Nixon era urged Israel to declare nukes

WASHINGTON: Inside the Nixon administration four decades ago, American officials weighed options to pressure Israel to declare that it had a nuclear weapons program.

US officials concluded Israel was "actively working to improve its capability to produce nuclear weapons on short notice".

In an unsigned National Security Council (NSC) memo, prepared sometime between April 1969 and March 1970, officials worried that the program might make elusive peace with the Arabs even harder to attain.