Excerpts from a 1999 conversation with IDF Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yitzhak (Ya’tza) Ya’akov

ABSTRACTDuring the 1967 crisis, Yitzhak Ya’akov (nicknamed Ya’tza) was the senior Israeli Defense Force (IDF) staff officer in charge of weapons development, and as such acted as the chief liaison between the IDF and all civilian defense industries, including the nuclear project. This edited transcript documents one of a series of conversations that Avner Cohen had with Ya’tza, in Hebrew, in the summer of 1999 at Ya’tza’s residence in New York City. A longer version, slightly redacted due to security and privacy considerations, was posted on the website of the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP) in 2017.