In mid-January 1963 Harvard University professor Henry Kissinger met in Rome  with senior Italian political leaders, all the way up to Fanfani and President Antonio Segni, to discuss U.S.-Italian relations, including the Jupiters.  At that point Kissinger had no official role in government, although during 1961-1962, he had been a White House consultant. According to his report to the Embassy, the Italian leadership understood “intellectually” why the U.S. wanted to remove the missiles but it was sorry that Italy was losing its “one-up” position among non-nuclear members of NATO.  (No one mentioned that Italy retained special status as a country that the U.S. had to consult before it  used nuclear weapons based there.) Segni felt some “pique” that the Jupiter decision had been made during the missile crisis and that three months had passed before his government learned of it.  “Almost everyone” believed, Kissinger told the U.S. Embassy, that there had been a U.S.-Soviet “agreement” on the Jupiter withdrawal, with the 1 April deadline seen as an important clue.

The U.S. embassy report on Kissinger’s findings arrived at the State Department the morning of 17 January 1963, with instructions for the Executive Secretariat to limit its distribution. Apparently the report, with its comments linking the Jupiters to the Cuban crisis negotiations, touched a nerve with Dean Rusk.  He instructed Assistant Secretary Tyler to inform U.S. Embassies in Europe that Kissinger had no official role, they should not help him meet high-level officials, that he did not represent the “Adm’s views,” and that “we want to discourage him,” although as a “distinguished professor” he should be “treated with courtesy and friendliness.”  Consequently Tyler drafted and sent that same day an “eyes only” telegram to U.S. ambassadors reminding them of Kissinger’s non-official status.  Rusk did not explain what Kissinger had done that irritated him, but with his interest in dispelling rumors of a secret deal, he was probably irked not only by the thinking of Italian officials but by the fact that other State Department officials, including code clerks, would see the Embassy telegram, as limited its distribution was.

Presumably written by by Minister Israel Galili some time in 1970, this note discusses the publication of a story on Israel’s nuclear program in the New York Times. According to the note, the story mentions “the agreement we have with the President,” alluding to the 1969 Richard Nixon-Golda Meir deal on Israel’s nuclear status. The note further attempts to analyze which source within the Nixon administration had approached the paper and leaked assessments on Israel’s nuclear capabilities, underscoring the secrecy and the sensitivity surrounding the 1969 understanding.

Editor's note: Because of the unique provenance of this document, it should be treated as unauthenticated and interpreted skeptically. Readers are strongly encouraged to read the associated essay by Or Rabinowitz.

This handwritten note, presumably from Minister Yigal Allon, most likely circa 1969-1970, demonstrates how Israel adopted the NPT’s nuclear test criteria for its own purposes, allowing the Israeli leadership to maintain that Israel was not a nuclear state. Allon’s adoption of the NPT’s nuclear test criteria mirrored Israel’s official language at the time when discussing the issue with state department officials.

Editor's note: Because of the unique provenance of this document, it should be treated as unauthenticated and interpreted skeptically. Readers are strongly encouraged to read the associated essay by Ori Rabinowitz.

Ceasescu, Nixon and Kissinger discuss issues ranging from European security to the situation in the Middle East.

Zhou Enlai and Trudeau have a wideranging conversation on international politics, covering the Vietnam War, Sino-Japanese relations, Nixon's visit to China, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Arctic circle, and nuclear energy safeguards, among other topics.

The memorandum lays out substantive and significant line of thinking about the complex problem raised by the Israeli nuclear program. Kissinger thought it might be possible to persuade the Israelis that with all of the NPT’s loopholes signing it would not prevent them from continuing their weapons research and development. Kissinger also recognized the real possibility that the Israeli development momentum could not be stopped.

Citing the recent developments at the Senior Review Group, Kissinger proposed an NSC meeting on 16 July 1969 to discuss the Israeli nuclear problem.

Kissinger initiated a formal bureaucratic process to address how the U.S. government should respond to the emergence of a nuclear Israel, a review process managed by Kissinger’s NSC staff, known as NSSM 40. Through the NSSM Henry Kissinger tasked the DCI, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense to prepare a report for the President that included the latest intelligence findings on the Israeli nuclear program and policy options with recommendations that the President could use in making decisions.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty for ratification and its chairman, J. William Fulbright (D-Ark), wanted to know where Israel stood on the Treaty. Believing that the issue should be handled at the White House level, Rogers proposed a meeting with Kissinger, Laird, and CIA director Richard Helms. Agreeing to schedule a meeting, Kissinger acknowledged that the issue was also “political.”