FIRST KNOWLEDGE
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following the French pattern," Brugioni recalled. "We saw enough to know that it [the second site at Dimona] was going to be a chemical reprocessing plant," just as the reprocessing plant at Marcoule was separate. As the Dimona reactor was completed, there was less to be learned from the U-2 overflights. The U-2 imagery could only depict what was on the surface, and the intelligence commu nity would spend years trying to find out for certain whether Israel had taken the next step—construction of a chemical reprocessing plant. American military attaches were assigned to find a reason to travel to the desert—the CIA station even
offered to buy the wine for any seemingly casual group that wanted to picnic—and take photographs. Special automatic cameras with preset lens settings were developed by the CIA for the attaches. "All they had to do was push the trigger," recalled Lundahl. In the early years, he added, a few of the attaches "snuck in and got some good shots." Later, in an at tempt to determine whether the chemical reprocessing plant was in operation, the CIA began urging attaches to pick up grass and shrubs for later analysis. The theory was that traces of plutonium and other fission products, if being produced, would be in the environment. "A guy would go where there were clumps of grass and pretend to take a crap," recalled Bru gioni with a laugh. "While pretending to wipe his butt he'd grab some grass and stick it in his shorts." The Israelis responded by planting large trees to block the line of vision of any would-be candid photographers and in creasing their perimeter patrols around Dimona. One Ameri can military attache was nearly shot by Israeli guards after overstepping the ground rules that had been set up by the American embassy in Tel Aviv. The cat-and-mouse game would continue for the next ten years, with the Israelis shielding the expanding construction at Dimona while the United States remained unable to learn cate
gorically whether the Israelis were operating a chemical reprocessing plant. "We knew they were trying to fool us," said Brugioni, "and they knew it. The Israelis understood [aerial] reconnaissance. Hell, most of them were trained by the U.S. Air Force. It was an Alphonse and Gaston act."