France Reportedly Gave Nuclear Data to Israel
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LONDON — The former head of France’s nuclear weapons program was quoted by a British newspaper Sunday as saying that Paris supplied Israel with technology to make nuclear bombs and that the two countries cooperated in developing them.
“We considered we could give Israel the secrets provided they kept it to themselves,” the Sunday Times quoted Prof. Francis Perrin as saying in an interview.
Perrin, 85, France’s high commissioner for atomic energy from 1951 to 1970, said France built Israel a nuclear reactor at Dimona, including a secret underground plant that produced weapons-grade plutonium for Israeli nuclear warheads, according to the newspaper.
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