An Open Letter
Will Christopher Cox Investigate Whether Israel
Has Provided Red
China With U.S. Nuclear Technology?
What follows is an open letter to Rep.
Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) from
Michael Collins Piper, a correspondent for The
SPOTLIGHT who has
studied Israel's secret nuclear arms deals with
Red China. Cox is
chairman of the House Select Committee on U.S.
National Security and
Military/Commercial Concerns With the Peoples
Republic of China.
Dear Congressman Cox:
Are you and other members of your committee
aware that a famed
international intelligence historian reported
in 1978 that America's ally,
Israel, had been engaged in joint secret
nuclear bomb development
programs with Red China?
This shocking revelation comes from a
highly-regarded source: Donald
McCormack, the former assistant to the Director
of British Naval
Intelligence and later Foreign Manager for the
London Sunday Times.
Now, in light of emerging evidence that Red
China has been engaged in
nuclear espionage against the United States (at
the same time Red
China has been the primary recipient of
Israel's conventional arms sales
for the last 20 years), McCormack's findings
are quite disturbing
indeed.
Writing under his pen name "Richard Deacon" in
his
thoroughly-researched 1978 book, The Israeli
Secret Service
(published by Taplinger of New York), McCormack
stated, in no
uncertain terms, that there had been a
long-standing secret nuclear
weapons development liaison between Israel and
Red China.
On pages 204-205 of his book, referring to the
fact Israel's efforts to
obtain nuclear arms technology are quite
similar to those of the Red
Chinese, McCormack revealed:
"This has been one of the spheres in which the
Israelis and the Chinese
have actually helped one another—not
officially, but discreetly through
Secret Service channels. The ‘third party'
intermediaries involved in
such deals have sometimes been non-Israeli Jews
working for the
Chinese and occasionally even Albanians.
Whatever may be their public
utternces on the subject of the Middle East,
the Chinese privately
acknowledge that Israel is in effect an ally in
all matters relating to the
Soviet Union."
McCormack also points out that this secret
nuclear alliance between
Israel and Red China has been ignored by the
mainstream media:
"This is a subject rarely touched upon by any
writers on Middle East
affairs, but such closely guarded contacts as
the two Secret Services
maintain have bonuses to both sides."
Further, according to McCormack:
"On balance the Chinese may have gained most
from these relatively
low-key and cautious exchanges."
In other words, Red China was the primary
beneficiary of the secret
nuclear weapons dealings with our ally, Israel.
The "official" story is that Israel's
conventional arms dealings with Red
China began only in 1979.
Uri Dan, writing in the New York Post on March
30, 1997 reported
that in 1979 then-Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin got U.S.
approval for authorizing Israeli arms dealer
Shaul Eisenberg to
undertake a $10 billion 10-year deal to
modernize the Chinese armed
forces thereby "strengthening the
counterbalance to Soviet military
might." Dan describes this deal as "one of the
most important in Israeli
history" and that "the Chinese insisted on
absolute secrecy."
In fact, it was only well after Eisenberg's
secret arrangement of the
"first" Israeli arms sales to China was set in
motion in 1979 that the
major media in the West began reporting
(without comment) at the
revelations of Israel's arms deals with Red
China.
The first notation of an important arms
relationship between China and
Israel came in Jane's Defense Weekly, in
November of 1984—five
years after Israel's "official" entree into
dealss with China. Jane's
estimated that Israel's arms trade with China
might be as high as $3
billion and that Israel's total annual arms
exports were approximately $4
billion at that time. This means that by 1984,
fully 75% of Israel's arms
exports were headed for China which was clearly
its primary customer.
It was some three months later that the general
public heard mainstream
media reports about Jane's revelations of the
Israeli-Red Chinese arms
deals. On January 24, 1985, for example, the
Washington Times
reported that "Israel is believed to have about
200 military advisers in
China and to be filling arms orders from Peking
worth more than $1
billion."
Thus, after nearly decades of covert dealings
between the Mossad and
the Chinese intelligence service that had never
been reported in the
press, the Western media finally began to
advise its readers that Israel
had been selling billions of (conventional)
arms to China since 1979.
Unfortunately, it appears that both Democratic
and Republican
administrations have played a major part in
promoting the Israeli
build-up of Red China's weapons stockpile.
For example, the Washington Times reported on
January 25, 1985
that: "Assistant Defense Secretary Richard
Perle, the [Reagan]
administration official most responsible for
trying to deny U.S. weapons
technology to [Soviet-bloc] communist countries
is said to favor the
Israel-China arms link. Also said to favor the
traffic is Stephen Bryen, a
deputy assistant secretary of defense, [Perle's
principal deputy] who
was formerly president of the Jewish Institute
for National Security
Affairs," an influential lobby for Israel.
