The secret of Israel’s Power by Uzi Eilam

Author:Uzi Eilam [Eilam, Uzi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

11

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC)

Rabin Makes an Offer

Brigadier General Ephraim Poran, the prime minister’s military secretary, called me to schedule a meeting with Rabin at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tel Aviv, early in September 1975. The Prime Minister’s Office was in a building constructed by the Templars, who built the German Colony of Sarona, located at the heart of the General Staff military base in the Kiriya. I was extremely curious when I came to meet with Rabin. I entered the room where Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and defense minister, used to work when he was in Tel Aviv. Wasting no time, Rabin turned to me and in his deep, quiet voice said: “‘Uzi. You were recommended as a candidate to direct the Atomic Energy Commission. Are you willing to take on the position?’ Although I had already heard about it from Shimon Peres, I found myself momentarily speechless. I quickly regained my composure and told Rabin that in principle I agreed, but that I wanted to consult with a few people before giving him a final answer. I also told him that the position would require studying an enormous amount of physics and that if I took it, I would only be able to begin after a period of thorough study and theoretical preparation. Rabin was satisfied with my tentative answer and did not pressure me further.

I left the meeting in high spirits. After all, the prime minister had selected me for a position of great importance. But I was also worried how to prepare myself for this new challenge. I shared my misgivings with Poran, who reassured me by promising to help me in the task ahead and by telling me that, as far as the prime minister was concerned, the offer was final and still stood. Later, I learned that Shalhevet Freier, the director-general of the Atomic Energy Commission who had been appointed by Golda Meir, had developed strained relations with Rabin and with Peres in particular.

The prime minister held ministerial responsibility for the Atomic Energy Commission, and in this capacity he served as the Commission’s chairman. In contrast to the prime minister, who served as the body’s ultimate authority, the director-general was a professional in the field of atomic energy.

I made a list of people with whom I wanted to consult: Prof. Israel Dostrovsky, Major General (res.) Dan Tolkovsky, Prof. Saadia Amiel, and Prof. Yuval Ne’eman. Dostrovsky, with whom I had developed a personal relationship after the Yom Kippur War, had preceded Freier as director-general of the Atomic Energy Commission and was currently president of the Weizmann Institute. He was a brilliant physicist, well liked in the world nuclear research community, and had served as a member of the scientific advisory council of the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. I met with Dostrovsky in his office in Rehovot and told him about the prime minister’s offer. He looked at me from behind the thick lenses of his massive,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.