Before the Beginning: The Early History of Israel's Nuclear Project (1948–1954)

ISRAEL;S NUCLEAR PROJECT STARTED IN earnest in 1955. The year was marked by two developments, one domestic and the other international, that proved fateful for the initiation of the project. On the domestic scene, David Ben-Gurion, who always believed in the atomic vision, returned to power, first as minister of defense and a few months later as prime minister. On the international scene, President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace initiative, announced a year earlier, created a sense that a great era for nuclear energy was on the horizon.