Event," October 27, 1979, Confidential. Document 16 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). ↩︎
Dodson, Christine, memorandum for the Secretary of State, "Discussion Paper for Mini-SCC," January 7, 1980, classification redacted. Document 4 in NSAEBB 190. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/04.pdf ↩︎
Department of State telegram 009602 to U.S. Consulate Cape Town, "US Conclusions on South Atlantic Event and US-SAG Nuclear Dialogue," January 12, 1980, Secret. Document 31 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). ↩︎
Press, Frank, letter to Henry Owen and Gerard Smith, "South Atlantic Event," January 17, 1980, Secret. Document 32 in Burr and Cohen (note 5). ↩︎
Carter, White House Diary, p. 405 (February 27, 1980 entry), as cited in Burr and Cohen (note 5), note 3. ↩︎
Department of State telegram 213320 to U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv, "Possible Israeli-Israel South African Connection," September 7, 1977, Secret. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-16-108-2-13-9 (Document 1B in Burr and Cohen, note 5). The Evron statement of August 24, 1977 is quoted from the Department of State telegram repeating Tel Aviv telegram 6330, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XVI, Southern Africa, Document 304, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v16/d304, as recorded by the American embassy. ↩︎
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, memorandum to the Secretary of State, "Possible Israeli-South African Nuclear Connection," September 13, 1977, Secret (Document 2 in Burr and Cohen, note 5). Smith, Gerard C., memorandum to Brzezinski, September 17, 1977 (Document 3). ↩︎
Burr and Cohen (note 5), narrative on Israeli-South African cooperation. The statement is the posting's account of South African sources, not a document reproduced in it. ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 281-282, as cited in Burr and Cohen (note 5), note 10, and the identification of the visitor in the same note. ↩︎
Department of State telegrams 050226 (February 25, 1980) and 0502090 (February 27, 1980) to U.S. Embassy Vienna, "September 22 Event," Confidential. Documents 38A and 38B in Burr and Cohen (note 5). The "appears to be quite speculative" language is from the second telegram, sent by Allen Locke. ↩︎
Department of State telegram 046986, "CBS Story on Israeli Nuclear Weapons," February 22, 1980, Limited Official Use, and U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv telegram 03811, "Israeli Reaction to CBS Story on Israeli Nuclear Test," February 26, 1980, Confidential. Documents 37A and 37B in Burr and Cohen (note 5). The Teicher, Dor-On and Speiser claims are as reported in the CBS story and the embassy's account. ↩︎
Nordland, Rod. "The Bombs in the Basement." Newsweek, July 11, 1988, p. 42, as cited in Burr and Cohen (note 5), note 11. ↩︎
Weiss, "Flash from the Past" (note 10). ↩︎

34 KiB Raw Blame History