A group of American diplomats was riding in an Israeli helicopter in early 1960 when one of them spotted a construction site rising out of the Negev desert about 20 miles west of the Dead Sea.
The US official pointed and asked the party’s Israeli escort, Addy Cohen from the country’s Finance Ministry, what it might be.
A “textile factory,” Cohen told the Americans, one of whom was US ambassador to Israel Ogden Reid.
What the passenger had spotted was the building of the Dimona nuclear facility, now known as the birthplace of the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal. It would be several months before Ogden demanded a meeting with Cohen after US intelligence had deciphered the true nature of the construction site.