In short, key supporters of Israel within the
Republican Reagan
administration were major promoters of Israel's
weapons deals with
Communist China.
You see, Congressman Cox, this is not just a
Democratic scandal,
implicating only President Clinton and Vice
President Al Gore.
This is a bipartisan scandal that has been
decades in the making. And it
is your responsibility to get to the bottom of
it.
Although the facts about the alliance between
Israel and Red China
were there for those who were interested, the
press (during this period)
did not advise the American public that our
closest ally was helping arm
the Red Chinese war machine.
Noting this reticence by the media, the
Washington Post itself reported
candidly on May 23, 1988 that "little has been
published in the United
States about Israel's flourishing arms
relationship with China" but noted
that a "a rare discussion of the linkage" was
published in April of 1988
by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency—hardly a forum
read by the average American voter who might
have some questions
about Israel's dealings with the communist
empire.
To my knowledge, among the American media, only
the weekly
SPOTLIGHT newspaper, published by LIBERTY
LOBBY, was telling
American readers the unpleasant facts about
Israel and Red China. For
example, as long ago as June 15, 1981 The
SPOTLIGHT reported that
Israel was selling duplications of America's
defense technology including
highly-classified ground-command and control
(communication) systems
as well as missile systems equipped with the
latest electronic
counter-measures.
It took the "mainstream media" a very long time
to catch up to The
SPOTLIGHT. However, by June 13, 1990 even the
Los Angeles
Times reported that Israel had become the
largest supplier of advanced
military technology to China. And by this
time, the no-holds-barred
public relationship between the two long-time
secret partners began to
escalate.
Thus, on June 1991 China and Israel signed a
bilateral agreement on
scientific cooperation. Then, on January 24,
1992 China and Israel
established formal diplomatic relations to much
fanfare in the world
press.
Surveying the long covert (and now public)
Israeli-Chinese relationship,
Israeli historian Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi wrote
in his 1987 book, The
Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why
(published by
Pantheon Books of New York) that: "Open
diplomatic relations with
China would be the greatest achievement in the
history of Israeli Third
World diplomacy."
In recent years, however, numerous reports have
appeared in The
Washington Post, The Washington Times, The New
York Times and
other "mainstream" newspapers citing
allegations made by a wide
variety of sources that Israel has been
involved in the free-wheeling sale
of classified U.S. defense technology to Red
China.
Predictably, these reports have been greeted
with angry denials from
the Israeli lobby and its supporters. However,
repeated and continuing
allegations and evidence seem to point toward
covert deals between
Israel and Red China that are harmful to U.S.
National Security and
military and commercial concerns.
Do you really believe, Congressman Cox——as the
Israelis and their
adherents in the Israeli lobby would
suggest——that all of these
charges are simply lies circulated by
"anti-Semitic" propagandists at high
levels in the U.S. military and in our
intelligence community?
In short, there is no question that Israel has
been Red China's primary
supplier (through a variety of means) of U.S.
military and defense
technology.
On May 12, 1997, The SPOTLIGHT, cited a report
by the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, a
respected arms control think
tank which noted that "The Chinese government
has devised an ingenius
method for upgrading its armed forces."
According to the Institute, the
Chinese have been stockpiling comparatively
inexpensive Russian
weapons and then, the Chinese "upgrade them
with the advanced U.S.
technology they have clandestinely received
from the Israelis."
In light of all of these more recent
developments, coming in the wake of
previous secret nuclear dealings between Israel
and Red China, can
Americans really be assured that Israel played
no part in providing its
Chinese ally with classified U.S. nuclear
weapons reseach data?
Do you, Congressman Cox, believe that Israeli
is innocent in this
regard? This is a question that your committee
can and must now
answer.
Please, Congressman: spare nothing in your
search for the truth. On
behalf of the one million weekly readers of
LIBERTY LOBBY's
newspaper, The SPOTLIGHT, I urge you and your
committee to
launch a thorough and in-depth investigation of
Red China's nuclear
espionage.
If the trail does indeed lead to Israel (as the
facts of history strongly
suggest), it is your responsibility to bring
this information to the attention
of Congress and the American people.
Rest assured that the readers of The SPOTLIGHT
will be watching
your actions (and those of all committee
members) closely.
The readers of The SPOTLIGHT (and, for that
matter, millions of other
Americans) await your specific comments
regarding the revelations
relating to Israel's secret nuclear dealings
with Red China and the
ramifications thereof.
Constructively,
MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER
NOTE: Piper sent a copy of his letter to Cox to
all members of the
House Select Committee, chaired by Cox. Those
members are as
follows:
Norm Dicks (D-Wash.)
Porter Goss (R-Fla.)
James Hansen (R-Utah)
Curt Weldon (R-Penn.)
John Spratt (D-S.C.)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.)
Bobby Scott (D-Va..)
To contact these House members write: House of
Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515
