A-Arms Reported in 1973 Mideast War : BBC Says Israel, Egypt Had Weapons but Didn’t Use Them

Nuclear weapons were possessed by Israel and Egypt during the 1973 Middle East war but were never used, the British Broadcasting Corp. said.

The BBC television news and current affairs program Newsnight made the claim in a report Thursday about longstanding and widespread allegations, denied by Israel, that it possesses nuclear weapons.

Newsnight described the 1973 war as “a critical step toward a nuclear-armed Middle East.”

It reported: “On the second day of the war, the Syrians on the Golan Heights threatened to break into Upper Galilee. We have information that (the then) Defense Minister Moshe Dayan phoned (the then) Prime Minister Golda Meir asking permission to arm Jericho I missiles at Dimona. He got it.”

It did not say how it received the information but described Dimona as Israel’s nuclear facility in the Negev Desert and said it was activated in 1963.

“Officially it does not exist or has been explained away as a textile factory or a fauna and flora research center,” it said.

Asked about the Newsnight report, the Israeli Embassy in London refused to comment on what it called “reports of a speculative nature.”

Newsnight said that on Oct. 12, 1973, with an Israeli counterattack expected, Gen. George Keenan, head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, listened in to a telephone conversation in which President Anwar Sadat of Egypt “begged” Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev for help.

It added: “The same day, a Soviet freighter left the Black Sea port of Odessa. Ground radar in Istanbul identified it as carrying nuclear weapons which it carried on to the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

“It arrived there on Oct. 15, the same day that the Israelis launched their counterstrike across the (Suez) Canal, a blow that put Cairo in peril and forced the Egyptians to accept a cease-fire. The nuclear weapons were not used.”

In a filmed interview shown in the program, Keenan said: “If you are an old intelligence professional and you have access to the raw data, then you must judge as I do now and as I did then that there was 100% probability that there were nuclear weapons aboard that Soviet freighter.”

Keenan said he believes that the nuclear weapons were ultimately returned to the Soviet Union. He said he presumed that while the weapons were in Egypt, they were under control of Soviet army officers.