The Samson Option

Seymour Hersh · first published 1991 · ISBN 9780394570068

Israel built nuclear weapons in the 1960s without announcing the fact, a secret the U.S. government essentially endorsed through a quiet understanding. Hersh reconstructs how this happened and what it meant for Middle Eastern politics, drawing on defectors, former nuclear scientists, and intelligence officials. The result is a history of nuclear proliferation written from the ground up.